Parallel

That's the funny thing about life. We're rarely aware of the bullets we dodge. The just-misses. The almost-never-happeneds. We spend so much time worrying about how the future is going to play out and not nearly enough time admiring the precious perfection of the present.

We're all just a decision or two away from destroying the relationships that are most important to us and the people we love. And most of the time, we never even know it.

The delicious, semiconscious, edge-of-wonderland kind of sleep, where I'm awake enough to control my dreams but asleep enough to forget that I'm doing it.

At every moment, each person has the freedom to choose a different path, thereby changing the trajectory of his life. Nothing is set in stone.

A person rarely gets just one chance at anything. There are second chances everywhere, if you know where to look for them.

This probably isn’t something you’re supposed to say at a moment like this, but I think the moon is seriously overrated.” A moment like what? I bite my cheeks, taming the grin that threatens to take over my face. “And the stars?” I ask, once the smile is under control. “Wildly underrated,” he declares with a grin. He looks up again. “The sky is a storybook,” he says then. “Every constellation’s like its own fairy tale.

Your path will change. Your destiny doesn't.

Your path will change. Your destiny never will." "But what if I'm on the wrong path?" "There is no wrong path. Not when it comes to destiny. There are only detours, you see.

So you believe in fate,” I say. Dr. Mann pauses thoughtfully before answering. “I believe each of us was uniquely created for a specific purpose designed by the Creator, and that, because of that, there are certain things in our lives that we are destined by Him to do. The rest, I think, is soft clay: left entirely to the defining influences of choice, chance, and circumstance. And luck! Don’t forget luck.

The moment I heard my dad’s voice, I started bawling. “This isn’t the path,” I kept saying, my words garbled with tears and snot. “It wasn’t supposed to go like this.” I remember feeling as though everything I had worked for had been snatched away. Dad saw things differently. “Well-worn paths are boring,” he said. “Embrace the detour.” But how can you tell a detour from a dead end?

How can a person smell so manly and so sweet?

Who knew fate was so fragile?

Seated in the front row was a prominent casting director who’d flown in to see her nephew play Septimus Hodge. This kind of thing happens all the time in magnet school land,

I grit my teeth and smile for the camera, already rehearsing rational explanations in my head. 'Oh, that. We were just rehearsing a scene for the movie, Dad. No, we don't actually kiss in the movie, but the director wanted to see what it would look like if we did... Yes, he does play my uncle, but the screenwriter was toying with an incest storyline'... CRAP.

I tilt my head to get a better whiff. Bret, decidedly less tipsy than me and thus still operating in the realm of normal behavior, assumes I'm leaning in for a kiss. Because, really, who leans in for a SMELL?

Soulmates,” comes Dr. Mann’s voice. “The most enduring of human emotions.

It’s remarkably easy to procrastinate when you’re not sure you’ll be around to take the test you’re supposed to be preparing for.

They didn’t give you a glass for that?” I ask, nodding at the soda can as I shake his hand. The old man laughs. “They offered me one, but I declined. It’s harder to spill on oneself from a can.” Dr. Mann smiles and takes a careful sip.