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57169bd
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As always, the first instant he sees her, he can feel his heart shut down, the way you do in those first moment after impact, or, he supposes, when you're drowning. Love or panic. The two have always been fairly indistinguishable to him.
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love
one-last-thing-before-i-go
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Jonathan Tropper |
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d2cc3c2
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I whispered to Dad during Rosh Hashanah services, "Do you believe in God?" "Not really," he said. "No." "Then why do we come here?"
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Jonathan Tropper |
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418ce21
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At some point you lose sight of your actual parents; you just see a basketful of history and unresolved issues.
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Jonathan Tropper |
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9bd1f9e
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He was right here and nowhere to be found.
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Jonathan Tropper |
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4c4ca97
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It's life, that's all. There are no happy endings, just happy days, happy moments. The only real ending is death, and trust me, no one dies happy. And the price of not dying is that things change all the time, and the only thing you can count on is that there's not a thing you can do about it.
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Jonathan Tropper |
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a0514fb
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You could fill an airlift to Africa with all the food generated by one dead Jew.
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Jonathan Tropper |
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b5c5583
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T]here are some people out there who don't wait for what comes next. They decide what should come next and they go and make it happen.
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Jonathan Tropper |
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a1ee703
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It's hard to imagine your heart simply stopping, but at the same time, it's hard to believe that it didn't give up years ago.
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Jonathan Tropper |
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de6d2e1
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Silver is forty-four years old, if you can believe it, out of shape, and depressed--although he doesn't know if you call it depression when you have good reason to be; maybe then you're simply sad, or lonely, or just painfully aware, on a daily basis, of all the things you can never get back.
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Jonathan Tropper |
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78f2b67
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We should all just face reality and stop taking our meals together.
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humor
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Jonathan Tropper |
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7ee136d
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but that's one of the questions I've learned not to ask, because I'll get that condescending look all parents reserve for non-parents, to remind you that you're not yet a complete person.
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Jonathan Tropper |
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c4de057
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There's nothing more depressing than waking up in your shoes.
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Jonathan Tropper |
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ec6b881
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Time doesn't heal as much as it buries things in the undergrowth of your brain, where they lie in wait to ambush you when you least expect it.
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Jonathan Tropper |
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c55e994
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Even betting against myself, I could always find a way to lose.
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funny-humor
losing
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Jonathan Tropper |
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3e97d4c
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This is probably as good a time as any to mention that I was holding a large birthday cake.
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Jonathan Tropper |
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f2c37d1
|
Driving a Porsche is like fucking a model," he says, and he would know. "It will never feel as good as it looks."
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Jonathan Tropper |
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91ae045
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I'd been forced into a movie, and there was nothing to do but follow the script.
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Jonathan Tropper |
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2658557
|
There's no way to know what's pissing him off right now. In my family, we don't so much air our grievances as wallow in them. Anger and resentment are cumulative.
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Jonathan Tropper |
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c768709
|
Our sages say burying someone is considered the truest form of kindness and respect, as the deceased will not be able to thank you for it." That's kind of funny, actually, since Dad was not exactly prone to expressing gratitude to his children when he was still alive. You were either screwing up, or you were invisible. He was quiet and stern in a way that led you to expect an Eastern European accent. He had soft blue eyes and unusually thic..
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Jonathan Tropper |
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5d6c04b
|
The only difference between a rut and a grave is depth.
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Jonathan Tropper |
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7d09d95
|
But the truth is always a lot fuzzier, hiding in soft focus on the periphery.
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Jonathan Tropper |
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7cbf85f
|
In my defense, I was young and there was an open bar.
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funny
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Jonathan Tropper |
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8c2767d
|
The last time I saw Wade, I attacked him with an office chair. The time before that, I jammed a lit cheesecake up his ass and almost burned his balls off. So it's understandable that his first reaction upon seeing me is to flinch and assume a defensive posture.
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Jonathan Tropper |
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6121bc7
|
The thing about people who work in finance is that they consider their job infinitely more important than anything or anyone, and so it's perfectly legitimate to tell everyone else to fuck off because they have a conference call with Dubai.
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Jonathan Tropper |
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a586ccd
|
If so, how do we feel about it?" "We are numb."
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Jonathan Tropper |
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8158aa0
|
Don't you think if I was able to make some changes, I would have already?
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one-last-thing-before-i-go
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Jonathan Tropper |
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92be128
|
At our age, loneliness can seem so permanent.
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Jonathan Tropper |
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c0d615d
|
Rest stops have always made him strangely happy. He couldn't say why. Just the idea of everyone on their way somewhere, united by wanderlust, no one belonging more than anyone else.
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Jonathan Tropper |
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67b352b
|
But we are not going to talk about that right now, because to talk about it I'll have to think about it, and I've thought it to death over the last year. There are parts of my brain that are still tirelessly thinking about it, about her, an entire research and development department wholly dedicated to finding new ways to grieve and mourn and feel sorry for myself. And let me tell you, they're good at what they do down there. So I'll leave ..
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grieving
mourning
sadness-lonelyness
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Jonathan Tropper |
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7156507
|
I'll tell you the same thing I told your father. We make mistakes. They don't make us. If they did, we'd all be royally fucked, especially a coupe of assholes like us." I grin at his last remark, and finally find some words to say, even though I'm not sure I possess the conciliatory feelings to match my town. "You could learn a lot from an asshole." Dugan smiles at that, and it's the first time I've ever seen him do it. "I guess so."
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Jonathan Tropper |
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99571bd
|
A lot can go wrong in twelve hours.
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Jonathan Tropper |
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eae51da
|
Someday she'll get older, and the world will start having its way with her. She'll throw temper tantrums, she'll need therapy, she'll grow breasts and have pimples, she'll fight with her parents, she'll worry about her weight, she'll put out, she'll have her heart broken, she'll be happy, she'll be lonely, she'll be complicated, she'll be confused, she'll be depressed, she'll fall in love and get married, and she'll have a baby of her own. ..
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Jonathan Tropper |
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3937d7b
|
And beneath the chaos of the moment, Denise becomes aware of a painful truth about herself: she is never as deeply in love with a man as she is in the moment he leaves her.
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Jonathan Tropper |
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81919d4
|
I haven't seen her in a while, haven't returned her calls or stopped thinking about her.
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Jonathan Tropper |
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f138380
|
It's amazing how harmless the world can sometimes seem.
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Jonathan Tropper |
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452608a
|
It took him four months for him to die, three more than the oncologists had predicted. "Your dad's a fighter," they would say when we visited, which was a crock, because he'd already been soundly beaten. If he was at all aware, he had to be pissed at how long it was taking him to do something as simple as die. Dad doesn't believe in God, but he was a life-long member of the Church of Shit or Get Off the Can."
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Jonathan Tropper |
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cd2fd22
|
She holds on to a rung of the ladder while I tread water a foot or so in front of her. After a few moments, my eyes have adjusted to that I can look into hers. I flash back to Horry and Wendy, looking at each other in this exact spot a few hours ago, this haunted pool that seems to pull dead and buried love to its surface.
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Jonathan Tropper |
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03cc045
|
We don't share our thoughts, we share carefully sanitized, watered-down versions of them, Hollywood adaptations of those thoughts dumbed down for the PG-13 crowd.
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Jonathan Tropper |
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658a1a9
|
I don't have a career, I don't have a family, and I don't know what to do next. I've been so determined to escape anything permanent, and now I just feel like I'm nowhere. And what if that's the permanent thing by default?
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Jonathan Tropper |
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59fcacd
|
If we ever stopped to think about the infinite number of ways we could be undone, we'd never leave our bedrooms.
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Jonathan Tropper |
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952d890
|
The tears come to my eyes so fast, there's just no way to stop them.
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tears
|
Jonathan Tropper |
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bec1b02
|
He has always had a dangerous tendency to embrace blind optimism in the face of hard facts.
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Jonathan Tropper |
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3c796a6
|
The future just isn't what it used to be
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Jonathan Tropper |
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336c233
|
In real life, you don't get to choose what you forget.
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Jonathan Tropper |