I missed her like a reflex, even though I knew that it was just some trick of my undependable brain. Some stupid, vestigial part. The way humans have… - Gabrielle Zevin

Hi," Sam said, without looking at her. "You can watch if you want. I'm going to play until the end of this life."
"That's a good philosophy," Anna said.

If your last words are somehow meant to encapsulate your entire existence, Liz finds um strangely appropriate. Um means nothing. Um is what you say while you're thinking of what you'll really say. Um suggests someone interrupted before they'd begun. Um is a fifteen-year-old girl who gets hit by a taxicab in front of a mall on the way to help pick out a prom dress for a prom she isn't even going to, for God's sake.

If we did not mark the days, we would not know how much we had survived.