Since You've Been Gone

by Morgan Matson

I was starting to get a jumpy, claustrophobic feeling. I needed to get out, but I’d technically just come back. And where was I supposed to go?

“Do you not like the Beatles?” Frank asked, sounding shocked, as we finished our cool-down and started walking back toward my house. “Do you also not like sunshine and laughter and puppies?

this was the only way that I’d looked for the past few years. I picked up a lock of the hair that hung halfway down my back, then dropped it. “Anyone can have long hair.” I nodded to Stephanie. “Let’s do it.

“I don’t think you have to do something so big to be brave. And it’s the little things that are harder anyway.

It was like hitting the snooze button on your alarm—your sleep in that window is never very good,

since you know it’s borrowed time, and that it will be over all too soon.