The only person I could ever really talk to about writing is gone. She was gone a long time ago for me, for reasons that made sense only in her chaotic, beautiful, tortured mind. I thought one day there'd be a way to mend that, but now it will never happen.

She was a better writer unbeta'd, un-proofread, and uncensored than most writers are after multiple revisions. She was wildly creative, blisteringly funny, smart, and mean -- meanest of all to herself.

I don't know how she passed, and there really can't be an answer to why. I only know that I have always missed her, and now I always will.