The damage can fester under layers of time and change, and an ignorant, thoughtless remark can easily reopen the wound.

She no longer believed in talk. It never rescued anything.

When I was raped I lost my virginity and almost lost my life. I also discarded certain assumptions I had held about how the world worked and about how safe I was.

Do you miss Susie?" Because it was dark, because Ruth was facing away from her,because Ruth was almost a stranger, Lindsey said what she felt. "More than anyone will ever know.

Since then I've always thought that under rape in the dictionary it should tell the truth. It is not just forcible intercourse; rape means to inhabit and destroy everything.

Life is a perpetual yesterday for us.

She sat in her room on the couch my parents had given up on and worked on hardening herself. Take deep breaths and hold them. Try to stay still for longer and longer periods of time. Make yourself small and like a stone. Curl the edges of yourself up and fold them under where no one can see. ~pg 29, Susie's sister Lindsey dealing with grief.