I did the searching and remembering, she did the disappearing and the forgetting.

Polly was pretty good at dieting, all right, but she was beginning to wonder whether you ever lost the parts of your self that you wanted to lose.

She was sad about what happened to Kostos. And someplace under that, she was sad that people like Bee and Kostos, who had lost everything, were still open to love, and she, who'd lost nothing, was not.

What made you feel that stomach-churning agony for one person and not another? If Bridget were God, she would have made it against the law for you to feel that way about someone without them having to feel it for you right back.

Their friendship was only one aspect of their lives but it seemed to give meaning to all the others.

Ruins stood for what was lost, and yet there were beautiful-peaceful, historic, intellectual. Not tragic or regrettable. Lena tried to keep hers that way too, and she succeeded to some extent. Why not celebrate what you had rather than spend your time mourning its passing? There could be joy in things that ended.

Bridget cried for the leavers and the left. For the people, like herself, grimly forsaking what precious gifts they would ever get.