But then she hadn’t just learned to love this summer – she had also learned how to need.

She wondered if maybe tragedy was what it took to make your heart capable of admitting a new member.

You could feel things or you could find a way to shut down. But once you were feeling things, you couldn’t decide exactly what to feel. That was the trouble with letting them in at all. They made a mess of the place.

Lena always described how she dreaded and mourned things before they even happened. Carmen was beginning to suspect that she was permitting herself to mourn this long separation only now that it was over.

Luck never gives; it lends.

She glared at him, feeling the old frustration. Sometimes in his presence she felt the deepest connection to him, and other times she felt completely alone-as though any bond to him was her own bitter imagination.

She thought she was independent and strong, but she got one small taste of love and she was hungrier than anyone. She was ravenous.