Once Paul told her that the beach was like him because it changed every day but it never made any progress. Later she remembered thinking that a normal person might have begun by saying that he was like the beach.

Tibby was shaking her head. "What?" Bailey asked. "Nothing. Just that you suprise me every day," Tibby said. Bailey smiled at her. "I like that you let yourself be suprised.

But certain souls cohere. It's rare but possible. But it takes two powerful wills to make it so.

She cared about him too much, and he was a dangerous person to love. He wouldn't love her back.

She thought she would know when it happened. But now, as she looked around, she wondered if it was really like that at all. Maybe it happened in a million different ways, when you were thinking of it and you weren't. Maybe there was no gap, no jump, no chasm. You didn't forget yourself all at once. Maybe you just looked around one time or another and you thought, Hey. And there you were.

Pain is fear, and I'm not afraid.

She existed in her friends; there she was. All the parts of herself she'd forgotten. She knew herself best when she was with them.