They needed to grieve alone was what Tibby's dad said. Lena wondered if really there was any choice in that. Everyone grieved alone.

It was probably good you couldn't flip the love switch because sometimes it was what you needed even if you didn't want it.

I told him, though, that he better be good to you. When you came along, I said I'd share you, but I told him to remember that you're my sister. I loved you first.

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

She spilled rice on my knee, and she smiled. I wanted her to spill a thousand things on me, lava, acid, bricks, anything, and smile each time

Pain is fear, and I'm not afraid.

She realized all at once the deeper thing that bothered her, the thing that made him not just irritating but intolerable: how he kept loving her blindly when she deserved it so little.