Shy” was the sympathetic interpretation she got from older people. “Snotty” was the interpretation she got from people her own age.

It took the real thing to show you the size of your delusions.

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.

Tibby cried into her soup when it finally came. "I'm scared... ," she told it. The carrots and peas made no reply, but she felt better for having told them.

She wasn't as destructive as Bee. She had never been as dramatic. Rather, she'd slipped carefully, stealthily away from her ghosts.

She had willed her heart to stay small and contained, but it wouldn’t be. Oh, well.

The phone was her worst enemy and her best friend but she never knew which until she answered it.