I like that you let yourself be surprised

For some reason our lives were marked by summers. . . . Summer was the time when our lives joined completely, when we all had our birthdays, when really important things happened

She'd cried over a broken heart before. She knew what that felt like, and it didn't feel like this. Her heart felt not so much broken as just ... empty. It felt like she was an outline empty in the middle. The outline cried senselessly for the absent middle. The past cried for the present that was nothing.

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.

Pain is fear, and I'm not afraid.

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

Please don't judge me too much until you are older and know more things. (Spoken from mother to daughter)