Anger requires energy, something I don't dare waste on what cannot be altered.

Loss is loss. Doesn't take death to create it.

In fact, since the accident, Mom doesn't love anyone. She is marble. Beautiful. Frigid. Easily stained by her family. What's left of us anyway. We are corpses. At first, we sought rebirth. But resurrection devoid of her love has made us zombies. We get up every morning, skip breakfast, hurry off to work or school. For in those other places, we are more at home. And sometimes we stagger beneath the weight of grief, the immensity of aloneness.

I only have have one question, scraping the inside of me. Answer it, and I will stumble back into her shadow, shut my mouth, never ask again. I've tried to ignore it, but it won't go away. It haunts my dreams, chases me through every single day, and I don't have the strength to turn around, face it down. So please tell me and I swear I'll never ask again. It's in your power to make it go away, and all you have to do is tell me why you love her more.

Easier, sometimes, to gulp down giant spoonfuls of uncertainty than it is to swallow throat-clogging capsules of what really is.

Even good girls have secrets, ones even their best friends must guess.

I told her about the man, not my daddy, she said, He was only making you into a real girl. I didn’t understand. But I made myself believe her. I was a real girl now. But what was I before?