There's a pleasure to loving someone even when you know there's no chance in them loving you back. The pain I felt let me know I was still alive.

My beautiful Win. I wanted to kiss him on every last broken place, but his mother and my lawyer were there. So, instead I started to cry.

It's when you don't need something that you tend to lose it.

My heart was a little bit broken, but I still had to go to school. I buttoned my dress shirt over it and my winter coat, too. I hoped it didn't show too much.

Daddy always said the only thing worth begging for was your life, but maybe he was wrong. Maybe sometimes your love is a little bit worth begging for, too.

Daddy always said you only explained things to the people that actually mattered.

What were you like," I asked her. "we're you happy? Or were you smiling because they told you to?