Aching familiar in a way that made me wish I was still eight. Eight was before death or divorce or heartbreak. Eight was just eight. Hot dogs and peanut butter, mosquito bites and splinters, bikes and boogie boards. Tangled hair, sunburned shoulders, Judy Blume, in bed by nine thirty.

I release you. I evict you from my heart. Because if I don't do it now, I never will.

Things couldn't stay the same forever.

It's scary how easy promises were broken.

I wonder what it's like to have that much power over a boy. I don't think I'd want it - it's a lot of responsibility to hold a person's heart in your hands.

You'd rather make up a fantasy version of somebody in your head than be with a real person.

Everything in my room was old and faded, but I loved that about it. It felt like there might be secrets in the walls, in the four-poster bed, especially in that music box.