Everyone deserves a happy ending.

Real mothers don't just listen with humble embarrassment to the elderly lady who offers unsolicited advice in the checkout line when a child is throwing a tantrum. We take the child, dump him in the lady's cart, and say, "Great. Maybe you can do a better job." Real mothers know that it's okay to eat cold pizza for breakfast. Real mothers admit it is easier to fail at this job than to succeed.

Words got in the way. The things we felt the hardest--like what it was like to have a boy touch you as if you were made of light, or what it meant to be the only person in the room who wasn't noticed--weren't sentences; they were knots in the wood of our bodies, places where our blood flowed backward. If you asked me, not that anyone ever did, the only words worth saying were I'm sorry.

Seeing her sitting there unresponsive makes me realize that silence has a sound.

I could think whatever I wanted to, but realized that any promises I made myself were destined to be broken.

I never said I do not remember, my grandmother corrects. I said I prefer to forget.

If you choose to be looking for something, you'd better be ready for whatever it is you are find. Because it may not be what you've been expecting.