It still hurts," she whispered. "Even when you're doing it for someone else, that doesn't stop your ribs from getting cracked, or your wrist swelling, or your cuts from bleeding.

We all have things that come back to haunt us. Some of us just see them more clearly than others.

What you notice is the loneliness. Daniel started to isolate himself, because it hurt less than being pushed away.

You don't need water to feel like you're drowning, do you?

You can touch everything and be connected to nothing.

Maybe mothers - consciously or subconsciously - repelled their daughters in different ways.

I suddenly remember being very little and being embraced by my father. I would try to put my arms around my father's waist, hug him back. I could never reach the whole way around the equator of his body; he was that much larger than life. Then one day, I could do it. I held him, instead of him holding me, and all I wanted at that moment was to have it back the other way.