She spoke quietly then, the tiniest crack in her voice, and all at once Lacey Pemerton was not Lacey Pemberton. She was just—like, a person.

You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth.

Hurt tends to drown out sorry.

We'd failed, maybe, but some mysteries aren't meant to be solved.

I have guts, just not when it counts.

Our role as humans is to recognize the complexity of others.

You can’t know, sweetie, because you’ve never had a baby become a brilliant young reader with a side interest in horrible television shows, but the joy you bring us is so much greater than the sadness we feel about your illness.