Nilda is watching the ground as though she's afraid she might fall. My heart is beating and I think, We could do anything. We could marry. We could drive off to the West Coast. We could start over. It's all possible but neither of us speaks for a long time and the moment closes and we're back in the world we've always known.

For a long time, I let my mother say what she wanted about me, and what was worse, for a long time I believed her.

I'm part of the people who are more neutral. I'm just waiting for the dust to settle so that we can turn our guns against the Republicans.

You need to learn how to walk the world, he told me. There's a lot out there.

Our relationship wasn't the sun, the moon, the stars, but it wasn't bullshit, either.

That was the summer when everything we would become was hovering just over our heads.

You can't find intimacy - you can't find home - when you're always hiding behind masks. Intimacy requires a certain level of vulnerability. It requires a certain level of you exposing your fragmented, contradictory self to someone else. You running the risk of having your core self rejected and hurt and misunderstood.