Oh, Mia. You haven’t even begun to find out who you really are, and, believe me, other boys are going to fall in love with you. If a guy can’t see how special you are, he isn’t good enough for you.

Sometimes you simply made the wrong choice and you had to live with it. You could only change the future.

Some stories don't have happy endings. Even love stories. Maybe especially love stories.

She had been ready to love this man from the moment she first saw him. In all these years, that had never changed. They'd hurt each other, let each other down, and yet, here they were after everything, together. She needed him now, needed him to remind her that she was live, that she wasn't alone, that she hadn't lost everything.

It was true; always had been. Friendships were like marriages in that way. Routines and patterns were poured early and hardened like cement.

In the sea of grief, there were islands of grace, moments in time when one could remember what was left rather than all that had been lost.

She'd been criticized for holding the reins of parenthood too tightly, of controlling her children too completely, but she didn't know how to let go. From the moment she'd first decided to become a mother, it had been an epic battle.