Sometimes,” Joe said after a bit, “it’s just easier to keep being what everyone expects you to be. Even if that’s what you’re not, anymore.

I've been hit on plenty of times, mostly by men with little finesse who thought what was between their legs made up for what they lacked between their ears.

There's nothing that says you can't change." "Not even if it changes everything else?" I shook my head. "Not even then.

When everything changes we learn who we really are. What’s really important. What we want most. We discover the truth in moments of disarray.

Sometimes when things break, you can hold them together for a while with string or glue or tape. Sometimes, nothing will hold what’s broken, and the pieces fly all over, and though you think you might be able to find them all again, one or two will always be missing. I flew apart. I broke. I shattered like a crystal vase dropped on a concrete floor, and pieces of me scattered all over. Some of them I was glad to see go. Some I never wanted to see again.

Bess had become the ocean, always breaking against the rocks but never staying broken. Her love was the ocean, too, endless and always changing, yet forever the same.

Sometimes, you turn back. Sometimes, you walk away. And sometimes, you find the place you're meant to be, and you stay there. You find a way to make it work. Whatever it takes.