For a moment, I wondered how different my life would have been had they been my parents, but I shook the thought away. I knew my father had done the best he could, and I had no regrets about the way I'd turned out. Regrets about the journey, maybe, but not the destination. Because however it had happened, I'd somehow ended up eating shrimp in a dingy downtown shack with a girl that I already knew I'd never forget.

That was the dirty secret associated with her past. Not that she'd been abused but that somehow she felt that she deserved it because she'd let it happen. Even now, it shamed her, and there were times when she felt hideously ugly, as though the scars that had been left behind were visible to everyone.

Believe it or not, that was the first time I recognized that in some ways she was just like the rest of us.

He liked her; it was as simple as that.

You are my best friend as well as my lover, and I do not know which side of you I enjoy the most. I treasure each side, just as I have treasured our life together.

Single motherhood is a reality for a lot of women in my age group and the time difficulties in their lives are universal.

I'm sorry' I said again. Whenever someone tells you something said, it's the only thing you can think to say, even if you're already said it before.