Ernest once told me that the word paradise was a Persian words that meant walled garden. I knew then that he understood how necessary the promises we made to each other were to our happiness. You couldn't have real freedom unless you knew were the walls were and tended to them. We could lean on the walls because they existed; they existed because we leaned on them.

All that was left for me was a terrible kind of paralysis, this waiting game, this heartbreak game.

But love is love. It makes you do terribly stupid things.

I hope we'll get lucky enough to grow old together.

I knew that I could hate him all I wanted for the way he was hurting me, but I couldn’t ever stop loving him, absolutely, for what he was.

I didn't want to be a sweet boy's sweet girlfriend. I wanted to be Fawn's equal, the kind of girl who stood up for herself and took care of business, who cut guys loose when it was required.

This was my one brush with love. Was it love? It felt awful enough. I spent another two years crawling around in the skin of it, smoking too much and growing too thin and having stray thoughts of jumping from my balcony like a tortured heroine in a Russian novel.