Every inner touch, every one of its fingerprints on my brain, burned like acid. It shredded the walls of my soul like tissue paper, it clawed its way into my very center, I couldn’t tell anymore where it began and I ended. It poured into me like a river into the sea, mixing, melding, until we were one. One. For better or worse. Until death do us part.

You're the little spoon, aren't you?

Snap judgments? I'd gotten over those about the time I was toilet trained. Swore off diapers and faith in the human experience all in one week.

Memories - you can't escape them, but you can't let them rule you either.

Pooh hater,' I muttered under my breath. 'Winnie-the-Pooh was not a koala--why am I even arguing about this with you?

All I cared was that she had never lied. She was honest in a world just the opposite, and a cool oasis in my life. She was who she said she was, and everything Sophia, my mother, the pathologically manipulative liar, had never been.

We all have our security blankets in this world. Some are just sharper than others.