Living down your own past was hard enough. You shouldn't have to live down someone else's.

I should let people in. If they leave, they leave. If I break, I break. It happens to everyone. Right?

Whenever I would get too nosy as a child, my grandmother would say, "When you learn someone else's secret, your own secrets aren't safe. Dig up one, release them all.

She'd fallen into the best part of her past.

You can't change where you come from, but you can change where you go from here. Just like a book. If you don't like the ending, you make up a new one.

Some men you know are Southern before they ever say a word," Julia said as she and Emily watched Sawyer's progress, helpless, almost as if they couldn't look away. "They remind you of something good--picnics or carrying sparklers around at night. Southern men will hold doors open for you, they'll hold you after you yell at them, and they'll hold on to their pride no matter what. Be careful what they tell you, though. They have a way of making you believe anything, because they say it that way.

...a sad sort of vulnerability was wafting from her, making the night smell like maple syrup.