Only a weak person needed someone else around all the time.

You couldn't see the key around my neck: it hung too low under both collars. But if I leaned in close, I could make it out, buried deep beneath. Out of sight, hard to recognize, but still able to be found, even if I was the only one to ever look for it.

I should have told you from the start. I will let you down.

Once I turned eighteen, I could cut myself off from everyone and finally get what I wanted, which was to be on my own, once and for all. ~Ruby, pg 38

There's just something obvious about emptiness, even when you try to convince yourself otherwise.

Odd how it was so easy for a stranger to assume such familiarity. Especially when those who were supposed to know you best often didn't, not at all.

And that was as far as he got before i heard it. The thumping of footsteps, running up the lawn toward me: It seemed like I could hear it through the grass, like leaning your ear to a railroad track and feeling the train coming, miles away. As the noise got closer I could hear ragged breaths, and then a voice. It was my mother.