I've always known who I am. I might not work perfectly, or be like them, but that's okay. I know I work in my own way.

She fell, she hurt, she felt. She lived. And for all the tumble of her experiences, she still had hope. Maybe this next time would do the trick. Or maybe not. But unless you stepped into the game, you would never know.

Whenever you made a choice, especially one you'd been resisting, it always affected everything else, some in big ways, like a tremor beneath your feet, others in so tiny a shift you hardly noticed a change at all. But it was happening.

That's not a real answer.' Says who?' Says me. I mean real fear, like of failure, of death, of regret. Like that. Something that keeps you awake nights, questioning your very existence.' Clowns.

It's not always easy being her daughter.' I think,' she said, 'sometimes it's hard no matter whose daughter you are.

Let's just start and see what happens.

It's harder that in looks," I told him when I finally got back in the car. "Most things are.