In the summer, the days were long, stretching into each other. Out of school, everything was on pause and yet happening at the same time, this collection of weeks when anything was possible.

You can't love anyone that way more than once in a lifetime. It's too hard and it hurts too much when it ends.

nothing is guaranteed.... So don't be afraid. Be alive.

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

n the dark everyone felt the same: the edges blurred. When I think of myself then, what I was like two years ago, I feel like a wound in a bad place, prone to be bumped on corners or edges. Never able to heal.

As he heard me approach, he quickly leaped up, grabbing a nearby loaf of bread and holding it in front of him as if struck by a sudden desire to make a sandwich.

The thing is, you can’t always have the best of everything. Because for a life to be real, you need it all: good and bad, beach and concrete, the familiar and the unknown, big talkers and small towns.