But you don’t have to give everyone the benefit of the doubt.” “You don’t have to assume the worst about everyone, either. The world isn’t always out to get you.

Because you have to just go with the flow. Your life is not your own, with people coming in and out all the time. You get mellow because you have to.

But what he didn't understand was that this dreamland was preferable, walking through this life half-sleeping, everything at arm's length or farther away. I understood those mermaids. I didn't care if they sang to me. All I wanted was to block out all the human voices as they called me name again and again, pulling me upward into light, to drown.

I was bored. Sad. Lonely. It was only a matter of time before I cracked.

A lot can change between planning something and actually doing it. But maybe all that really matters is that anything is different at all.

"You ready to play?" Dave asked, bouncing it. "I don't know," I said. "Are you going to cheat?" "It's street ball!" He said checking it to me. "Show me that love." So chessy, i thought. But as i felt it, solid against my hands, i did feel something. I wasn't sure it was love. Maybe what remained of it, though, whatever that might be. "All right," I said. "Let's play."

Family isn’t something that’s supposed to be static, or set. People marry in, divorce out. They’re born, they die. It’s always evolving, turning into something else.