So this had been all I wanted, a boy who understood how I felt. Now, though, I sometimes wished for more.

The worst part was that I had things I wanted to tell my mother, too many to count, but none of them would go down so easy. She'd been through too much, between my siters-I could not add to the weight. So instead, I did my best to balance it out, bit by bit, word by word, story by story, even if none of them were true.

Because it is so hard, in any life, to believe in what you can’t fully understand.

I felt like I'd been swimming so hard, and the water growing warmer and warmer the closer I got to the top. I wasn't there yet, but now I could see the surface, rippling just beyond my fingers.

Nothing like being scolded by a hippie.

Sometimes things don't turn out the way you want them to, Haven. Sometimes the people you choose to believe are wrong.

In midair, dangling lost above the world.