It's not forever', she'd said, but to my mother, it might as well have been. She had make her choice, and this was it, where she felt safe, in a world she could, for the most part, control.

I told you, everyone understands a quest.

I'd been through so much, falling short again and again, and only recently had found a place where who I was, right now, was enough.

When you've never gotten love from someone, you don't know what it might look like if it ever does appear. You look for it in everything: any bright light overhead could be a star.

But there was only one truth about forever that really mattered, and that was this: it was happening.

Impulsiveness can be charming but deliberation can have an appeal, as well.

The silence wasn't like the ones I'd known lately, though: it wasn't empty as much as chosen. There's a entirely different feel to quiet when you're with some-one else, and at any moment it could be broken. Like the difference between a pause and an ending.