I'd chosen instead to just change my route, go miles out of the way, as if avoiding it would make it go away once and for all.

I hoped that Grace would be a little bit of the best of all of us: Scarlett's spirit, and my mother's strength, Marion's determination, and Michael's sly humor. I wasn't sure what I could give, not just yet. But I would know when I told her about the comet, years from now, I would know. And I would lean close to her ear, saying the words no one else could hear, explaining it all. The language of solace and comets, and the girls we all become, in the end.

It was such a weird thing how a breakup stretched much wider than you expected. You didn't just lose a person, but their entire world as well.

You didn't have to take a punch for me, you know,' he said. 'I'm a lover, not a fighter.' 'You're a freak is what you are,' I said. He stuck out his hand. 'Come on, slugger. Walk with me. You know you want to.' And the thing was, despite everything I knew-that it was a mistake, that he was different from the others-I did. How he knew that, I had no idea. But I got up and did it anyway.

I have boobs!" Chloe said again, a bit too loudly— she'd already had a couple of mini bottles at the Spot. "My boobs are great, goddammit. You know that? They're fantastic! My boobs are amazing.

Only a weak person needed someone else around all the time.

During the long stretches of quiet two-lane highway, with the sun setting in the distance, it was somehow easier to say things aloud, and regardless of what was said, we just kept moving toward that horizon.