It was like reaching for someone's hand, then missing their fingers, or even their arm, and hitting their shoulder instead. But no matter. You hang on tight anyway.

It hadn't even occured to me that somebody would believe mine.

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.

You know, when you think about it, that’s kind of a weird thing. I mean it’s meant to be sympathetic, right? But it’s kind of not. Like you’re telling the person there’s nothing unique about what they’re saying I considered this as a couple of kids on Rollerblades whizzed past, hockey sticks over their shoulders. “Yeah,” I said, finally, “but you could also look at it the other way. Like no matter how bad things are for you, I can still relate.

I would miss Colby, but it wasn't going anywhere. All the more reason why I should.

She was just a shell of her former self, functioning and talking but hardly alive.

I wanted to be somewhere else ... Someplace where the sight of me sobbing would tie me to no one and no one to me.