Events conspired to bring you back to where you'd been. It was what you did then that made all the difference: it was all about potential.

My dad is a retired Shakespeare professor, my mother a retired classicist. Suffice to say I grew up in a house full of books, where reading was encouraged if not required.

And I felt comfort. Finally. All I'd wanted for so long was for someone to explain everything that had happened to me in this same way. To label it neatly on a page: this leads to this leads to this. I knew, deep down, it was more complicated than that, but watching Jason, I was hopeful. He took the mess that was Macbeth and fixed it, and I had to wonder if he might, in some small way, be able to do the same for me. So I moved myself closer to him, and I'd been there ever since.

Maybe you could go backwards and forwards at the same time, but it wasn't easy. You had to want to.

I am coming to terms with the fact that loving someone requires a leap of faith, and that a soft landing is never guaranteed.

Self respect, Colie. If you don't have it, the world will walk all over you.

I don't lie." "You don't lie," I repeated. "That's what I said." "Ever." "Nope." Sure you don't, I thought.