My mother has always been the point I calibrated myself against. In knowing where she was, I could always locate myself, as well. These months she'd been gone, I felt like I'd been floating, loose and boundaryless, but now that I knew where she was, I kept waiting for a kind of certainty to kick in. It didn't. Instead, I was more unsure than ever, stuck between this new life and the one I'd left behind.

But you only get so many do-overs in this life, so many chances to, if not change your past, alter your future.

Looking back, it seemed like it should have been harder to lose someone, or have them lose you, especially when they were in the same state, only a few towns over.

Honesty in principle was one thing. In someone’s face, it was another.

Let me guess,” Eli said, his voice that low, even timbre, as always. “Drinking from kegs also falls under outdoor activity.” I just looked at him, standing there in jeans and the same blue hoodie he’d had on the first time I met him. Maybe it was the embarrassment, which had been bad enough before I had an audience, but I was instantly annoyed. I said, “Are we outside?” He glanced round, as if needing to confirm this. “Nope.” “Then no.” I turned my attention back to the keg.

I was worn out, broken: He had taken almost everything. But he'd been all I'd had, all this time. And when the police led him away, I pulled out of the hands of all these loved one, sobbing, screaming, everything hurting, to try and make him stay.

She smiled, pulling the photo a little closer, and I wondered if I should ask her, too, the question for my project, get her definition. But as she ran a finger slowly across the faces, identifying each one, it occurred to me that maybe this was her answer. All those names, strung together like beads on a chain. Coming together, splitting apart, but still and always, a family. (page 289) ~Ruby