Look, the point is there's no way to be a hundred percent sure about anyone or anything. So you're left with a choice. Either hope for the best or just expect the worst.

Your mother won a special reward," she told me, "because everyone had a head in her pictures. We all applauded.

Because the truth sometimes hurts," I said. Yeah," he said. "So do lies, though.

If you didn't love him, this never would have happened. But you did. And accepting that love and everything that followed it is part of letting it go.

I am the middle sister. The one in between. Not oldest, not youngest, not boldest, not nicest. I am the shade of gray, the glass half empty or full, depending on your view. In my life, there has been little that I have done first or better than the one preceding or following me. Of all of us, though, I am the only one who has been broken.

Say what you will, but you’re never prepared for the surprise attack.

There was no short answer to this; like so much else, it was a long story. But what really makes any story real is knowing someone will hear it. And understand.