I mean, it's impossible to fake anything if you've already seen the other person in a way they'd never choose for you to. You can't go back from that.

Each time, I think I'm never going to write another book. It never gets easier.

It is kind of hard to hold a lot in. But for me… it’s sometimes even harder to let it out.

But what he didn't understand was that this dreamland was preferable, walking through this life half-sleeping, everything at arm's length or farther away. I understood those mermaids. I didn't care if they sang to me. All I wanted was to block out all the human voices as they called me name again and again, pulling me upward into light, to drown.

Eventually, it wasn't even your dad I wanted, just anybody. Anybody at all.

In midair, dangling lost above the world.

But against love, the case was solid. Easily argued. And you could, indeed, hold it in your hand.