He laughed, and the sound reduced the pain of every sore place on my body to the dullest ache.

Look at me, Emma." Her eyes are full, the lids heavy. "Graham," she breathes. "I need you to hear me." Cradling her head in my hands, thumbs sweeping her tears away, I stare into her eyes. "I belong to you. There is no one else. All I want is to be where you are.

Growing up with my dad taught me to either lie like a pro or not bother.

Whenever I appeared to have won an argument, Mom would say something like, 'Even broken clocks are right twice a day.

I’d always disparaged the games people played in pursuit of love - or the next hook up. The whole thing was a competition to see who could get how far, and I could never figure out if there was more luck or skill involved, or some unknowable combination of the two. People rarely said what they thought, or revealed how they felt. No one was honest.

Alcohol removes inhibitions. It doesn't trigger criminal violence where there was none before.

Some of us can begin to heal the damage people have done to us by escaping the situation, but some of us need more than that. Tattoos make statements that need to be made. Or hide things that are no one’s business. Your scars are battle wounds, but you don’t see them that way. Yet.