“He shook his head and gave this laugh, a good laugh, and just looked at me. "You always this happy?""No," I said, laughing. "It's you. Every time I see you, I just...I don't know. You make me smile.”

“I don't know how you say good-bye to whom and what you love. I don't know a painless way to do it, don't know the words to capture a heart so full and a longing so intense.”

“No," I shout, because my mother doesn't know what I like anymore. "I don't eat things that bleed. Just cheese with lettuce or tomato and mayo. No dead fish or animals, please.""You see what I have to put up with?" my mother says.”

“Meredith's a big girl. She knows how babies are made, don't you, Mer?"I nod, numb and weary. "'Course I do. Same guy that taught you taught me.”

“What are you doing?" I say hoarsely as he trails a finger from the beauty mark on my rib cage to the one on my hip, leaving a path of goose bumps in his wake."Connecting the dots," he murmurs with a wicked look. "Uh-oh, you made me lose my place. Now I have to start all over again...”

“Yeah, I know I've changed. Nothing gets to me anymore. Well, okay, except for stuff in the past. Back then I was all innocent and trusting and didn't know anything. Now I know plenty and you can't fucking touch me.”

“That goes for old wounds, too, you know. I really wish we'd had the chance to talk before this," he says, cracking the window so the smoke can escape. "There's a Longfellow quote I have stuck on my bulletin board at the church office- 'There is no grief like the grief that does not speak'- and it's true. I've found that keeping pain inside doesn't give it a chance to heal, but bringing it out into the light, holding it right there in your hands and trusting that you're strong enough to make it through, not hating the pain, not loving it, just seeing it for what it really is can change how you go on from there. Time alone doesn't heal emotional wounds, Sayre, and you don't want to live the rest of your life bottled up with anger and guilt and bitterness. That's how people self-destruct.”