“Wobbly as I was, I felt ready for anything-in a tentative, baby-steps kind of way.”

“I kind of felt like a new kind of princess. A warrior princess, ready to swing her battle-ax through hordes of the fashion-challenged and the socially unfortunate.”

“I realized that in some unspoken, still tentative way, she and I were already becoming a family.”

“I am not ready to think of him as either insane or evil, to consider in full how I could love and have a child with such a person. I am not ready to think about anything, except ways in which this may still be averted.”

“I felt like I was sort of disappearing. It was that kind of a crazy afternoon, terrifically cold, and no sun out or anything, and you felt like you were disappearing everytime you crossed a road.”

“No wonder I'd always felt lost. I actually was. The knowledge felt terrible, but in a strange way, it also felt good. Now I knew why I'd never connected to anything. Why I felt like I was outside the world around me, moving at a different speed from everyone else. That amputated piece of me explained everything, even why I'd failed at college. But that kind of blanket excuse can be dangerous. Crutches usually are.”