“She was alive, and they were dead. She had to try to make her life big. As big as she could. She promised Bailey she would keep playing.”

“Ask me anything, Bailey challenged.What are you scared of? The question got out of Tibby's mouth before she meant to ask it. Bailey thought. I'm afriad of time, she answered. She was brave, unflinching in the big Cyclops eye of the camera. There was nothing prissy or self-conscious about Bailey. I mean, I'm afraid of not having enough time, she clarified. Not enough time to understand people, how they really are, or to be understood myself. I'm afraid of the quick judgments and mistakes that eerybody makes. You can't fix them without time. I'm afraid of seeing snapshots instead of movies. Tibby looked at her in disbelief. She was struck by this new side of Bailey, this philosophical-beyond-her-years Bailey. Did cancer make you wise? Did those chemicals and X rays supercharge her twelve-year-old brain?”

“When she made her way to the big picture window that framed the dining room table she froze. She stopped breathing. The anger was growing again.It grew up into her throat, where she could taste it, coppery like blood, in the back of her mouth. It grew down into her stomach, where it knotted her intestines. It made her arms stiffen and her shoulders lock. It pushed against her ribs until she felt they would snap like sticks.”

“She couldn’t hide from everyone for the rest of her life… Well she could. That was the direction things were going. But she knew from long-ago experience that when you were uncertain and if you were courageous enough to let her in a real friend could do a world of good.”

“She'd put the envelope Tibby had left for her unopened in her underwear drawer. At first it was so she would see it there, and then she tried to cover it so she wouldn't see it there, but it turned out her underwear was too flimsy to cover anything.”

“Could she kiss him? Would he allow her that? Was that something he could pretend was nothing? What about making love? Could she just open up her legs and pull him inside her and have him all she wanted and later give her assent that it was nothing?”

“She wanted him to see all of her and also none of her. She wanted him to be dazzled by the bits and blinded by the whole. She wanted him to see her whole and not in pieces. She had hopes that were hard to satisfy.”