“We walked downtown in the rain, both of us sucking on those hot, spicy mints we hadn't meant to buy. When the spiciness started to kick in, I almost spat mine out, but then I didn't. I thought it was good to test yourself sometimes. It was good to see how much you could take.”

“I thought it was good to test yourself sometimes. It was good to see how much you could take.”

“The walls of the tunnels were covered with so much dirt, it was almost like fur. I thought those tunnels were the kind of places wolves might live. I thought they were like the vessels of the human heart.”

“The sun kept on with its slipping away, and I thought how many small good things in the world might be resting on the shoulders of something terrible.”

“Don’t you see? It’s like we’ve known each other all these years. Without even seeing each other. It’s like there’s been this . . . this ghost relationship between us. You laying out my plectrums on the floor, me buying black-and-white cookies every time I knew you would be coming over. You didn’t know that was me, but it was.”

“I knew the way lost hopes could be dangerous, how they could turn a person into someone they never thought they'd be.”

“As the elevator door started to close, she stood and put up one hand to wave goodbye. That’s one of those frozen memories for me, because there was something in Greta’s solemn wave that made me understand it was about something bigger. That as the elevator door eclipsed the look between us, we were really saying goodbye to the girls we used to be. Girls who knew how to play invisible mermaids, who could run through dark aisles, pretending to save the world.”