“She fought the urge to look away, to hide her own eyes. Struggled against the long-ingrained habit of disguising her own lies, now that she was finally telling the truth.”

“The second impediment was that she didn't want to acknowledge that part of her impetus to Internet stalking was a long habit of trusting no one. A habit whose genesis was the self-knowledge that she herself was untrustworthy.”

“People who were too outgoing made her suspicious. She couldn't help but presume that all the loud noise was created to hide quiet lies.”

“So my sister, she slipped through the cracks of the disaster of our family. She became her own disaster.”

“Now that it was finally here, she wasn’t surprised to find herself still reluctant to start it. Reluctant to end the part of her life when this conversation hadn’t happened yet. Reluctant to find out what her life would look like after it.”

“She glances at each of her three companions, at the protective veneers they’re all wearing, trying to mask the different lies they’ve told one another. The lies they’re all continuing to try to maintain. Hoping these lies will carry them through the rest of their full and satisfying lives, despite the truths they’ve chosen not to tell the most important people in their worlds.”

“Plus she had to admit that a small part of her secrecy was that she was holding something back, for herself. If she never told Dexter the truth, she was still reserving the right to return to her old life. To one day be a covert operative again. To be a person who could keep the largest secrets from everyone, including her husband, forever.”