“Memories, so sweet and bitter.. they had both nourished and devoured him for so many years. Until a time came when they began to fade, turning faint and blurred, only an ache to be quickly pushed away because it went to your heart. For what was the use of remembering all you had lost?”

“Her mind had been a blank story for so many years, and, suddenly, all the pages were filled with lost memories.”

“He was glad some of the pain was fading, had already faded so much since the first year. But it seemed more to be a trade off: with the pain went details and memories. People had said, ‘Time heals,’ but he realized time didn’t heal, time just eroded and confused, and he didn’t think that was the same thing at all.”

“Your bitter memories still have time to turn into sweet ones.”

“He had the face of a floating astronaut who had lost his tether and had only one chance to grab a lifeline or forever drift away into endless black. I knew that feeling, the sense of panic that stretched time, turning seconds into years, and the deep pain that came from being hurt by not one person but many, a gang of bullies that expanded into a neighborhood and then into a community, until you questioned the whole world.”

“And I began to feel sorry for myself; for so many years, my drawer full of memories had held the same old stories.”