“I felt much better shut up inside my self-made pity cocoon instead of faking happiness in front of the world.”

“Nothing could be purged without a body—no crying, no exertion, no pills to take away the pain or calm me down. Nothing. Instead, something ballooned inside me until I felt like I might explode. All I could do was sit there and drown in it, wondering why Claire affected me so much, wondering if she always would.”

“It looked like a ghost had dressed up the forest in tulle.”

“What do I want? I want lots of things, just like everybody else. Problem is, we can’t really have what we want, can we?”

“I had the strange desire for a giant butterfly net to catch whatever was out there, as if it could be captured so easily.”

“It was terrifying to realize life goes on without you.”

“Why had I ever cared about happy endings? Happy beginnings were so much better.”