“My parents are worried, of course, but how can I feel sorry for them, since they made me this way and then deserted me?”

“I still believed he'd love me again somehow, love me that intense, thick way he did, the way that made everything good.”

“My gosh, Nick, why are you so wonderful to me?' He was supposed to say: You deserve it. I love you.But he said, 'Because I feel sorry for you.' 'Why?' 'Because every morning you have to wake up and be you.”

“I didn't think past the first step of anything, that was the key. I drank a Coke and didn't worry about how to recycle the can or about the acid puddling in my belly, acid so powerful it could strip clean a penny. We went to a dumb movie and I didn't worry about the offensive sexism or the lack of minorities in meaningful roles. I didn't even worry about anything that came next. Nothing had consequence, I was living in the moment, and I could feel myself getting shallower and dumber. But also happy.”

“Ninety degrees but the heat made me feel safe, like walking under water.”

“I always feel sad for the girl that I was, because it never occurred to me that my mother might comfort me. She has never told me she loved me, and I never assumed she did. She tended to me. She administrated me.”

“I am a thornbush, bristling from the overattention of my parents, and he is a man of a million little fatherly stab wounds, and my thorns fit perfectly into them.”