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

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

“Committing to Nick, feeling safe with Nick, being happy with Nick, made me realize that there was a Real Amy in there, and she was so much better, more interesting and complicated and challenging, than Cool Amy. Nick wanted Cool Amy anyway. Can you imagine, finally showing your true self to your spouse, your soul mate, and having him not like you? So that’s how the hating first began. I’ve thought about this a lot, and that’s where it started, I think.”

“Sometimes I think I won't ever feel safe until I can count my last days on one hand.”

“Sometimes I feel like Nick has decided on a version of me that doesn't exist.”

“He promised to take care of me, and yet I feel afraid. I feel like something is going wrong, very wrong, and that it will get even worse. I don't feel like Nick's wife. I don't feel like a person at all: I am something to be loaded and unloaded, like a sofa or a cuckoo clock. I am something to be tossed into a junkyard, thrown into the river, if necessary. I don't feel real anymore. I feel like I could disappear.”

“Like walking through a door. Our relationship immediately attained a sepia tone: the past.”