“my love for June and Jake is an anchor, bound with unbreakable chains. Weighing me down, but at the same time... keeping me grounded. Keeping me here. Tying me to the world. It hurts, but it's supposed to, because that's what it means to be alive. And that's comforting, actually. The realization that I'm not some robot devoid of emotions. That I still have the ability to feel things this brutally, this immediate and sharp.”

“Jake was right - I'm strong in a way June never was. Because I know that I want to be here. Even with the pain. Even with the ugliness.”

“Seth turns to Laney and I. "Three months ago, I'm in Detroit protesting a free trade conference, right? Some pig shoves me, I go flying into another, next thing I know I'm on the ground with a Taser in my back. I get thrown in city jail, no money and one phone call. So I call Jake. You know what this fucker did? He dropped everything, drove up and bailed me out, no questions.""Like I could just leave you," Jake says. "You're too pretty. You're a delicate flower. They would've ripped you apart in there.”

“I still go to bed sad, and wake up sad, and it still hurts like hell, but there are moments during the day when it hurts less. Sometimes I can think of June and not want to burst into tears or put my fist through a wall. Sometimes I'm close to happy and it doesn't even hurt. Much. I'll never be the way I was before, but maybe that's okay. Life goes on, I'm going on, even without her. Not every day hurts. Not every breath hurts.Maybe that's all we can really ask for.”

“Stupid bitch," he spits, and that's when I mentally punch him in the face.Except it isn't just mentally—it's for real, my closed fist is actually moving. It hits him square in the nose with a sickening crunch."Oh my God," Laney breathes from behind me."Oh my God," Jake says from the floor.My eyes widen. "Oh my God.”

“It's so stupid because all I wanted was space and now that I have it, there's this part of me that's achingly lonely I could die.”

“June is gone. For the first time, the enormity of that hits me. Every muscle aches, my heart most of all. I am throbbing with how much I miss her. It hurts worse than anything. I don't know how I'm supposed to be expected to live day to day carrying this kind of pain. I don't know how I'm supposed to go out there, spread her ashes, and let her go.I want to stop running away from everything.I want to find something to run toward.”