“Not every day hurts. Not every breath hurts. Maybe that's all we can really ask for.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Running my mouth has hurt enough people already - the least I can do is to shut up.”

“You can be surrounded by people and still be lonely. You can be the most popular person in school, envied by every girl and wanted by every boy, and still feel completely worthless. The world can be laid at your feet and you can still not know what you want from it.”

“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.”

“You're nothing like your sister," he tells me. "She meant a lot to me, okay? It's true. But the things I like about you have nothing to do with her. You - you are so strong and stubborn it drives me crazy. You're the one going through all this and you still put Laney first every time, instead of throwing yourself the pity party we both know you deserve. You call me out on my shit, and I like that, because sometimes I need someone to call me out on my shit. And you get Johnny Cash, and you take these incredible photos, and everything about you makes me hurt, in a good way, and it blows my mind that someone can be so amazing and not even see it.”