“If something came out of the deal, it couldn’t make things any worse for us than they already were, I thought. But I couldn’t have been more wrong. Hell has no true bottom.”

“I thought the best thing to do would be nothing, and in that way things couldn’t get any worse.”

“He was waiting for something from me. Acknowledgement. Validation. Commiseration, perhaps. I couldn’t even look at him because I was afraid of feeling any more than I already did.”

“I looked forward to making friends at school, but I had come late and friendships had already been formed. I couldn’t find my way into their world. They seemed to have a secret code I couldn’t decipher.”

“I couldn’t have asked for more than God in deliberate grace has surprised me with!”

“I still loved Marc desperately and couldn’t imagine life without him. Jace was…something else. Something I could feel but couldn’t articulate. Something I wanted, and hadn’t been able to resist in my grief-weakened state. He was something that would have to wait.”