“I felt like I had lost something. But not something silly, like my keys or my gum; more like my arm or my foot, something that really mattered. Like something that I could live without, but would make life much harder if it were missing. And life is hard enough. Life is hard enough with everything we're given.”

“Once in my life I knew a grief so hard I could actually hear it inside, scraping at the lining of my stomach, an audible ache, dredging with hooks as rivers are dredged when someone's been missing too long. I have to think my mother felt something like that.”

“Something was fighting back, telling my gut to take a hike. Something wanted Jude Ryder in my life, no matter the consequences or the outcome. And whatever that something was, I liked it.”

“Something in my gut twisted so hard that it felt like I was being tickled by an invisible hand, and it took me a moment to realize what it was. Hope. It had been so long since I'd felt it that the sensation was like something living inside me, something wonderful waiting to break free, just like I was.”

“It was like that part of my life, was just gone. It was almost too easy, for something I once thought had meant everything.”

“Whenever I refused to follow my fate, something very hard to bear would happen in my life.”