“All that I was and the world that was mine are gone forever.”

“Megan’s deception is another hook on which I can hang my conscience.”

“How easy it is to do wrong when there is someone else to blame.”

“It seemed the heavens themselves conspired to cover up our crime.”

“When I used to picture forever, it was always with the same boy. In my dreams, my future was set. A sure thing. This isn’t the way I’d pictured it. … The future is unclear. But it’s still mine.”

“Every new encounter provides a new mirror for me to view my own experiences through, and there is a level of selfishness during this period as I hunger to understand more about the girls' lives in order to understand mine. If I could figure out what had happened to them, perhaps I had a better chance of explaining it all to myself.”

“And then I had a thought, clear as day. I would never be somebody's favorite again. I would never be a kid again, not in the same way. That was all over now. She was really gone.”