“It makes Faith think of a hammock in their yard, a web of rope that she thought would unravel the first time she leaned back on it, but that managed to support her all the same.”

“As Lacy waited for her turn to speak on Peter's behalf, she thought back to the first time she realized she could hate her own child.”

“Security was a mirage; beingtied down hardly counted when the other end of the rope had unraveled.”

“I think her flaws make me love her even more. She's not perfect, but she's perfect to me”

“She thought of death like the seam of a hem: each time you lose someone close, it unraveled a little. You could still go along with your life, but you'd be forever tripping over something you previously took for granted.”

“Fumbling in the dark, Josie reached underneath the frame of her bed for the plastic bag she’dstashed-her supply of sleeping pills. She was no better than any of the other stupid people in thisworld who thought if they pretended hard enough, they could make it so. She’d thought that deathcould be an answer, because she was too immature to realize it was the biggest question of all.Yesterday, she hadn’t known what patterns blood could make when it sprayed on a whitewashedwall. She hadn’t understood that life left a person’s lungs first, and their eyes last. She had picturedsuicide as a final statement, a fuck you to the people who hadn’t understood how hard it was for herto be the Josie they wanted her to be. She’d somehow thought that if she killed herself, she’d beable to watch everyone else’s reaction; that she’d get the last laugh. Until yesterday, she hadn’treally understood. Dead was dead. When you died, you did not get to come back and see what youwere missing. You didn’t get to apologize. You didn’t get a second chance.Death wasn’t something you could control. In fact, it would always have the upper hand.”

“The first time she kissed me, I truly thought I'd had an aneurysm - my pulse was thundering so loud and my senses were exploding. This, I remember thinking, the only word I could hold on to in a sea of feelings.”