“Nothing has ever been so painful or delicious as being so close to him and being unable to do anything about it: like eating ice cream so fast on a hot day you get a splitting headache.”

“Derek’s like, “So . . . what do you want to do first?”“I don’t know.”“Feel like ice cream?”“It’s, like, three degrees out.”“That’s why getting ice cream would be badass.”

“Have you ever spent days and days and days making up flavors of ice cream that no one's ever eaten before? Like chicken and telepone ice cream? Green mouse ice cream was the worst. I didn't like that at all.”

“I wonder if that’s why it was so painful when we split up? Because we’d fallen so hard, so fast. I lost myself in him.”

“There was something almost painful about that, the intensity of being so vulnerable and so intimate with him.”

“It was like wanting ice cream instead of meat loaf, and being told that children in refugee camps would be grateful for the meat loaf. Yes, of course she had nothing to complain about, compared to so many people, but when had that ever stopped anyone from complaining? Happiness was a balloon that always hovered just out of arm's reach.”