“They’re like sharks. Circling. Cute, single guy, good job, nice car. It’s all they know about me.”His tone was light but his expression serious.Maybe that’s because it’s all you show them.”Maybe it’s all they want to see.”

“Memory can refuse to let you forget what you’d like to and run away with what you want to remember. It’s an unreliable bitch, or your best friend. Sometimes, it’s both at once.”

“Sometimes,” Joe said after a bit, “it’s just easier to keep being what everyone expects you to be. Even if that’s what you’re not, anymore.”

“Good things, by their nature, are fleeting. It’s those that bring us grief that linger.”

“I feel the weight of his gaze all over me, covering me like a blanket.”

“Sometimes when things break, you can hold them together fora while with string or glue or tape. Sometimes, nothing will holdwhat’s broken, and the pieces fly all over, and though you think youmight be able to find them all again, one or two will always bemissing.I flew apart. I broke. I shattered like a crystal vase dropped on aconcrete floor, and pieces of me scattered all over. Some of them Iwas glad to see go. Some I never wanted to see again.”

“They were all you, to me. All of them were you.”