“As far as I was concerned, we'd come to a draw: I hadn't wanted to come, and she didn't want me to leave. We were even. But I knew my mother wouldn't see it that way. Lately, we didn't seem to see anything the same.”

“Even if I had stayed she wouldn't have ever wanted me. She didn't want me for anything more than a summer fling. I was a way of moving on for her.”

“I knew she was leaving. I knew we were never going to date long-distance. I knew that we wouldn't have been able to be like this back when were were dating, so there was no use in regretting what hadn't happened. I suspected that what happens in hotel rooms rarely lasts outside of them. I suspected that when something was a beginning and an ending at the same time, that meant it could only exist in the present... ..It was snowing outside, anointing the air with a quiet wonder shared by all passersby. When I got back to my mother's apartment, I was a mixture of giddy thrill-happiness and muddle gut-confusion-- I didn't want to leave anything regarding Sofia to chance, and at the same time I was enjoying this step away from it.”

“I didn't want us to abnormal. I didn't want all this chaos and underworld crap... but that's where we'd come from. The choas was part of us. Part of what we were. And I was afraid if we lost it completely, we might lose part of ourselves...”

“If I hadn't learned my lesson, I would have wished we could stay there forever. But I knew better now. We'd seen what we'd come to see. The way to trick death. Breathe in. Breathe out. Watch as it all rises upwards, black and blue into the even bluer sky.”

“I was ashamed of my mother, but see, love didn't come natural to me until I became a Christian.- Ruth McBride”