“Then I'd crawl back into bed, smelling her all around me, and tell myself that next time, I would lock that window. But I never did.”

“But while I'd be their daughter, while I'd eat the roast and come home from dates and wash the dishes, I would also be myself. I would love my mother, but I'd never want to be her again. I would never be what someone else wanted me to be. I would never laugh at a joke I didn't think was funny. I would never tell another lie. I would be the truth-teller, starting today. That would be tough.But I was tougher.”

“For a moment I was distracted. Books always did that to me... I liked the creamy pages, the smell of ink, all the secrets locked inside.”

“How different would I be, if I'd never met him? Might I have had a normal dating life like my friends did, flitting from one guy to the next, never getting too serious or too invested in one while I was still so young? Who would I be if I hadn't endured the heartbreak of losing him & losing that part of myself that was built around him?”

“I want to go back to the tell-me-again times when I slept in her bed and we were everything together. When I was everything to her. Everything she needed.”

“Ashley waddled back into the room and dropped into the seat next to me. "What did i miss?" I'd honestly forgotten she existed. Oh, if only dad would, too.”