“Are we all on the same page, Delilah?The same page? I don't even think we're even in the same library, but no need to bring that up.”

“Same people. Same hellos and goodbyes. Same beginnings and endings. Same befores and afters.”

“I remember the feeling even now; an inescapable stickines of each other like magnets on the fridge. It's funny how someone can be such an integral part of your life, like you laugh at the same jokes and eat your ice cream cones the same way and share your toys and dreams and everything but your heartbeats, and then one day - nothing. You share nothing. It's like none of it ever happened.”

“Weeping is not the same thing as crying. It takes your whole body to weep, and when it's over, you feel like you don't have any bones left to hold you up.”

“You know, hon, after Stephie died, we never really talked about her." she says, her hands tight around the cart handle. "There's a lot of pain there. Still. I guess we feel like we failed her. Like maybe if we were home instead of away at college, we could've done something to fix her. Something my patents and the doctors and her boyfriend missed. Sometimes I think I don't have the right to talk about her. Like at the end, I don't know her well enough to say anything. So much of her life became secret. She spent all of her time with her boyfriend, and when she was home, her nose was buried in her diary. I swear that diary was her best friend, even more than Megan.""Did you ever read it?" I ask."No.""Not even after she died?"Aunt Rachel shakes her head, removing an eggplant from the middle row and pressing her fingers against its flesh. "To this day, I don't know if I would've, either. We never found it, Delilah. It's like she just…took it with her.”

“What if I come back and I'm different, Anna? Sometimes you go to a place where everything is different, and everything you ever know changes, and no one ever looks at you the same? ”

“My entire life has changed in the span of three weeks, but as the seals howl against the Pacific, everything around me remains exactly the same.”