The damage was permanent; there would always be scars. But even the angriest scars faded over time until it was difficult to see them written on the skin at all, and the only thing that remained was the memory of how painful it had been.

You didn't get past something like that, you go through it -- and for that reason alone, I understood more about her than she ever would have guessed.

My mother moves so fast I do not even see it coming. But she slaps my face hard enough to make my head snap backward. She leaves a print that stains me long after it's faded.Just so you know: shame is five-fingered.

It was easier for girls. They could say This hurts, or I don’t like how this feels, and have the complaint be socially acceptable. Boys, though, didn’t speak that language. They didn’t learn it as children and they didn’t manage to pick it up as adults, either.

I always hated when my scars started to fade, because as long as I could still see them, I knew why I was hurting.

Scars are just a treasure map for pain you've buried too deep to remember.

There are kinds of pain that you can't speak out loud.

Just because you can't see the wound doesn't mean it isn't hurting.

Janine had a dozen of responses, all of which were variants of the fact that Joy had made her choice; that she didn't deserve to grieve. She wanted to tell Janine that yes, she had gotten what she wanted, but she also felt the pain of loss, and they were not mutually exclusive.