“She cries.” Ashley’s high-pitched voice cut through the silence as if she were dispensing juicy country-club gossip. “All the time. She really misses Aires.” Both my father and I turned our heads to look at the blond bimbo. I willed her to continue while my father, I’m sure, willed her to shut up. God listened to me for once. Ashley went on, “We all miss him. It’s so sad that the baby will never know him.” And once again, welcome to the Ashley show, sponsored by Ashley and my father’s money.

Aires and Echo Emerson. Their mother must have hated them to give them names like that.

Luke used to give me butterflies. Noah spawned mutant pterodactyls.

Her eyes met mine again. “So what does this mean for us?”I lowered my forehead to hers. “It means you’re mine.

The worst type of letting go isn't thekicking or the screaming ,because at least then there's enough emotion left to fight.No,the worst type is the silent acceptance.The quietness of the release.That's when the person realizes they no longer give a damn.

Sometimes we don’t choose the memories, but they choose us.

I barely heard her muffled comment of “Yay,” but the sarcastic jazz hands were hard to miss.

Echo, I can’t tell you what’s going to happen because I don’t know. I don’t hold hands in the halway or sit at anyone else’s lunch table. But I swear …on my brothers that you’ll never be a joke to me and you’ll be much more than a girl in the backseat of my car.

I'm scared if I stay, I'll keep looking back and never look forward.