He's not a parasite if she needs him, too, and if she gives what he will not take. (One day soon, she will learn the word symbiosis and nod, pleased to have a name for it at last. But long before that, she will have already decided that family will do.)

In a child's eyes, a mother is a goddess... I am convinced that this is the greatest power in the universe.

Her family had shown her that love is a lie. It isn't stone-solid; instead it bends and crumbles away, weak as rusty metal.

The people we love are the ones who hurt us most, after all.

Because that is how one survives eternity,” I say, “or even a few years. Friends. Family. Moving with them. Moving forward.