Perhaps we’d been not in a relationship together, after all, so much as crouching together in the same hiding space, a true limited liability partnership.

“The really fucked-up thing about being an alcoholic who doesn’t drink anymore is that on days when you really, really need a drink to take off the edge, all you get to do is wait for the edge to pass on its own.”

How many of the things I fear or dread are actually things that I want?

It’s so hard to really trust what’s inside another person, to really believe someone’s intentions and what he or she says. I wished I could just trust him completely, without my own constant doubts regarding his constant doubts.

And didn’t this mean, wasn’t it possible, I might have another chance? To find somebody I wouldn’t have to change for, somebody who wasn’t bothered so much by the many troublesome things about me or maybe even liked them?

know now: what is is all that matters. Not the thing you know is meant to be, not what could be, not what should be, not what ought to be, not what once was. Only the is.

Now he was the dish of wrapped peppermints next to the cash register that I didn’t want because they were free.

These were exactly the sorts of things that I used to run away from by drinking. Ordinary tasks have always overwhelmed me.

Dennis shut down when there was a conflict, and I was the opposite: I had to talk about it. It was unbearable not to. His silence then became this thing I had to break apart with my words. I hated the sound of my own voice when I was like this.