Reconstructing Amelia

Sometimes its hard to tell how fast the current's moving until you're headed over a waterfall

It wouldn't have been so bad if I hadn't been counting the minutes until I could forgive her. But it's a lot harder to forgive someone who's not looking to apologize.

...[T]here's a fine line between wild and full-on whack job.

But some things you can't outrun, no matter how fast you move your legs.

But it’s a lot harder to forgive someone who’s not looking to apologize.

What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil,

Because there are 176 definitions for the word loser on urbandictionary.com. Don't Be a Statistic.

Clothes were to Sylvia what books were to me: the only thing that really mattered.

I thought how unpleasant it is to be locked out; and I thought how it is worse perhaps to be locked in.” Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

...[E]ven I know that being a parent is awful ninety-five percent of the time...As far as I can tell, it's that last five percent that keeps the human race from dying out. Four parts blinding terror, one part perfection. It's like mainlining heroin. One taste of life on that edge and you're hooked.

But the tour did remind me that my life had been bigger than just that one moment. One girl. One set of words on paper. That I had gone through other things before-good and terrible, funny and awful-and I had survived.

It was too late to change anything. Too late to make different choices. To be a better mother than she had been. Kate could only be the mother that she was, Amelia’s mother—the curator of her memory, the keeper of her secrets, the cherisher of her heart. That, she would always be.

One of the things that was great about my mom, as a mom, was that she always knew when she was being kind of ridiculous.

She had a wildness tucked inside her that made her seem fun and unpredictable and just a little tiny bit dangerous. Of course, it was also the exact same thing that eventually ended up driving the boys away. After all, there’s a fine line between wild and full-on whack job.

Sometimes it’s hard to tell how fast the current’s moving until you’re headed over a waterfall.

we're teenagers," Sylvia said. "we're all depressed.

Simple, Kate wanted to say. I'm already dead. Instead, she'd pressed her lips together so hard it made her eyes water as she'd grabbed her prescriptions. The ones her therapist had assured her would help with the nausea and the insomnia. In reality, they'd nothing except make her feel as if she were underwater. Kate kept taking them in the hope she might eventually drown.

She had a wildness tucked inside her that made her seem fun and unpredictable and just a little tiny bit dangerous.

Articles about things weren't the same thing as stories I'd made up. Those I wasn't ready for the world to pick apart, not yet.

sure I can handle waiting for more bad news.” “I know, Kate, and I’m sorry.” His voice

Simple" Kate had wanted to say, "I'm already dead.

Good luck is not the same thing as wise counsel.

No one wanted to talk to a mother whose only child had just killed herself.

Staying home ended up being easier said than done. Kate had spent the first days after Amelia’s death surrounded by her three closest friends from college. They’d swooped in and propped her upright, had seen to it that she ate and bathed and breathed.

Well, if it’s for a paper, then my honest answer is that I think sororities are bad. I think they’re terrible, actually. I think they make girls feel awful about themselves under the guise of sisterhood.

But some things you can’t outrun, no matter how fast you move your legs.

After all, there’s a fine line between wild and full-on whack job.

Certainly she could never have exchanged pleasantries with anyone. What would there be for them to say anyway? Sorry? Sorry your daughter is dead, Sorry your daughter jumped off the roof of her school when you were on your way to pick her up. Sorry you were late. Too bad you'll be reliving that failure for the rest of your miserable life.