Things We Do in the Dark

Because while you can reinvent yourself, you can’t outrun yourself. As a woman once reminded her a long time ago, the common denominator in all the terrible things that have happened to you is you.

When Joey stepped inside the bookstore, she took a long, deep inhale, and felt a genuine burst of joy. Every bookstore, everywhere, smelled the same. It smelled like home.

Everywhere you go, there you are.

While you can reinvent yourself, you can't outrun yourself. The common denominator in all the terrible things that have happend to you is you. Everywhere you go, there you are.

As a woman once reminded her a long time ago, the common denominator in all the terrible things that have happened to you, is you.

And once they get it, you’re discarded, like a shirt with a stain that won’t come out, even though the shirt is new, and they are the stain.

Some people wear their hearts on their sleeve. Joey wore her trauma around her neck.

Henry has always been a supportive friend, and he’s loyal to the core. But he doesn’t know her, not really. Nobody does.

Every bookstore, everywhere, smelled the same. It smelled like home.

The only thing worse than a murder charge? Two murder charges.

But I can’t blame him for all of it. I willingly fixed his problems. I flew wherever he needed me to be so I could clean up his messes, made apologies on his behalf. I knew there were times he was just using me, like a gap filler, something to do while working toward the next great thing that wouldn’t include me.

After her conviction, Suzanne was quoted as saying, “I wish she had never come into our lives,” as if her husband had been completely helpless, as if the affair—which lasted two years, by the way—had happened without his consent. The story stayed with Drew long

Paris was thirty-six when she met Jimmy, and was fine being on her own. She was an old soul; he was young at heart. Their relationship worked.

She thought she’d left this photo to burn, along with the girl in the urn.

the common denominator in all the terrible things that have happened to you is you. Everywhere you go, there you are.

they were the fattest books on the rack, which meant hours of reading time and escape.

He steps forward and wraps his arms around her, squeezing her tight, and he feels different but the same, and he smells different but the same, and as terrified as she is that he’s found her, he’s here, and she’s glad.

To marry an old rich man with one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel.

She earned a thousand dollars from that one customer that night. She was surprised at how easy it was. Because in the dark, it didn’t matter. In the dark, it didn’t happen.

she mentally says goodbye to the girl who lived in Willow Park, the one who survived her mother. All the memories here are painful, but they belong to a life that’s no longer hers. And over time, she will remember it less.

You don’t know what it’s like to be born into a life of cruelty and abuse, and you don’t know what it’s like to have to claw your way out in order to have any sense of self-worth.

and so this was her life, because it had always been her life, and it would either kill her, or she would survive it.

She was surprised at how easy it was. Because in the dark, it didn’t matter. In the dark, it didn’t happen.

But sometimes the only way to start over is to burn it all down.

She wasn’t used to good things, to things being easy, to people being kind. When she was thirteen, Deborah had told her that some people were just born into hard lives, and their job was to claw their way out.

Joey’s diaries stopped once her mother’s trial began. But in the last few entries, which Joey wrote in vivid detail, was the voice of a girl who had learned to accept that her life would always be shitty, because nobody ever told her she deserved better.

I asked her once if she loved Charles,” Joey said. “And she laughed. She said, ‘No, baby. I don’t love him. But I like him. And trust me, that’s better.