Stephanie Oakes

“I replay the scene again and again, the broken mashed-up face looming over me, the knowledge between the two of us that I'd done it. That act of kindness is still more unfathomable to me than any cruelty.”

“For years, we had stood on opposite sides of a divide, calling across because we could never jump the distance. This was the moment we discovered that, if we both shifted our weight forward, if we abandoned our fear of the drop below, not looking down, we could touch the tips of our fingers together. And though it wasn't much, in that moment, it was enough.”

“When I lost my son, I became a citizen of a country I never knew existed.”

“Jude used to try to make me laugh, and when I'd crack a smile he'd keep the joke going , like breath on an ember, making it grow into a fit of giggles that'd echo around the whole forest and make all the birds in the trees quiet.”

“Jude taught me what love was: to be willing to hold on to another person's pain. That's it.”

“That's how you avoid becoming a moth," he says. "Stop asking others what to believe. Figure it out for yourself.”

“Growing up, I believed in miracles. I guess I don’t anymore.”