“Back home in Tyndall, I couldn't avoid the fact that I'd been shaped by the loss of Lauren more than I cared to admit. What choice did you have, after all, when the person who had stood at the center of your sense of self wasn't there anymore? You grew around that damage like a tree wrapped in barbed wire.
You let it bite into you. You shaped yourself to the new reality, until it was hard to tell what was you and what was the hole she left.”