Attachments

by Rainbow Rowell

Money is a cruel thing. It’s the thing that stands between you and the things you want and the people you love.”

Love. Purpose. Those are the things that you can’t plan for. Those are the things that just happen. And what if they don’t happen? Do you spend your whole life pining for them? Waiting to be happy?

In high school, the football coach was always trying to recruit him, but Lincoln’s mother had forbidden it. “No, you’re not joining the head-injury team,” she’d say.

“So, what if, instead of thinking about solving your whole life, you just think about adding additional good things. One at a time. Just let your pile of good things grow.”

“I’m just trying to figure out what’s wrong with me.” “Well, stop,” she said. “I told you, figure out what’s right with you.”

It doesn’t seem like I should have been able to get to this life from my old one, like there aren’t even roads between those two places.

“But it’s a nothing holiday, Christine. It’s an odometer turning over.” “People love to watch odometers turn over,” she said. “It’s a number.” “It’s not,” she said. “It’s a chance to wake up new.”

Everything about being a copy editor is top secret—by default, really—because no one else cares.

The strange thing about seeing someone for the first time in nine years is the way they look totally different, just for a second, a split second, and then they look to you the way they always have, as if no time has passed between you.