Slow Dance

by Rainbow Rowell

People, all these people. From the same tiny part of Shiloh’s life (it hadn’t felt tiny at the time).

Or maybe she wasn’t looking for changes—maybe she was trying to find all the ways that he was the same. All the ways she recognized him. The ways he was still Cary.

“Things still change, Shiloh, whether or not you participate in the rituals of transition.”

“But then I had kids, and now I worry a lot more about everything.”

“Having kids rewrites your programming. You can’t really remember what the world looked like to you before you had them.”

Somebody should tell you beforehand that it’s more like being mind-captured than falling in love—they take over your whole head, and that’s that. You don’t ever want anything as much as you want to make them happy.”

“I can’t give you the past,” Cary said. He squeezed her hands. “But we could have a future.”

“It won’t be easy with anyone—it may as well be ‘not easy’ with someone you love.”

With Cary, Shiloh wanted to push through her own discomfort. To get over herself. To look directly at the sun.