Hello, Sunshine

by Laura Dave

And Danny was the one person who demanded it, who didn’t want me to perform for him—which, often, felt like the hardest performance of all.

it occurred to me that we were both hiding who we used to be from the people that mattered the most.

That was the thing about lying. You got used to it, and it was what you did. The truth became a low groan that you could hear, but didn’t really need to address. When you were out of practice lying, though, the effort it took to lie well—the energy to turn a story—became obvious. It was almost as hard as telling the truth.

“And there is a cost to the people looking at that photograph and thinking that’s how their lives are supposed to be.

I think it’s a good thing to know what you want. If you do, you have a chance of getting it. If you don’t, you have a chance of getting only what someone else wants you to have.”