And I decided it really was true after all. You only really need two people to believe in the same thing, to feel as though you just might belong.

Distract yourself, that's what Margaret always told him. When you start getting anxious, give your mind something else to think about. He had become an expert at distracting himself. He had distracted himself so much, he found himself drowning in distractions, and all the little details in the world seemed to join up together in his head and make a whole new problem to worry about.

The only problem was, when your whole existence is something you have to cope with, you look back one day and find that your strategy has become a way of life.

I thought I would like a job where inquiring about everyone else's private business was considered perfectly routine.