...these things had to be kept secret because Henry was Eddie’s big brother, and Eddie adored him.

You have come from the shadow of the heroin and the shadow of your brother, my friend. Come from the shadow of yourself, if you dare.

Henry would never come right out and tell Eddie not to do something; would never just walk up to him and say, Would you mind quitting that, bro? See, it’s pretty good, and when you do something that’s pretty good, it makes me nervous. Because, you see, I’m the one that’s supposed to be pretty good at stuff around here. Me. Henry Dean. So what I think I’ll do, brother o’ mine, is just sort of rag on you about certain things. I won’t come right out and say ‘Don’t do that, it’s makin me nervous,’ because that might make me sound, you know, a little fucked up in the head. But I can rag on you, because that’s part of what big brothers do, right? All part of the image. I’ll rag on you and tease you and make fun of you until you just . . . fucking . . . QUIT IT! Okay?
Well, it wasn’t okay, not really, but in the Dean household, things usually went the way Henry wanted them to go. And until very recently, that had seemed right – not okay but right.

Jake guessed Henry had been pulling shit like this on him so long that Eddie only noticed it when Henry pulled it on someone else – someone like the blonde ticket-seller.

But it is. It’s something you need, and that’s a long way from nothing. If you need it, Eddie, we need it. What we don’t need is a man who can’t let go of the useless baggage of his memories.

Healing was a terrifying and painful experience and my life was as full of struggle and heartache as it had always been. Several years after I started therapy, I began to feel happy. I was stunned. I hadn't realized that the point of all this work on myself was to feel good. I thought it was just one more struggle in a long line of struggles. It took a while before I got used to the idea that my life had changed, that I felt happy, that I was actually content. Learning to tolerate feeling good is one of the nicest parts of healing.