" ...one of the hardest things to admit is that we weren’t loved when we needed it most. It’s a terrible feeling, the pain of not being loved.” She was right. I had been groping for the right words to express that murky feeling of betrayal inside, the horrible hollow ache, and to hear Ruth say it—“the pain of not being loved”—I saw how it pervaded my entire consciousness and was at once the story of my past, present, and future. "