Sue Saliba said this quote

for a moment, she let herself be defeated, wished herself not exactly annihilation but into a temporary absense, into being nowhere and no one just for a little while.

~ Sue Saliba

and it was the pretending that might explain how she could smile so brightly while her mind felt nothing - as if, at these times, there existed a disconnection between outer and inner, a shutting off, and the key to her happiness lay in warding off pain, or dodging it, or pushing it into the shape of something else - like shame or anger or even hope.

~ Sue Saliba