“I decided that it was the thoughts in your own mind that mattered more than anything else.”

“Don't wait for me anymore.I hope for love for you.I hope for this more than anything else, maybe even more than my own happiness.And in a way, perhaps that means I love Xander best of all.”

“I know you love me. I love you, I always will, but things can't hold like this. They have to break. You say you don't mind, that you will wait for me, but I think that you do mind, and you should. Because we've done too much waiting in our lives, Xander. Don't wait for me anymore. I hope for love for you.I hope for this more than anything else, maybe even more than my own happiness. And in a way, perhaps that means I love Xander best of all.”

“I wish that I did not have to tell him this lie, when he knows more of my truth than anyone else in the world.”

“I believe in you," he says, his voice hushed and almost reverent. "That's more faith than I ever thought I'd have.”

“I can trust in my parents' love. And it strikes me that is a big thing to trust, a big thing to have had, no matter what else happens.”

“Inside me are the real things that give me strength—my thoughts, the small stones of my own choosing. They tumble in my mind, some polished from frequent turning, some new and rough, some that cut.”