“I have no idea what Paloma looks like-what she'll be like.I have no idea what to expect.I should've asked more questions.I should've used the last ten hours to grill Chay until he broke-until he confided every dark and dirty secret Paloma is hiding.Instead,I chose to eat.And read.And dream about some phantom boy with smooth brown skin,icy-blue eyes, and long glossy black hair-a boy I've never even met in real life.Lot of good it did me.”

“Not until I stopped doing drugs altogether did I feel like a man. Not until I walked out of that fire did I have any idea what the word even meant.”

“I studied Finn the way another boy might have studied history, determined to memorize his vocabulary, his movements, his clothes, what he said, what he did, what he thought. What ideas circulated in his head when he looked distracted? What did he dream about?But most of all what I wanted was to see myself through his eyes, to define myself in relation to him, to sift out what was interesting in me (what he must have liked, however insignificant) and distill it into a purer, bolder, more compelling version of myself.The truth is, for that brief period of my life I failed to exist if Finn wasn't looking at me. And so I copied him, strove to exist the way he existed: to stretch, languid and graceful when tired, to move swiftly and with determination when not, to speak rarely and with force, to smile in a way that rewarded the world.”

“If what Granma Mary Rommely said is true, then it must be that no one ever dies, really. Papa is gone, but he's still here in many ways. He's here in Neeley who looks just like him and in Mama who knew him so long. He's here in his mother who began him and who is still living. Maybe I will have a boy some day who looks like Papa and has all of Papa's good without the drinking. And that boy will have a boy. And that boy will have a boy. It might be there is no real death.”

“Maybe we should've stayed like that, just hanging out. Maybe we never should've kissed those Keeley boys.”

“We drive in silence until I need an answer, "What did he say to you at the elevator?" I look straight ahead when I ask."He thanked me for being there for you, even as a boy, when he could not protect you himself. He told me that I had his permission to love you.”