“I'd like to be a light meter.""A what?""A light meter. Like a photographer uses. Tinks had one this morning." Aidan snapped an imaginary photo of me. "I'd like to be able to measure and know for certain whether people were giving off light or taking light away.""You're strange," I said. "But I think I like that about you.”

“I rushed off to Whitehall and assumed Aidan would head back to Astor. But when I turned around briefly, I saw Aidan uncoiling her black scarf from around her neck. She held each end of the scarf above her head, the silk capturing the wind, arching above her like a parachute. Aidan released one end, kiting the scarf. The wind swirled around her for a moment before Aidan let go completely. She was an excellent student. The light silk caught a thermal and rose, sailing above the water. A dark black bird against the blue sky.”

“Jason, as much as I'd like to believe that we're friends, I know I can't count on you.”

“Don't you miss it?" I'd ask Aidan. "All that Hollywood sunshine?""It's like hating the color yellow," she'd say, "and living in a golden age.”

“I'd used the word "beautiful" to describe another boy. I knew how it must have sounded to her. I also knew that it was exactly what I'd meant, exactly what I did not want to mean.”

“That night on the Swan we'd promised each other that we'd have some sort of romance. Something unprecedented. "We don't have to be like other people," she'd said, and I'd believed her.”

“I don't know why I said what I did. Maybe I wanted Hannah to remember something, or maybe I wanted to test her, but when she asked me my name I didn't even pause. "My name is Aidan," I said. "It means fire.”