“Alex was a world. He was an entire galaxy. A universe of possibilities.”

“In fact, I noticed everything about Alex. Like that his left nostril was slightly larger than his right nostril. And the way he ate a Kit Kat bar: chocolate first and then the layers of wafer separately. I could pick his one sneeze in a room full of sneezers.”

“People are just preprogrammed to want what they don’t have. It’s like it’s a universal law.”

“Here's what I think: it's one thing to know that rejection is coming, and it's an entirely different thing when it arrives.”

“He looks at you like you're the only person in the room. Like he's trapped underwater and you're an oxygen tank. Like he's in anaphylactic shock and you're an EpiPen.”

“When he speaks into my hair, it is barely a whisper. 'Willow, it's never too late. And there's always a way to begin again.”

“My pulse is buzzing and my stomach is a riot of butterflies and half-digested peanut butter cookies.”