“I imagined Julián Caraxat my age, holding that image in his hands, perhaps in the shade of the same tree that now sheltered me. I could almost see him smiling confidently, contemplating a future as wide and luminous as that avenue, and for a moment I thought there were no more ghosts there than that of absence and loss that the light that smiled on me was borrowed light, real only as long as I could hold it in my eyes, second by second.”

“Caspian sat there with me until my sobs died down to a slow hiccup.Then he whispered, "I'd hold your hand right now if I could."His eyes were so wide and earnest that I couldn't help but smile at him."Thanks," I said, trying to hold back more tears. "It's the thought that counts.”

“This time, his smile widened into a full-fledged, wicked grin that made him almost devilishly handsome. I looked away, not wanting my thoughts to inflate his ego. To distract myself, I concentrated on the scarred hand holding mine. His grip was light, as if I could pull away at any moment, but we both knew better.”

“So what I realized when I was a child was that if I were traveling as fast as light while holding a mirror before me, I would not see my image in the mirror, because as fast as the image of my face in light moved toward the mirror, why, just as fast would the mirror be moving away... It is a rather frightening idea, in fact, that if I moved at the speed of light, I could get no confirmation of my existence from an objective source of reflected light such as a mirror. I would be like a ghost in the universe, materially unverifiable in the stream of time.”

“The sun was so bright outside that for a moment, I couldn’t see. But then I could, and there he was, leaning against the red Mustang, hands in his pockets, looking at the ground. He looked up, saw me, froze for a second…and then his lightning smile flashed, and I realized I was smiling, too.”

“She had a sadness that was so deep, but it still could turn to light in a second, and when I saw her smile I wondered what it would be like to make her smile. I thought... I thought it would be like the discovery of smiling.”