“But she was still operating on lonely-person principles, still worried that her happiness could be wrenched away at any moment, for reasons out of her control.”

“She had believed him to be hers, time and again, but still she could not stay the feeling that he might at any moment slip through her fingers.”

“Back to him she would never go, but in her lonely life still lived the sweet memory of that happy time when she believed in him and he was all in all to her.”

“Plus she had to admit that a small part of her secrecy was that she was holding something back, for herself. If she never told Dexter the truth, she was still reserving the right to return to her old life. To one day be a covert operative again. To be a person who could keep the largest secrets from everyone, including her husband, forever.”

“Even as I worried, I admired her strength and unwillingness to give in to the virus in her blood. "I'm fighting to show that I can still succeed," she told me once. "An HIV-positive person is not a disable person. I still have my dreams.”

“It was so strange how someone could love another person so much and so well but still not understand what made her happy.”