“Present, I flee you: absent, I find you again.(Shakespeare)Present, I fled him. But no matter the distance between us, I kept coming back to him. It all kept coming back to him.”

“What? Just because I can't have you right now, doesn't mean I'm okay with him having you.”

“Are you waiting for an invitation?” I asked, eyeing him standing carefully outside my door. “Is this the part where you tell me you’re a vampire?” He chuckled. “No, I promise the paleness is only because I’m British.”

“I want to say we're okay, Bliss. I need you, too. But I can't pretend I wasn't hoping this would go somewhere. I don't know if I can do it. The truth is... you are hurting me. Not on purpose, I know that. But I love you and every second that you don't love me back... it hurts.”

“I was going to be so terrible at this… the worst he’d ever had probably. And then he’d never want to see me again (and I really wanted to see him again). I’d probably be traumatized and never want to have sex again, which meant every relationship for the rest of my life would fail, and I would end up alone and miserable with nine cats and a ferret.”

“Bliss, I don’t normally do things like that. But I was second-guessing everything about coming here, and you were everything I needed. I don’t know how many times I’ve stopped myself from coming over here and knocking on your door. And yes, seeing you with Cade was definitely motivation, but more than that... I just like you, Bliss. As a teacher. As a person. As a guy.”

“He looked at me, finally. I wanted to believe I saw softness in his eyes, but I could have imagined it. I did that all the time. All I had to do was close my eyes and I could see him reaching toward me, his lips millimeters from my own. But always… always I opened my eyes and it wasn’t real.”