“I still felt fondness for her - fondness, that pleasant, detached mix of admiration and sentiment, appreciation and nostalgia.”

“Even when I detach, I care. You can be separate from a thing and still care about it. If I wanted to detach completely, I would move my body away. I would stop the conversation midsentence. I would leave the bed. Instead, I hover over it for a second. I glance off in another direction. But I always glance back at you.”

“She still dotted her i’s with full circles and felt genuinely thankful for every sunny day. I believed more in dark clouds, in sharp dots, in needing proof in order to feel trust.”

“I’ve always resented Hermione, because I wanted to be her so badly and she never seemed to appreciate as much as I thought she should that she got to be her. She got to live at Hogwarts and be friends with Harry and kiss Ron, which was supposed to happen to me.”

“I couldn't fault her for believing, because I had to imagine i was nice to have that illusion still intact.”

“But I still has enough longing for that concept that I didn't want to dispel it completely. Meaning: I didn't want to tell Lily that I felt we'd all been duped by Plato and the idea of a soul mate. Just in case it turned out that she was mine.”

“Eventually she fell asleep, but I kept the phone against my ear, lulled by her breathing, and her breathing again in the background. And yes, it felt like home. Like everything belonged exactly where it was.”