“How can I describe what effect that ancient, absurd, and wonderful rite has upon me when her lips touch mine? Can I find a formula to express that whirlwind which sweeps out of my soul everything, everything save her?”

“All has happened to her that will happen to her. She has felt everything, borne everything, experienced everything, suffered everything, lost everything, mourned everything. She is resigned, with that resignation which resembles indifference, as death resembles sleep. She no longer avoids anything. Let all the clouds fall upon her, and all the ocean sweep over her! What matters it to her? She is a sponge that is soaked.”

“She reaches up and pulls my face to her and kisses me, her soft lips on mine. I don't want her to stop kissing me. As long as she is, then everything is fine. Everything is right, I would stay in this room forever if I could. The world can pass by without me, without us. Just as long as we can stay here, together, in each other's arms.”

“That night I lay in bed, remembering the moment when her hand touched mine. I wondered what it would be like to have her touch me not by accident, to maybe have her let me touch her.”

“How did I love her?Let me count the ways.The freckles on her nose like the shadow of a shadow; the way she chewed on her lower lip when she walked and how when she ran she looked like she was born going fast and how she fit perfectly against my chest; her smell and the touch of her lips and her skin, which was always warm, and how she smiled.Like she had a secret.How she always made up words during Scrabble. Hyddym (secret music). Grofp (cafeteria food). Quaw (the sound a baby duck makes). How she burped her way through the alphabet once, and I laughed so hard I spat out soda through my nose.And how she looked at me like I could save her from everything bad in the world.This was my secret: she was the one who saved me.”

“She wraps her arms around my neck, pulling me in tight, and I swear I feel my soul brush against hers. I expand beyond the boundaries of Dylan's body, out until I am the waves crashing on the beach, the sun shining in her hair, the wind that sweeps over our skin. I am everything and nothing and exist only because this girl presses her heart to mine.”