“I owned that love. I chose it. I owed no one for it because it couldn't have been purchased. It belonged to me free and clear. I had never felt more empowered.”

“Understanding. I was in love with Ian Aberdeen. So deeply, so incredibly. And it was true and it was sublime and it was mine.Nothing could take that away from me and that was absolutely freeing to me. I owned that love. I chose it. I owed no one for it because it couldn’t have been purchased. It belonged to me free and clear. I had never felt more empowered.”

“I had feared that love would make me vulnerable. Instead I felt empowered.”

“I couldn't look at her. I'd been jealous and hurt, and I had dragged Liv into the middle of my own broken mess of a life. All because I thought Lena didn't love me anymore. But I was stupid, and I was wrong. Lena loved me so much, she was willing to risk everything to save me. I had given up on Lena, after she had refused to give up on me. I owed her my life. It was as simple as that.”

“I couldn't have felt more of lonely desolation somehow, had I been robbed of a belief or had missed my destiny in life...”

“...so one day my mother sat me down and explained that I couldn't become an explorer because everything in the world had already been discovered. I'd been born in the wrong century, and I felt cheated.”