“If I stay. If I live. It’s up to me.All this business about medically induced comas is just doctor talk. It’s not up to the doctors. It’s not up to the absentee angels. It’s not even up to God who, if He exists, is nowhere around right now. It’s up to me.”

“I realize it’s not just Willem I’m looking for; it’s Lulu too.”

“I just wanted to tell you that I understand if you go. It’s okay if you have to leave us. It’s okay if you want to stop fighting.”

“If I stay. If I live. It's up to me.”

“The audience keeps singing, keeps making my case, and I just keep strumming until I get close enough to see her eyes. And then I start singing the chorus. Right to her. And she smiles at me, and it’s like we’re the only two people out here, the only ones who know what’s happening. Which is that this song we’re all singing together is being rewritten. It’s no longer an angry plea shouted to the void. Right here, on this stage, in front of eighty thousand people, it’s becoming something else. This is our new vow.”

“How am I supposed to decide this? How can I possibly stay without mom and dad? How can I leave without Teddy? Or Adam? This is too much. I don’t even understand how it all works, why I’m here in the state that I’m in or how to get out of it if I wanted to. If I were to say, I want to wake up, would I wake up right now? I’ve already tried snapping my heels to find Teddy and tried to beam myself to Hawaii, and that didn’t work. This seems a whole lot more complicated. But in spite of that, I believe it’s true. I hear the nurse’s words again. I am running the show. Everyone’s waiting on me. I decide. I know this now. And this terrifies me more than anything else that has happened today.”

“And the voice grows stronger and stronger, and it’s myvoice this time and it’s asking a question: How does sheknow?”