“You've felt it, haven't you? Those feelings that seem to get so big in your chest, like something is so beautiful it aches?”

“Beauty, happiness, they're things so big they can't capture them with their scientific words. It's like what they used to call magic.”

“He looked up and I realised how close we were, both of us leaning in together. I blinked a few times, suddenly light-headed, but not like before when I'd passed out. Being so close to the smooth dark skin of his face, getting lost in the shifting shades of his green eyes, it felt like my insides were fluttering and melting.”

“His lips ever so gently touched mine, and suddenly I felt everything stirring inside me grow wings, let loose, and fly.”

“That you exist this way, Zoe, you're the ultimate proof that we can be so much more than just the sum of our parts and knee-jerk impulses. Something about you just could not be controlled, just had to be free.”

“I loved you before I even knew the name for it. Everyday I'd sit beside you, inhaling your scent, looking at your beautiful face. Every night, dreaming about you. You eclipsed everything else. It was you. Always you.”

“There was something else I couldn't quite define--something that made me uneasy. We were a wrong fit, like unmatching puzzle pieces.”