“She was the epic crush of my childhood. She was the tragedy that made me look inside myself and see my corrupt heart. She was my sin and my salvation, come back from the grave to change me forever. Again. Back then, when she sat on my bed and told me she loved me, I wanted her as much as I have ever wanted anything.”

“There are no words for how much I will miss her, but I try to kiss her so that she'll know. I try to kiss her to tell her the whole story of my love, the way I dreamed of her when she was dead, the way that every other girl seemed like a mirror that showed me her face. The way my skin ached for her. The way that kissing her made me feel like I was drowning and like I was being saved all at the same time. I hope she can taste all that, bittersweet, on my tongue.”

“Don’t.” She looks directly into my eyes. After a month of being forced to avoid her, I feel stripped bare by her gaze. “You can be as much of a charming bastard as you want, but you’re never going to bullshit your way into my heart again.”

“She put a hit on her boyfriend, so it's not like she hasn't murdered someone." "And you know that how?" Sam asks. I'm trying really hard to be honest, but telling the whole thing to Sam seems beyond me. Still, the fragments sound ridiculous on their own. "She said so. In the park." He rolls his eyes. "Because the two of you were so friendly." "I guess she mistook me for someone else." I sound so much like Philip that it scares me. I can hear the menace in my tone. "Who?" Sam asks, not flinching. I force my voice back to normal. "Uh, the person who killed him.”

“Boys never believe I can beat them, she told me back then. But I always win in the end.”

“There’s something about her—Cassel, I have met many evil men and women in my life. I have made deals with them, drank with them. I have done things that I myself have difficulty reconciling—terrible things. But I have never known anyone like your mother. She is a person without limits—or if she has any, she hasn’t found them yet. She never needs to reconcile anything.”

“Nobody ever really sees me the way I am, underneath everything. But she did. She does.”