“Loss isn't an absence after all. It is a presence. A strong presence right next to me. I look at it. It doesn't look like anything, that's what is so strange. It just fits in.”

“How strange it was that man could neither brookThe presence nor the absence of his look!”

“And it is strange that absence can feel like presence.”

“And it is strange that absence can feel like presence. A missing so complete that if it were to go away, I would turn around, stunned, to see that the room is empty after all, when before it at least had something, if not him.”

“This is love, she thought, isn't it? When you notice someone's absence and hate that absence more than anything? More, even, than you love his presence?”

“We stand there, knee deep in the water, holding hands. The silence is thunderous with words we don't speak. I feel his presence beside me like it's an extension of my own body, tall and strong and so, so beautiful. But I can't look at him. Right now, it hurts too damn much.”