“He could not feel her near him in the darkness nor hear her voice touch his ear. He waited for some minutes listening. He could hear nothing: the night was perfectly silent. He listened again: perfectly silent. He felt that he was alone.”

“Sometimes, in the dark of night, when no one else could hear him but me, he'd cry out, like he was fighting some silent little war in his head.”

“He had told her he would love her forever, but he could not stay with her. From that time on, she couldn't see his glow or hear his voice in her head. Could he still hear her? Was he even aware of her existence?”

“When he saw her, he wanted to be with her; when he was with her, he ached to touch her; when he touched even her hand, he wanted to embrace her. He wanted to feel her against him the way he had in the attic. He wanted to know the taste of her skin and the smell of her hair. He wanted to make her laugh. He wanted to sit and listen to her talk about books until his ears fell off. But all these were things he could not want, because they were things he could not have, and wanting what you could not have led to misery and madness.”

“He leaned closer, their faces drawing near, and he could feel the heat of her breath mingling with his. He closed his eyes against the memory of a thousand other kisses and touched his lips to hers. He felt a kind of spark, and all at once he felt her slowly coming back to him. She was the arm that held him close in times of trouble, she was the whisper on the pillow beside him at night.”

“The telephone to Shadow's apartment was silent and dead. He thought about getting it connected, but could think of no one he wanted to call. Late one night he picked it up and listened, and was convinced he could hear a wind blowing and a distant conversation between a group of people talking in voiced too low to properly make out. He said, "hello?" and "who's there?" but there was no reply, only a sudden silence and then the faraway sound of laughter, so faint he was not certain he was not imagining it.”