“The door smiled. It was the first time I'd seen it do that. Pierre Anthon left the door ajar like a grinning abyss that would swallow me up into the outside with him if only I let myself go. Smiling at whom? At me, at us. I looked around the class. The uncomfortable silence told me the others had felt it too.We were supposed to amount to something.”

“I liked you the first time I saw you. You were sitting on the floor surrounded by books, and you looked up when I opened the door and smiled right at me. It felt like you had been waiting for me, like you were welcoming me home.”

“I insist on knowing the names, on being interested only in books left ajar, like doors; I will not go looking for keys.”

“I sunk down onto the bench in the middle of the car. So Alex had loved me the whole time, from the moment we'd seen each other again? All that time I'd been freaking out about Rachel? All that time I'd spent inches away from him, sleeping in his bed by myself; sitting opposite him at dinner, smashing plates; clinging to him on the back of his bike; sneaking peeks at him through a half-ajar bathroom door - and all the time he'd been in love with me? We'd wasted all that time when we could have been kissing? And he'd had to wait until two seconds before leaving me until he told me? If the Unit didn't kill him, I was going to.”

“Jack had been a jerk that night, even though I tried not to remember that part. It felt like I wasn't missing him properly if I let myself remember how much I'd despised him sometimes. Instead I tried to remember what he looked like grinning and dirty in the driveway, though these days it felt more like I was remembering a memory of a memory of his smile instead of the smile itself. When I thought too hard about that, it made me feel weightless and untethered.”

“Alden walked me to the door and we stood outside uncomfortably---like it was the end of a first date. Was letting a host share your body and then chowing down on Chinese takeout a date? He was waiting for me to say good-bye, looking as nervous as I felt. Should I shake his hand or kiss him good night on the cheek? Maybe I should act like Spook and just lick his face.”