“Susannah continued. "If and when I go off slow dancing in the ever after, I don't want to look like I've been stuck in a hospital room my whole life. I at least want to be tan.”

“I used to believe. I used to think that if I wanted it bad enough, wished hard enough, everything would work out the way It was supposed to. Destiny, like Susannah said.”

“I go wherever you go,' he says, launching us into the water.This is our start. This is the moment it becomes real. We are married. We are infinite. Me and Conrad. The first boy I ever slow danced with, ever cried over. Ever loved.”

“We are married. We are infinite. Me and Conrad. The first boy I ever slow danced with, ever cried over. Ever loved”

“Taylor wanted me to forget about Conrad, to just erase him from my mind and memory. She kept saying things like, “everybody has to get over a first love, it’s a rite of passage.” But Conrad wasn’t just my first love. He wasn’t some rite of passage. He was so much more than that. He and Jeremiah and Susannah were my family. In my memory, the three of them would always be entwined, forever linked. There couldn’t be one without the others. If I forgot Conrad, if I evicted him from my heart, pretended like he was never there, it would be like doing those tings to Susannah. And that, I couldn’t do.”

“I didn't want to make the same mistake my parents made. I didn't want my love to fade away one day like an old scar. I wanted it to burn forever.”

“Do you remember infinity?”Slowly, I turned around. “What about it?”Tossing something toward me, he said, “Catch.”I reached out and caught it in the air. A silver necklace. I held it up and examined it. The infinity necklace.It didn’t shine the way it used to; it looked a bit coppery now. But I recognized it. Of course I recognized it.“What is this?” I asked.“You know what it is,” he said.I shrugged. “Nope, sorry.”I could see that he was both hurt and angry. “Okay, then. You don’t remember it. I’ll remind you. I boughtyou that necklace for your birthday.”My birthday.It had to have been for my sixteenth birthday. It was the only year he ever forgot to buy me a birthdaypresent—the last summer we’d all been together at the beach house, when Susannah was still alive.”