“I felt the warm brush of his fingers pushing the key into mine all the way to my heart. I focused on the key because if I looked up, I'd see what he was feeling. Worse, he'd see what I wasfeeling -- in a minute what I was feeling was going to be spilling out of me, and it didn't make any sense. It had been over long ago; we had just finally got around to saying good-bye, that was all.”

“What happened?" I asked. "What did you say?"Roger put the key in the ignition and looked over at me. "I told her good-bye," he said. Then he started the car and put in in gear, and we headed out.”

“This isn't over. I won't give up on you.""I've given up on you," he said back, voice also soft. "Love fades. Mine has."I stared at him in disbelief. All this time, he'd never phrased it like that. His protests had always been about some greater good, about the remorse he felt over being a monster of how it had scarred him from love. I've given up on you. Love fades. Mine has.I backed up, the sting of those words hitting me as hard as if he'd slapped me. Something shifted in his features, like maybe he knew how much he'd hurt me. I didn't stick around to see. Instead, I pushed my way out of the aisle and ran out the doors in the back, afraid that if I stayed any longer, everyone in the church would see me cry.”

“He came up and kissed me on my forehead, and before he stepped away, I closed my eyes and tried hard to memorize this moment. I wanted to remember him exactly as he was right then, how his arms looked brown against his white shirt, the way his hair was cut a little too short in the front. Even the bruise, there because of me.Then he was gone.Just for that moment, the thought that I might never see him again… it felt worse than death. I wanted torun after him. Tell him anything, everything. Just don’t go. Please just never go. Please just always be near me, so I can at least see you.Because it felt final. I always believed that we would find our way back to each other every time. That no matter what, we would be connected—by our history, by this house. But this time, this last time, it felt final. Like I would never see him again, or that when I did, it would be different, there would be a mountain between us.I knew it in my bones. That this time was it. I had finally made my choice, and so had he. He let me go. I was relieved, which I expected. What I didn’t expect was to feel so much grief.Bye bye, Birdie.”

“You know, Michael, I used to sit around looking for a way to make sense of what happened, like there was some kind of answer I could find if I just looked hard enough. Then one day I realized that if there had been one, Dave would still be here. And I wondered if this...this feeling that I couldn't figure it all out...was what Dave had been feeling, too.”

“I had been in love with Ariella. I remembered what she'd meant to me, what I'd felt for her then...... and what I didn't feel for her now.”