“Well, Ma, see... there's this girl."Silence.He checked to make sure the call hadn't been dropped. "You still there, Ma?"A sniffle."You can't be crying already," he said. "I haven't told you anything about her yet.""It doesn't matter, Nick," his mother said through her tears. "Those are the three words I've been waiting thirty-four years to hear.”

“Near the end I asked him one night in the hospital corridor what he thought was happening, and he said, "Tell her everything you haven't said," and I smiled with relief. "There's nothing," I said. "I've already told her everything.”

“I realized that your mother couldn't see the emptiness, she couldn't see anything...All of the words I'd written to her over all of those years, had I never said anything to hear at all?”

“She should want to see me. If I had said how I feel about her, she would miss me even more. All this time, I've been breaking her heart by keeping her wait, yet I can't still appear before her eyes. I never want to see her cry anymore. Even if it means I no longer exist in her heart. How immature of me, right? -Kudou Shinichi”

“He found her not even a block away from the house, sitting on a curb.As he approached, he saw her wiping her face with her forearm.Sabine was...crying? "What are you doing out here, cwena?" Over the past week, Rydstrom had been pleased when she'd worried about him, and gratified when she'd felt the sting of jealousy. Was he a terrible man to hope she was crying about him?She glared at him with her bottom lip quivering, allowing him to see her like this instead of using a mask. "I d-don't have anywhere else to g-go." Another swipe of her forearm over her eyes. "Lanthe's gone, and I c-can't get to her for six days. And I'm in a strange t-town and land, and Vrekeners are everywhere."Sabine hadn't even mentioned what they'd just gone through-"And you br-broke up with me!" she said, her tears falling faster. "Is that supposed to make me happy?""Come inside, Sabine.""No! You t-told me not to." She sniffled, "You don't want me at your house."He swooped her up in his arms. "Will you shut up?" With his free hand, he brushed her tears. "I made it ten minutes before I came after you.”

“There's never been a moment," he barely said, "when I didn't recognize you."She wiped her eyes. Her mascara smeared. He nudged the merry-to-round into motion. He could kiss her now. If he wanted."I'd know you in the dark," he said. "From a thousand miles away. There's nothing you could become that I haven't already fallen in love with."He could kiss her."I know you," he said.”