“I backed us up against the wall. “How I feel? You want to know?” I ran my hands over his face and tangled them into his messy hair. “This is unlike anything else. I’ve bungeed off buildings, I’ve skateboarded off roofs. I’ve even gone train surfing. Nothing comes close to the high I feel when I’m with you. You’ve been through horrible things, and yet you’re one of the kindest, truest people I’ve ever met. At first I thought it was because you weresafe. I could feel something for you because you couldn’t hurt me. Not the way Alex did. But it’s more than that. It’s you. Who you are. The way you are. Everything from your smile to the way you always say exactly what’s on your mind. Your soul, Kale.”

“It’s killing me, baby,” he says, his voice much more calm and quiet. “It’s killing me because I don’t want you to go another day without knowing how I feel about you. And I’m not ready to tell you I’m in love with you, because I’m not. Not yet. But whatever this is I’m feeling—it’s so much more than just like. It’s so much more. And for the past few weeks I’ve been trying to figure it out. I’ve been trying to figure out why there isn’t some other word to describe it. I want to tell you exactly how I feel but there isn’t a single goddamned word in the entire dictionary that can describe this point between liking you and loving you, but I need that word. I need it because I need you to hear me say it.”

“I want to marry you because you’re the one, Nita. Period.” He pinned her with his gaze, fierce and outrageously blue. “I’ve never felt like this before. I want to lie beside you and just listen to you breathe. When I’ve had a shitty day, I want to come home to you and lay my head in your lap and feel your hands on my face. And when you’ve had a shitty day and it feels like one more straw is gonna break your back, I want to be there to carry the load for you. I want you to tell me your darkest fears, and be able to tell you mine.”

“You live your life like it’s a rare treasure to be savored. You take pleasure from the simplest of things and you never take them for granted. I saw the joy on your face and the life in your eyes when you cradled the permits to your chest. I’ve never seen anything lovelier. I actually thought you would cry just from the joy of touching them. I’ve been numb all my life, Megeara, but you…you feel on a level that I can’t even imagine, and for a little while I wanted to feel that, too. (Arik)”

“First of all . . . I have standards. I’ve never been with an ugly woman.Ever. Second of all, I wanted to sleep with you. I thought about throwing you over my couch fifty different ways, but I haven’t because I don’t see you that way anymore. It’s not that I’m not attracted to you, I just think you’re better than that.”

“Mama, I know you used to ride the bus. Riding the bus and it’s hot and bumpy and crowded and too noisy and more than anything in the world you want to get off and the only reason in the world you don’t get off is it’s still fifty blocks from where you’re going? Well, I can get off right now if I want to, because even if I ride fifty more years and get off then, it’s the same place when I step down to it. Whenever I feel like it, I can get off. As soon as I’ve had enough, it’s my stop. I’ve had enough.”