“Jacob: "Let her stare."Terra: "What?"Jacob: "Yeah most of the starers are just curious. Smile back. That's what I used to do.”

“You know, sometimes the most direct route isn't the right one. - Jacob”

“But the truly brilliant geocachers?""Yeah?" he says. "What about us?""They know it by its real name. Terra Firma.""Terra Firma," he repeats. At last, he slips his backpack off his shoulder. I know what he's looking for.I take a breath. "You don't need your GPS for this cache."His eyes don't move off mine; he's watching me so carefully. "You don't, huh?""Nope," I say.Some things are meant to be kept - what you learn from experiences good or bad, smiles from an orphaned girl, a boy who is your compass pointing to your True North. So I look at Jacob full in the face with nothing obscuring him. Or me. And then I step closer to him. And closer. And closer yet."Here I am," I tell him. "Here I am.”

“I understood now: how nothing looked more beautiful than that scar of his, that borderline that separated what Jacob could have been had he stayed in that orphanage from who he is.”

“And then there was Jacob, who stepped closer to me and then waited, letting me decide whether I would take the next step. Balanced there in indecision, it was as if the Twisted Sisters were before me, shaking their pom-poms, asking: But what is fair about staying with a guy who is ashamed to be seen with you? What was so miraculous about a relationship that was based more on my gratitude than mutual respect.”

“If Jacob was right and clothes were costumes and makeup a mask, then our attitudes and habits must be our shields.”

“Maybe that was the problem," Jacob said softly. "Don't we all need to feel needed? That we'd be missed if we were gone?”