“(Addie) I said. (If it had been you - if it were you trapped inside. If you were the one who couldn't move, I'd go back. I'd go back in a second.)”

“I was terrified. I was eleven years old, and though I'd been told my entire life that it was entirely natural for the recessive soul to fade away, I didn't want to go. I wanted twenty thousand more sunrises, three thousand more hot summer days at the pool. I wanted to know what it was like to have a first kiss. The other recessives were lucky to have disappeared at four or five. They knew less.”

“Addie was warm and radiant next to me, making up half of us. But I - I was Eva, Eva, Eva, all the way through.”

“One second. A snapshot of fear and sweat and blood.”

“For years, we'd been the thorn of the neighborhood, the dirty little secret that wasn't so secret. The girls who just wouldn't settle.”

“ I said. ”

“If you're there, Eva...if you're really there..." His fingers tightened around our shoulder, digging into our skin. "I love you, too. Always"Then he pushed us away.”