“Sam's eyes studied my lips and I studied hers. We each leaned in closer until our foreheads were touching. It felt like currents of electricity were running through the two of us, making me feel like I was going to melt from the intensity.”

“It kind of scares me though, to keep wearing it every day like I do. What happens when I run out of it? Will I forget what she looked like? What it looked like when the sun reflected on her hair? The way her pillow always smelled like her? Will my memory of her run out too?”

“It felt like this was never going to end. The world wasn't going to stop crashing down until there was nothing left of me but dust.”

“There was a lot about my life that was crappy, now that I couldn't talk. But if I hadn't gotten drunk that night, if I hadn't gotten in that accident, would I have ever had this moment? Lying there in the sun, holding Sam's hand like time didn't exist and the real world couldn't touch us? Somehow I didn't think so.”

“We didn't say or write anything for a long time. Normally silence like that was uncomfortable and awkward. Like you needed to say something to fill the empty space in the air. But it didn't feel like that with Samantha. Maybe it was because I couldn't say anything and fill the quiet, but I thought it was more about two people just being with each other, enjoying the slowdown and the rare sunshine.”

“Each of us had reached Eden in our own way.  Those who had survived the Fall had figured out that it wasn’t safe to be in the cities anymore.  With so much electricity and other mechanical resources available, the Fallen flocked to them.  If you were smart you ran as fast as you could toward the mountains or to the open country. ”

“You cant have both.Avian was right. Even though I didnt know how to handle feeling like this, I knew what I had been doing was wrong. I couldn't have both. It was unfair to both of them. And it was tearing me into two people. But how was I supposed to choose? I felt a tie to both of them, a tie so solid I wasnt sure that even I was strong enough to sever it.”