“Besides," Gwen added, fluffing the dress folds, "this thing took forever, so you're wearing it.""Wait you made this?" Isobel asked, distracted."Altered it," she admitted. She shrugged. "Half off at the Nearly New Shop. By the way, you owe me twenty-five dollars.”

“His eyes remained on Isobel as he began a slow backward walk. He was doing it again, speaking to her with his eyes. She remained trapped in his stare, trying to hear him, to read the underlying message. Finally his gaze broke from hers and he turned away, walking off through the cafeteria doors.There was a pause before Gwen spoke. "Let me guess," she said. "Right now, you're trying to decide if that was hot or annoying." She paused, as though formulating her own opinion.... "It was so totally hot.”

“My beautiful, my Isobel. My Love. You ask me to wait. And so I wait.For all of this, I know, is but a dream.And when, in sleep, at last we wake,I will see you again.”

“I'll keep it," she said. "Then, when you get back, after you and the dark one are done making out and planning a future filled with blond-haired, green-eyed, pigment-challeneged rug rats, I'll bring it over and you can add it to your scrapbook, right before you start cooking me dinner. I like vegetarian lasagna with cottage cheese instead of ricotta.""Gwen?""And don't forget the mushrooms. Garlic bread, too, please. That is, as long as your vampire lover doesn't object.""I want to say thank you," Isobel said. "For... everything.""No," Gwen said. "Thank you for the delicious dinner. I can almost taste the baklava you and Darth Vader will be making for dessert. Something tells me you're gonna have to look that one up, though.”

“This should make him happy. This should change him. But it doesn't. It can't. He's been changed already. And I don't know what to write anymore, because I'm afraid of what it will be. Because I can't think, and she asks me to write, but I won't know what to write. I can't think. I can't think. Isobel. Isobel. Isobel.”

“Is — is any of this real?" she asked. "Are you real?"He lifted a hand to her cheek, his fingers brushing her jaw."Even if this is a dream," he whispered, "I'm not."Isobel's eyes widened, recognizing those words as her own, the same ones she had once uttered to him. She reached for him, her arms twining around his neck, drawing him closer so his scent poured over her, that combination of incense, citrus, and dried leaves overriding the funeral funeral smell of the crowding flowers."Don't leave," she breathed."I'm here," he whispered. "Right here. Waiting.”

“You think you're different.” Her voice wavered, and she hated sounding so weak. “You think you're all so different,” she went on, louder this time. “You do everything to be different,” she spat. The silence of the table -of the whole cafeteria- was reclaimed in an instant. "But you're not," she said at last. "You are just like every. Body. Else”