“But the same things that had once attracted menow left me with a mild sense of unease. Ivy would say I was getting smarter, but I just felt…empty.”

“If I had to say how I felt, I would say like a box that had been turned upside down. And the box was surprised by just how empty it was.”

“I felt lighter when I had finished, and for once emptiness was a sweet relief and a condition to be treasured.”

“I felt my shoulders ease at her admission. She was going to do what she had to do, and I was going to do what I had to do. And Ivy? Ivy was going to go insane.”

“even the slow, soft telepathic connection between us- the sense of connectedness that linked us even when we were in the same room- the sense that we were not two people but rather one ecstatic and indivisible whole, had vanished. i couldnt even feel his pain. but i could feel mine. i felt as if a part of myself had been cut off, as if there was within my soul a hole so gaping and empty that the whole world could pass through it and still i would not feel a thing.”

“It's as if he can no longer acknowledge the love he felt or the pain I am in. I have been dismissed. I don't think I was smarter or as beautiful as the other girls he did this to. It's just that I was me. It was all I had.”