“I'm going to call you Rose," he says with resolution, working the back off an old clock.”

“He needs to grieve," I tell her. "He'll come find us when he's ready.""Rose is never going to be dead," she says, too disheartened to sound bitter.”

“I've loved you since the day I stole the atlas for you," Gabriel says, because he thinks I'm asleep.”

“Bet you never eat, he says. Bet you drink up the oxygen like it's butter. Bet you can go for days on nothing but thoughts.”

“There's nothing here to say good-bye to. There's no dancing girl. No mischievous smile. She's gone, off with her sisters, broken free, escaped. And if she were here now, she would say, "Go.”

“Tell me about yourself.""Myself?" He looks confused."Yes," I say, patting the mattress."You know all there is to know," he says, sitting beside me."Not true," I say. "Where were you born? What's your favourite season? Anything.""Here. Florida," he says. "I remember a woman in a red dress with curly brown hair. Maybe she was my mother, I'm not sure. And summer. What about you?" The last part is said with a smile. He smiles so infrequently that I consider each one a trophy.”

“You can try to please everyone and risk accomplishing nothing, or go for your dreams and risk pissing a few people off.”