“Sarah Lynn strides out of the stairwell. Lawrence watches her go. The door slushes shut behind her, and he turns to me with a tightened jaw. I want to tell him: No, no, you've got it all wrong. I don't care if you kiss a white girl. I don't care if you love a white girl. I just wish you'd chosen a white girl worthy of your love.Lawrence's Adam's apple jerks up and down, and I realize that in addition to whatever else he's feeling, he's scared. He's in love with the darling of the school, Sarah Lynn Lancaster, ad he's afriad I'll expose his secret. I give a tiny shake of my head, wanting him to know he has nothing to fear, not from me.”

“Do you know what it was like kissing Holly and looking up to see you?""What?""You said to begin anywhere."But I hadn't expected that as a beginning, middle or end. I felt my cheeks getting warm. "I guess it was pretty embarrassing for both of us," I said, and walked ahead of him so he wouldn't see my face. "I know, I just kept staring at you.""What were you thinking?""I don't remember.""Don't you start using that line," he chided."Then don't ask me, Nick." Did he suspect how I felt.He caught me and turned me around to face him. I focused on his shirt. "Okay," he said quietly, "I'll tell you what I was thinking. I couldn't believe that I, who was never going to get hooked, had fallen in love with a girl who didn't want to date, and she was watching me kiss somebody else."I glanced up."Your turn, brave girl. What were you thinking?""That Holly looked beautiful in your arms and that you didn't pull away from her the way you had pulled away from me when I kissed you."He drew me to him. "I'm not pulling away again," he said holding me close.”

“I broke up with this girl, and they put me with a psychiatrist who said, 'Why did you get so depressed, and do all those things you did?' I said, 'I wanted this girl and she left me.'And he said,'Well, we have to look into that.'And I said, 'There's nothing to look into! I wanted her and she left me.' And he said, 'Well, why are you feeling so intense?'And I said, 'Cause I want the girl!' And he said, 'What's underneath it?' And I said, 'Nothing!'He said, 'I'll have to give you medication.'I said, 'I don't want medication! I want the girl!'And he said, 'We have to work this through.'So, I took a fire extinguisher from the casement and struck him across the back of his neck. And before I knew it, guys from Con Ed had jumper cables in my head and the rest was...”

“Well, you're free without wanting to be,' he explained, 'it just happens so, that's all. But Mathieu's freedom is based on reason.''I still don't understand,' said Lola, shaking her head.'Well, he doesn't care a curse about his apartment: he lives there just as he would live anywhere else, and I've got the feeling that he doesn't care much about his girl. He stays with her because he must sleep with someone. His freedom isn't visible, it's inside him.”

“He clung to her more tightly, knotting his hands in her hair, trying to tell her, with the press of his mouth on hers, all the things he could never say out loud: I love you; I love you and I don’t care that you’re my sister; don’t be with him, don’t want him, don’t go with him. Be with me. Want me. Stay with me.I don’t know how to be without you.”

“It was wrong then—for a stupid black city girl to fall in love with a smart southern white boy. But watching him chase the ball until he was right in front of me, I was enamored.”