“I’ve been trying so hard not to think his name, not to even breathe the idea of him”

“The guard's name was Mo, short for Molasses, as in slow as molasses or thick as molasses. The nickname had been his since he was so young he no longer remembered what his real name was. ANd it was true that from his earliest infancy, although his heart was as big and as warm and as generous as an open hand, his brain had seemed just a tiny bit small.”

“His secret name, which belongs to me, and to him, and to no one else.”

“I'm gone, lost, floating away into nothingness like I am in my dream, but this time it's a good feeling - like soaring, like being totally free, and I can feel the impression of his fingers everywhere that they touch, and I think of stars streaking through the sky and leaving burning trails behind them, and in that moment - however long it lasts, seconds, minutes, days - while he's saying my name into my mouth and I'm breathing into him, I realize this, right here, is the first and only time I've ever been kissed in my life.”

“Before, Alex seemed far away. Now the room is full of him: He is so close I can't breathe...move or speak or think. Every time he brushes me with his fingers, time seems to teeter for a second, like it is in danger of dissolving. The whole world is dissolving, I decide, except for us. Us.”

“It's like the idea of him is better than the him of him.”

“Be honest: Are you surprised that I didn't realize sooner? Are you surprised that it took me so long to even /think/ the word -- death? Dying? Dead?Do you think I was being stupid? Naive?Try not to judge. Remember that we're the same, you and me.I thought I would live forever too.”