“That’s what you do for family.Anything.”

“That’s what made it sofrightening to the lawmakers: Love obeysno laws other than its own.”

“I guess that’s just part of loving people: You have to give things up. Sometimes you even have to give them up.”

“Still, I worry. They say that in the old days, love drovepeople to madness. That’s bad enough. The Book of Shhhalso tells stories of those who died because of love lost ornever found, which is what terrifies me the most.The deadliest of all deadly things: It kills you both whenyou have it and when you don’t”

“And I guess that's when it starts to hit me: the whole point is, you do what you can.”

“Alex is dead, do you hear me? All of that-what we felt, what it meant- that's done now, okay? Buried. Blown away.”

“Stop!” His voice rings out sharply, hard as a slap. He releases me and I stumble backward. “Alex is dead, do you hear me? All of that—what we felt, what it meant—that’s done now, okay? Buried. Blown away.”“Alex!”He has started to turn away; now he whirls around. The moon lights him stark white and furious, a camera image, two-dimensional, gripped by the flash. “I don’t love you, Lena. Do you hear me? I never loved you.”The air goes. Everything goes. “I don’t believe you.” I’m crying so hard, I can hardly speak. He takes one step toward me. And now I don’t recognize him at all. He has transformed entirely, turned into a stranger. “It was a lie. Okay? It was all a lie. Craziness, like they always said. Just forget about it. Forget it ever happened.”