“They didn’t get me, I should have said. They saved me.”

“Allie,” he said. “You told me once I had a white-knight complex. You said I saved you.”He was going to say I saved him. It was going to be so romantic.“But the truth is,” he said, “I didn’t save you—I stole you. I wanted you and I knew I didn’t deserve you, but I didn’t care. And for some reason it seems like youdon’t either, so it seems to me that I should make it permanent before you come to your senses. Will you marry me?”

“I knew I should have call Jack, should have told him...but I didn't. Not yet. I was afraid of him thinking that I was crazy, too. I wasn't sure what he'd do if he saw me drowning. I wasn't sure he'd save me unless he was saving himself. what he'd say.”

“I didn’t know what to spend it on, ’cause my mum said she didn’t want me to buy her nothing. So I was going to buy Larry something, but he said I should spend it on something I always wanted. So I bought a cat.”

“But mainly, he hates that he didn’t get there in time to save you.”… “He did save me.” My voice sounds inept. Jack shakes his head, gently. “No love, not in the way he wishes.”

“You saved me," I said. Nathaniel put his hands on either side of my face. "I had to," he said. "So you could save me back.”