“You sense that he's dangerous but don't now why - and wonder if it's because he makes you feel safer than you've ever felt. ”

“Up until that moment, I'd been at the earliest stage of love, when you feel it will turn you into the better person you want to be. Now, his gentle voice and sage advice took me to a later stage: I felt I needed to pretend to be a better person than I was so he'd keep loving me. This was hard because it made me hate him.”

“He gazed at me. "You've grown up honey." It felt good to hear it. I thought maybe he was right. Then it occurred to me that if I really had grown up I wouldn't want to be told.”

“You can feel that he wants to own you - not like an object but like a good dream he wants to keep having. He lets you know that you already own him.”

“You can feel like he wants to own you,-not like an object but like a good dream he wants to keep having.”

“He loves New York, he says. 'It's like Oberlin--it's where people who don't belong anywhere belong.”

“I want him to tell my why, but he doesn't say anything. It seems possible that Matthew is gay and possible that he isn't; possible that he is just a little more afraid than the rest of us and possible that he is much more; it even seems possible that what he has with Dena is bigger or deeper or more important than anything else is to him. I don't know, But i no longer believe, as I did that last afternoon at the lake, that my many, many flaws are what prevented Matthew from wanting a life with me. It seems more likely that it is his flaw that he can't or won't love anyone-- and that he is indiscriminate in his unlove.”