“I page through the book, my heart thumping in my chest as I’m brought back to him, to Mayson Holt, the boy who stole my heart, broke it and disappeared from my life five years ago. The man who I do not allow myself to think about. The man who still owns a very large piece of my soul.”

“And blessed be the first sweet suffering that I felt in being conjoined with love and the bow and the shafts with which I was pierced, and the wounds that run to the depths of my heart…” any man who loves this poem as I do, must be my master... And any man who feels as I do about these words must be my drinking companion.”

“Adrian stood there leaning against the doorframe, watching me with his heart in his eyes. In my chest, my own heart was breaking. On my cheek, the lily reminded me who I was. ”

“I stare at him, listening to my heart thump inside my chest, to the wind sing, to the sound of someone breaking somewhere in the world.”

“I stood there. Still. Frozen. Looking at the most handsome man I’d ever seen in my life. The man I fell in love with when he was still mostly a boy. The man who raised two great kids against the odds. The man who kept the streets of my hometown safe. The only man outside my brother and father who even tried to take care of me, he did it in a way that was beautiful, precious, so I let him. The man who made me happy. The man who was happy being with me.”

“Most days, for the last dozen or so years, I attributed to Charlie, or at least to our breakup, most things that have gone wrong for me. Like: I wouldn't have packed in college; I wouldn't have gone to work in Record and Tape; I wouldn't have had an unsatisfactory personal life. This is the woman who broke my heart, who ruined my life, this woman is single-handedly responsible for my poverty and directionlessness and failure, the woman I dreamed about regularly for a good five years.”