“It doesn’t matter what we are. It matters what we do.”

“The people we care about are always worth more to us than the people we don't. No matter what anyone pretends.”

“There's nothing I want. There's nothing I can't do. I don't care about anything. No matter what, I am an imposter. An actor in my own life.”

“You can't hurt me the way you think you can. But even if you could? I would rather die with the taste of you on my tongue than live and never touch you again. I'm in love with you, Mara. I love you. No matter what you do.”

“It doesn't matter", he murmured against my skin. His fingers traced the cuts, healing the veins beneath them. "There's only one thing that does.""What?" I whispered. He looked at me through his long,, dark lashes, with my hands still in his. "Killing Jude.”

“But non of this matters, because you're not going to listen to your token black Jewish bi friend, are you?”

“My chest cracked open at his words. I stared into Noah's perfect face and tried to see what he saw. I tried to see us - not individually, not the arrogant, beautiful, reckless lost boy and the angry, broken girl - but what we were, who we were, together. I tried to remember holding his hand at my kitchen table and feeling for the first time since I'd left Rhode Island that I wasn't alone in this. That I belonged.”