“I always want him. Always. It’s always like this between us, too. We come together and we simply…combust. So easily. Beautifully. Does he even know how he affects me? Does he realize how my heart now rests in his hands? I belong to him completely”

“The bond forged between us was not one that could be broken by absence, distance, or time. And no matter how much more special or beautiful or brilliant or perfect than me he might be, he was as irreversibly altered as I was. As I would always belong to him, so would he always be mine.”

“When we pull away, he rests his hand on my thigh pressed next to his and we ride like that for a long time; the only time he moves his hand is to take better control of a sharp curve or to adjust the music, but he always puts it right back.And I always want him to.”

“It comes out of my mouth like water: the things he said at the beginning, what it's like to know a person's smell, the anxious catch that now has dulled to normal when I hold the pay phone and it rings and rings. How underneath I don't believe he's coming anymore, and I wish I could turn the air beside me into something solid to fill the hole he leaves. How sometimes when he'd touch me I'd go out onto the very edges of myself, far like on a tightrope or a plank, and balance knowing there was only air to catch me; how he'd hold me there till it got scary, sometimes longer, and it was realer and more raw than any thing I'd ever felt. How he would always close his eyes and seem so comfortable, casual even, and I was always amazed at that: how brave he must be for it not to scare him at all. How sometimes it broke me into two pieces, and I'd lie there under him naked and stretched out past my skin, and another me would watch from the ceiling. Even if it was too much I had to grow to hold it, because it belonged to me now, and I belonged to him, and if I let any of the pressure of it spill like water from my faucet mouth, it would all leak out and be gone from me forever. That's what he always said. ”

“Is that how he sees it? He knows how much his death will hurt us, so he must be under the impression that by staying alive he'll eventually hurt us even more. Maybe we should pretend we've stopped caring what he does. Say, "We've given up on you, Abel. You don't matter." Well, that would gratify him, our failling in line with what he has been telling us for months. How do we get around that? How do we persuade him that he's entitled to cause pain and, what's more, that he has a responsibility to bear the pain that he causes? If only I could say, "You're worthy of your own life," and make him believe me. Too late. Too late. He seems completely enraptured now by the idea of no longer existing. I think he imagines the space he'll vacate, the actually physical space, and there we'll be, his parents and I, waving our hands around trying to find him, but at least we won't come up against any resistance. There won't be anything to collide with, only air.”

“He wasn't the type for displays of affection, either verbal or not. He was disgusted by couples that made out in the hallways between classes, and got annoyed at even the slightest sappy moments in movies. But I knew he cared about me: he just conveyed it more subtly, as concise with expressing this emotion as he was with everything else. It was in the way he'd put his hand on the small of my back, for instance, or how he'd smile at me when I said something that surprised him. Once I might have wanted more, but I'd come around to his way of thinking in the time we'd been together. And we were together, all the time. So he didn't have to prove how he felt about me. Like so much else, I should just know.”