“She sucked a breath and held it as something consumed her. Something else entirely.”

“There's something else there as well, something entirely her own. An ability to look into the confusing mess of life and see things for what they are.”

“Running so hard, her breath stippled with pain to go faster, hit the grass harder, move forward faster, like she could break through something in front of her, something no one else saw.”

“Was there another life she was meant to be living? At times she felt a keen certainty that there was ― a phantom life, taunting her from just out of reach. A sense would come over her while she was drawing or walking, and once while she was dancing slow and close with Kaz, that she was supposed to be doing something else with her hands, with her legs, with her body. Something else. Something else. Something else.”

“If you can learn to endure pain, you can survive anything. Some people learn to embrace it—to love it. Some endure it through drowning it in sorrow, or by making themselves forget. Others turn it into anger. But Ansel let her pain become hate, and let it consume her until she became something else entirely—a person I don’t think she ever wished to be”

“Emil on top of me, his breath heavy on my neck. As our eyes met and held, the playfulness turned into something else entirely, something with a lot more heat. Emil leaned in, barely brushing his lips against my own he whispered, “We were good at this then too.”As his soft lips met mine, my entire body felt molten—liquid and hot, moving seamlessly with his.”