“Everything feels new, now that I have you. The world’s gone into color now, and I want to see it all again with you.”

“I don't feel alone with you. I feel like I have a family and a home again. You're my home. All of the dark shadows seem to disappear when we're together.”

“I want you to feel what I’m feeling, Bianca. I want you to feel this uncontrollable need. I can’t stand the thought that you’re indifferent to me.”

“Now, now, Auntie, you had better play nice with my dearest Bianca. I have not invited her to live in one of my homes. I have welcomed her into all of them. And though I know it would break your heart if anything were to ever happen to me, you will be beholden to this angel to cover your living expenses when I pass away, as she will be my sole inheritor.”

“There you go, belittling us again. You must know by now that I've never done any of this for anyone else. I was a slut once with my body, but I've never been a slut with my heart.”

“It makes me feel special. I find that I love it. I find that I love everything you do to me.”

“I loved your eyes first,” I told him , repeating his words from a few weeks ago back to him, because it was true, and because we were two halves of a whole—we had been all along, and he’d been so clever to know it right away. I used to think it was insanity, but now I was beginning to think that it was pure brilliance. “I see it, too, James. I see the other half of my soul in you.”