“Turning her face away from him, she let the tears fall at last. They were carried away on the wind as if they'd never been. Much like her.”

“It had been dark at the beach for hours, he hadn't been smoking much and it wasn't headlights – but before she turned away, he could swear he saw light falling on her face, the orange light just after sunset that catches a face turned to the west, watching the ocean for someone to come in on the last wave of the day, in to shore and safety.”

“She loved him, and her heart was breaking. If she had known how much it hurt to love someone, she never would have given away her heart. But it wasn't a question of giving as much as falling.”

“Away from the bright motion of the party, she carried her sadness like a dark stone clenched in her palm.”

“She wondered whether there would ever come an hour in her life when she didn't think of him -- didn't speak to him in her head, didn't relive every moment they'd been together, didn't long for his voice and his hands and his love. She had never dreamed of what it would feel like to love someone so much; of all the things that had astonished her in her adventures, that was what astonished her the most. She thought the tenderness it left in her heart was like a bruise that would never go away, but she would cherish it forever.”

“Amy pulls away and looks into my face. Her pale skin is blotchy red, her eyes are veined and shadowed, and a shiny line of snot trickles from her nose to the top of her lip.She wipes her face and with her arm, smearing tears and mucus. She never looked more BEAUTIFUL to me.”