“Nothing matters but him and us and this, the way he makes me feel like I’m everything to him. Sometime in the last month, he’s become everything to me.”

“And he leans in, so carefully. Breathingand not breathing and hearts beatingbetween us and he’s so close, he’s so close and I can’t feel my legs anymore. I can’t feel my fingers or the cold or the emptiness of this room because all I feel is him, everywhere,filling everything and he whispers“Please.”He says “Please don’t shoot me for this.”And he kisses me.His lips are softer than anything I've ever known, soft like a first snowfall, like biting into cotton candy, like melting and floating and being weightless in water. It’s sweet, it’sso effortlessly sweet.And then it changes.“Oh God—”He kisses me again, this time stronger,desperate, like he has to have me, like he’s dying to memorize the feel of my lips against his own. The taste of him is making me crazy; he’s all heat and desire and peppermint and I want more. I've just begun reeling him in, pulling him into me when he breaks away.He’s breathing like he’s lost his mind andhe’s looking at me like something has brokeninside of him, like he’s woken up to find thathis nightmares were just that, that they never existed, that it was all just a bad dream that felt far too real but now he’s awake and he’s safe and everything is going to be okay andI’m falling.I’m falling apart and into his heart and I’m a disaster.”

“My dad’s contentment is all that matters to me. When he’s laughing, I’m laughing. When he’s happy, I’m happy. I would give up my soul for him. To me, nothing else but his happiness matters.”

“Maybe all that matters is that he’s right for me, and I’m right for him.”

“Of course he freaked me out. Of course it's nothing to do with me. But none of that matters. He loved me and now he doesn't. I was everything to him and now I am nothing.”

“And the last seven months meant nothing. And his words in the forest meant nothing. And it did not matter if he did not want me. I would never want anything but him, no matter how long I lived.”