“Everything had felt so precarious since her mother's death, like she was walking on a bridge made of paper.”

“There were times Ruma felt closer to her mother in death than she had in life, an intimacy born simply of thinking of her so often, of missing her. But she knew that this was an illusion, a mirage, and that the distance between them was now infinite, unyielding. ”

“Her heart fluttered. It had only been a few hours, but it felt like a lifetime since she saw him last. She seriously felt addicted to that boy.”

“But she had felt since childhod that her life would n ot be ordinary. A moment would come- she would know it when she saw it- and everything would change.”

“Lena was an introvert. She knew she had trouble connecting with people. She always felt like her looks were fake bait, seeming to offer a bridge to people, which she couldn't easily cross.”

“The air of completeness and superiority with which she walked at my side, and the air of youthfulness and submission with which I walked at hers, made a contrast that I strongly felt. It would have rankled in me more than it did, if I had not regarded myself as eliciting it by being so set apart for her and assigned to her.”