“I want to stay," he admitted. "I haven't felt this way in a long time. I feel like ... like I came up from being underwater, and I can finally breathe. I don't want to stop feeling that way. That's how I know I have to leave.”

“It's okay,' he tells me. 'If you want to go. Everyone wants you to stay. I want you to stay more than I've ever wanted anything in my life.' His voice cracks with emotion. He stops, clears his throat, takes a breath, and continues. 'But that's what I want and I could see why it might not be what you want. So I just wanted to tell you that I understand if you go. It's okay if you have to leave us. It's okay if you want to stop fighting.'For the first time since I realized that Teddy was gone, too, I feel something unclench. I feel myself breathe. I know that Gramps can't be that late-inning pinch hitter I'd hoped for. He won't unplug my breathing tube or overdoes me with morphine or anything like that. But this is the first time today that anyone has acknowledged what I have lost. I know that the social worker warned Gran and Gramps not to upset me, but Gramps's recognition, and the permission he just offered me--it feels like a gift.Gramps doesn't leave me. He slumps back into the chair. It's quiet now. So quiet you can almost hear other people's dreams. So quiet that you can almost hear me tell Gramps, 'Thank you.”

“Debt Chauffeur, that's my name for him now, wants to marry me. He asked me down on bended knee, and I would have been honored - except he wants us to live in London, and he wants me to live white. I crowed at that. I laughed so hard and not a tear came. He couldn't understand it. I don't often think on how white I look; it's always been a question of how colored I feel, and I feel plenty colored. He said that no one in London will know that I'm supposed to be colored. And I said I am colored, colored black, the way I talk, the way I cook, the way I do most everything, and he said but you don't have to be. ”

“I want to care, but I don't. I look at you and all I feel is tired. I walk through school and all I want to do is leave. I wake up in the morning and don't know why I'm here. I feel like I'm not real.”

“Do I like you?No. I don't like you. I don't think about you every moment of every day. I never relive the way it felt to have your hand holding mine, to be so close to you I could smell you, feel the warmth of you, breathe the air that you breathe. I don't remember your arm around me, making me feel safe, special...WANTED.”

“I feel like I should probably ask you to leave. But I don’t really want you to go. I want you to stay, but I know you shouldn’t.- Hope”