“I wondered if he ever thought of me, and hated the pang I felt when I told myself he didn't.”

“Meow,' Cat Norman said simply, parking his big butt by my foot and looking up at me. 'Meow.' 'I hate you,' I told him. He didn't even flinch.”

“And I felt comfort. Finally. All I'd wanted for so long was for someone to explain everything that had happened to me in this same way. To label it neatly on a page: this leads to this leads to this. I knew, deep down, it was more complicated than that, but watching Jason, I was hopeful. He took the mess that was Macbeth and fixed it, and I had to wonder if he might, in some small way, be able to do the same for me. So I moved myself closer to him, and I'd been there ever since.”

“So he didn't have to prove how he felt about me. Like so much else, I should just know.”

“And that was it. All this buildup to a great leap, and I didn't fall or fly. Instead I found myself back on the edge of the cliff, blinking, wondering if I'd ever jumped at all. It's not supposed to be like this.”

“He was looking at me, jsut as I'd thought he would be, but like Bert's, his light was not what I expected. No pity, no sadness: nothing had changed. I realized all the times I'd felt people stare at me, their faces had been pictures, abstracts. None of them were mirrors, able to reflect back the expression I thought one I wore, the feelings only I felt.”

“I didn't want to leave things the way we had, unresolved, ... and tried to tell myself he cared about me enough not to look elsewhere for what I wasn't giving him.”