“My first instinct, the product of a lifetime of insecurities, was to wonder what I had done wrong.”

“I told you I didn't want to fight with Charlie.""Nobody said that you had to."I glowered at him. "I can't help myself when he gets all bossy like that―my natural teenage instincts overpower me.”

“For one half second, I wondered what it would feel like to put my hand in the fire. What it would feel like when I burned....”

“Who are you and what have you done with my brother?”

“Each minute, not knowing if Jacob was breathing or not, had seemed like ten lifetimes.”

“I would have to commit to this- commit as much of me as there was left, every one of the broken pieces. It was the only way to be fair to him. Would I? Could I?Would it be wrong to try to make Jacob happy? Even if the love I felt for him was no more than a weak echo of what I was capable of, even if my heart was far away, wandering and grieving after my fickle Romeo, would it be so very wrong?”

“Though there was no sound, there was a change. The atmosphere, which had gone tense at my accusation, relaxed. I wondered how I knew this. I had a strange sensation that I was somehow receiving more than my five senses were giving me - almost a feeling that there was another sense, on the fringes, not quite harnessed. Intuition? That was almost the right word. As if any creature needed more than five senses.”