“I’m in love with someone else,” he says. “But she’s gone. And I—”

“True love is a developed and intense appreciation for someone. It’s that perfect awareness that you are finally whole when she’s with you, and that hollow incompleteness you suffer when she’s gone.”

“What is a valid reason for someone to love someone else? Since apparently I’m doing it wrong.”

“Todd!” she says again but this time in a way that asks me to look at her and I do and she stops Angharrad at the edge of the square and she’s looking at me, looking right into my eyes–And I read her–And I know exactly what she’s thinking–And my Noise and my heart and my head fill up fit to burst, fill up like I’m gonna explode–Cuz she’s saying–She’s saying with her eyes and her face and her whole self–“I know,” I say back to her, my voice husky. “Me, too.”And then I turn to the Mayor and I’m filled with her, with her love for me and my love for her–And it makes me big as an effing mountain–And I take it and I slam all of it into the Mayor–”

“I knew what he was saying, and I wished to God he was someone else, someone who didn't have to say things out loud.”

“Will you stay out of it?” he clipped. “She’s holdin’ onto me, bud, I’d say I’m in it,” Tate returned.”