“And this is something I must accept - even if, like acid on metal, it is slowly corroding me inside.”

“Any guy, even imaginary, would just feel like second best. Second best to what? I don't even have an image of the perfect boyfriend. I just know he must exist. Because I have all these feelings-love, longing, wanting to be touched, dreaming of being kissed-yet no one to focus them on.”

“I would give anything to escape myself, Flynn thought, just for a day, just for a minute even. Just to know what it was like to think differently, to feel differently, and to not be me.”

“The words fire from my mouth like bullets, ricocheting off the walls before I can even register what I'm saying.”

“I don't know when it started - this thing - bit it's growing, muffling me, suffocating me like poison ivy. I grew into it. It grew into me. We blurred at the edges, became an amorphous, seeping, crawling thing.”

“Your happiness means everything to me. I will listen for your voice in the distance. I will look at the moon. I will keep you in my pocket. I will carry your smile with me everywhere like a warm and comforting glow.”

“I love you in–in every kind of way.’‘I feel like that too . . .’ His voice is shocked and raw. ‘It’s – it’s a feeling so big I sometimes think it’s going to swalow me. It’s so strong I feel it could kil me. It keeps growing and I can’t – I don’t know what to do to stop it. But – but we’re not supposed to do this – to love each other like this!”