“The clothes felt like something more: fine chain-mail armor handmade to fit me, or robes laid out ready for some fiercely secret ceremony. They made my palms tingle when I touched them.”

“For so long, it was just my secret. It burned inside me, and I felt like I was carrying something important, something that made me who I was and made me different from everybody else. I took it with me everywhere, and there was never a moment when I wasn't aware of it. It was like I was totally awake, like I could feel every nerve ending in my body. Sometimes my skin would almost hurt from the force of it, that's how strong it was. Like my whole body was buzzing or something. I felt almost, I don't know, noble, like a medieval knight or something, carrying this secret love around with me.”

“I felt electric when he touched me. I’d had crushes before; when your body melts and tingles but this was different. It was like a magnetic pull. Every cell in my body pulled toward him. It was almost uncomfortable but I found myself craving another touch.”

“Every time he looked at me I felt like I'd touched my tongue to the tip of a battery. In art class I'd watch him lean back and listen and I was nothing but zing and tingle. After a while, the tingle turned to electricity, and when he asked me out my whole body amped to a level where technically I should have been dead. I had nothing in common with a sheddy like him, but a girl doesn't think straight when she's that close to electrocution.”

“I crossed the room, and what you did was to feel my hair over and over again and in different ways, touch it, with the palm of your hand... felt it, strands of hair, with your fingers, touched it as if it were cloth, the way a child touches its favorite surfaces.”

“When I returned, everything was different. Everything was calm, and I felt very clean. Everything was in order. Everything was as it should be. I had a secret. It was a guilty secret, certainly. But it was MY secret. I had something to hold on to. It was company. It kept me calm. It filled me up and emptied me out.”