“Sweet, she thought. He must think I can't bear to hear him say it. That after all I have told him and after telling me how many feet I have, "goodbye" would break me to pieces. Ain't that sweet."So long," she murmured from the far side of the trees.”

“Sometimes when I think of Jesper all I can see is his dark back on the way across the white sea to Hirsholmene. It gets smaller and smaller and I stand at the edge of the ice feeling empty. Why didn't he ask me to go with him? I have a will of my own but if he had asked, I wouldn't have hesitated. I always went with him. After all, I had to look after him and he had to look after me, and my father would be furious with us both. Staying there alone was meaningless.Sometimes I imagine he tells me everything, but I know that's not true. He never told me if he went all the way to Hirsholmene. I don't tell him everything either, but I feel he knows what I am thinking, and I know what HE thinks. I have taught myself to do that.And yet all the same I am not sure.”

“Are you smelling me?” After yesterday I suspected that my body was giving him all kinds of information I didn't want him to have.“Don't tempt me,” he murmured.”

“She leaned down and looked at his lifeless face and Leisel kissed her best friend, Rudy Steiner, soft and true on his lips. He tasted dusty and sweet. He tasted like regret in the shadows of trees and in the glow of the anarchist's suit collection. She kissed him long and soft, and when she pulled herself away, she touched his mouth with her fingers...She did not say goodbye. She was incapable, and after a few more minutes at his side, she was able to tear herself from the ground. It amazes me what humans can do, even when streams are flowing down their faces and they stagger on...”

“when he finally tried to kissed me after all this time, i denied him. he took too long, and she left him.”

“Do you miss being friends with Santangelo?" I ask her after the lights are out and we're almost asleep."What makes you think were friends?""Everything."I hear her yawn."Being enemies with him is better." she tells me. There's a long pause and I think she's going to say something more but she doesn't and it's just silence for a long while.”