“Death and life are the same thing-like the two sides of my hand, the palm and the back. And still the palm and the back are not the same...They can be neither separated, nor mixed.”

“Patch reached for my hand and pushed my dad's ring off the tip of his finger and into my palm, curling my fingers around it. He kissed my knuckles. "I was going to give this back earlier, but it wasn't finished."I opened my palm and held the ring up. The same heart was engraved on the underside, but now there were two names carved on either side of it: NORA and JEV.I looked up. "Jev? That's your real name?""Nobody's called me that in a long time.”

“Love and death are not different things, they are the front and back of the same thing”

“... Then he did a strange thing. He lifted my hand to his lips and kissed my palm." "I died. That was like the sweetest thing.”

“Would you like to?” he says. His voice is hardly audible above the wind—so low it’s barely a whisper.“Would I like to what?” My heart is roaring, rushing in my ears, and thoughthere are still several inches between his hand and mine, there’s a zipping,humming energy that connects us, and from the heat flooding my body youwould think we were pressed together, palm to palm, face to face.“Dance,” he says, at the same time closing those last few inches and findingmy hand and pulling me closer, and at that second the song hits a high note and Iconfuse the two impressions, of his hand and the soaring, the lifting of the music.We dance.”

“I picked at one of the buttons on my vest until the thread unraveled and it fell into my palm. Memo to self- buy a sewing kit to stitch my life back together.”