The pleasure of remembering had been taken from me, because there was no longer anyone to remember with. It felt like losing your co-rememberer meant losing the memory itself, as if the things we'd done were less real and important than they had been hours before.

I didn't want to look at them, so I looked away, and to look away was to look at Augustus.

I didn't even know what the feeling was, really, just that there was a lot of it.

That's what I realized: if I did get her back somehow, she wouldn't fill the hole that losing her created.

So I let her go, too. And I'm sorry.

Reading it the night before, I'd wondered if it would be like that for me-if in one moment, I would finally understand her, know her, and understand the role I'd played in her dying. But I wasn't convinced enlightenment struck like lightining.

He wanted to draw out the moment before the moment- because as good as kissing feels, nothing feels as good as the anticipation of it.