If he were less well trained, and less careful, he would say hate. But he can’t say it; it is too close to passion, and passion is too close to love, and love is amor deliria nervosa, the deadliest of all deadly things: It is the reason for the games of pretend, for the secret selves, for the spasms in the throat.

You can't tell me what to feel

I'd rather die on my own terms than live on theirs. I'd rather die loving Alex than live without him.

Suicide. A sideways word, a word that people whisper and mutter and cough: a word that must be squeezed out behind cupped palms or murmured behind closed doors. It was only in dreams that I heard the word shouted, screamed.

No one had ever told her this basic fact: not everyone got to be loved.

That is what Alex is now: a shadow-boy

Quiet through the grave go I; or else beneath the graves I lie