Everywhere he touches is fire. My whole body is burning up, the two of us becoming twin points of the same bright white flame.

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.

Are you sure that being like everybody else will make you happy?" "I don't know any other way." "Let me show you." And then we're kissing. Or at least, I think we're kissing—I've only seen it done a couple of times, quick closed-mouth pecks at weddings or on formal occasions. But this isn't like anything I've ever seen, or imagined, or even dreamed: this is like music or dancing but better than both.

You have to learn that people are always listening.

Here's another thing to remember: hope keeps you alive. Even when you're dead, it's the only thing that keeps you alive.

Somewhere in the endless spinning of eternity that one, tiny, fraction of a second where our lips met is lost forever.

It's amazing how close I have been, all this time, to my old life. And yet the distance that divides me from it is vast.