I don’t want to make the same mistakes I’ve made before. I want to be free. I want to be with you. We will be together. I believe I will have less to live for, if I am not with you.

If she loved him the way she said she did, she wanted him whole. Maybe this was what love meant after all: sacrifice and selflessness. It did not mean hearts and flowers and a happy ending, but the knowledge that another's well-being is more important than one's own.

Black is the color of night. White is the true color of death

Love. It's so close to hate, it's almost indistinguishable.

That morning, she had found an envelope stuffed into her locker. It was from the Mercer Hotel, and held a plastic door key for their suite. "See you there tonight," Oliver had written. "Chomp! Chomp!

Kingsley did the same, except he also removed his T-shirt, showing off his broad chest, tan and smooth. When had Kingsley had time to work on his tan? Mimi wondered.

Time did not mean anything to those who had too much of it, but it was even more precious once it was limited.