School was more than academics; an education prepared you for the humdrum of real life: working with others, tempering one's personality to assimilate with the group but without losing your individual identity, understading the factors of logic, reasoning, and debate. For a person - vampire or human - to succeed in the world, unlocking the mysteries of the universe was insufficient. One would also need to grasp the mysteries of human nature.

I lived for those moments when we were together, those few times in my life that I actually felt alive.

Love. It's so close to hate, it's almost indistinguishable. But this is how it was for the two of them. Love and hate. Life and death. Joy and anguish.

A picture is worth a thousand texts.

He knew what it was like to love one who did not--or could not--love you back. But he'd had no choice. None of them did.

It didn't help that she was painfully shy and kept to herself, because then they just thought she was stuck-up, which she wasn't. She was just quiet.

Thank you for loving me enough to let me go.