Because it protects you. And when I jumped from the Humvee, I believed it would save me, too, in the same way you believe it will always save you.” “No, I don’t,” Thibault began. “Then why, my friend, do you still carry it with you?

People want pretty much the same things: They wanted to be happy. Most young people seemed to think that those things lay somewhere in the future, while most older people believed they lay in the past.

I have loved another with all my heart, and for me that has always been enough.

He stared at her, knowing with certainty that he was falling in love. He pulled her close and kissed her beneath a blanket of stars, wondering how on earth he'd been lucky enough to find her.

I don't hate it here," she said automatically. Surprising herself, she realized that as much as she'd been trying to convince herself otherwise, she was telling the truth. "It's just that I don't belong here." He gave her a meloncholy smile. "If it's any consolation, when I was growing up, I didn't feel like I belonged here, either. I dreamed about going to New York. But it's strange, because when I finally escaped this place, I ended up missing it more than I thought I would. There's something about the ocean that just calls to me.

I'm sorry' I said again. Whenever someone tells you something said, it's the only thing you can think to say, even if you're already said it before.

In another time and place, she might have felt differently, but thinking along those lines was pointless now.