How do you feel when I smile at you?" he asked - and then he did smile at her, just a little. Not like myself, Cath thought. "Like an idiot," she said softly. "And I never want it to stop.

The squirrels on campus were beyond domestic; they were practically domestically abusive.

She saw him after seventh hour in a place she'd never seen him before, carrying a microscope down the hall on the third floor. It was at least twice as nice as seeing him somewhere she expected him to be.

I pictured a girl who made every moment, everything she touched, and everyone around her feel lighter and sweeter. “I pictured you,” he said. “I just didn’t know what you looked like. “And then, when I did know what you looked like, you looked like the girl who was all those things. You looked like the girl I loved.

She didn't have words for what Levi was. He was a cave painting. He was The Red Ballon. She lifted her heels and pulled him forward until his face was so close, she could look at only one of his eyes at a time. "You're magic," she said.

I think I can live without you, but it won't be any kind of life.

These things end,” she said. “They always end. Nobody marries their first love. First love is just that. First. It’s implied that something else will follow.