I worried I would miss it, and I knew, from losing Wyatt, that things happen the moment the soul is released. Wyatt had been there in the school, watching me, making sure I survived. Souls...

All of the emotions that hit people at times like these, all of them, were coursing through us both like a secret we couldn’t tell. Because if we said everything we were thinking and feeling...

The ice cold fear I’d felt, not knowing if Wyatt was alive, pressed into the wall with other girls and surrounded by guys who were unspeakably brave, hit my body again in a wave. This...

I’m here. Start at the beginning.

I’m not sure about all the particulars that led to this moment. Do I believe life is a series of dots to be connected…or that no one can outrun destiny…or that all roads lead to...

Okay, news flash. Jealousy is not something I enjoy. I hadn’t felt it much before. But I’d also never been in love. And I’d never been 3,300 miles away from the girl I loved while...

Is this when you tell me I’m your soul mate, O’Neill?

In my mind, I saw a string stretching from Henry’s heart at Quiet Waters to my heart. It was taut and it vibrated with Henry’s worries and fears and I felt them all.Deeply. I felt...

It was the first time I discovered that some girls actually sneak out of the house during slumber parties and meet up with boys. I would’ve never known if I hadn’t gone to the bathroom...

I smiled at him. Not even Wyatt would have known how to be this honorable when talking about a girl that had hurt him.

We formed an impromptu circle just so we could look at each other and memorize faces. We hardly noticed the waiting officials. We hardly noticed anything but our little family whose ties weren’t loosening at...

For a second, I stared at the map of her veins just under the surface of her thin skin. It was like her body was trying to become diaphanous. Instead of getting harder and stronger...

I’d stumbled upon the inner sanctuary of a woman who loved the world. Loved the faces of people she saw. Loved the way a hand looked when it was relaxed. Loved the way a woman...

Things are crazy here, and I’m questioning everything.

Is that you, as big as you are, know how to walk gently on this earth.

Hmmm. What you’re saying is that you’ve never been kissed?” He picked at a string on the blanket under us.

He was taking a leap here, negotiating with a crackhead, under the table, in a dark cantina. The courage etched on his face came from loving Aidia so much he’d close his eyes and walk...

The first thing I needed, possibly the only thing, was to kiss her and I did, for as long as I could. I let us both breathe for a minute, and I perched her on...

Look at this one.” I picked up a small painting of a man with dark hair and a short, dark beard. He wore a loose shirt, cobalt blue, unbuttoned at the top, showing a prominent,...

It’s yours.

Camus and Henry waved to me from that muddy truck. They both wanted me to get over myself.So, this was me, getting over myself. And it was about time.

Leave my dad out of this.

My mom told me once that Wyatt loved her the way a boy will love his mother, but I loved her the way an artist loves another. Jo taught me what that meant.

You okay?

When I’m naked, I can see my heart beating.

She didn’t see me because of the reflection on the store windows, and she wouldn’t know me in this car anyway. In fact, she probably wouldn’t know me with shaggy hair and the beginnings of...

It’s the only part of a person I really want to capture. Everything else seems to get lost in layers of deception or defensiveness. But not kindness. You can’t hide it. And people either are...

He’d had to fold his long legs into his desk. His boots had seen better days, and his jeans unraveled in a curiously irresistible way at the bottom. He didn’t look like anyone I’d ever...

He’s hurting and it’s not just the Quinn thing. It’s being away from you and wondering if you’re hurting, too. Or if you’re having too much fun to hurt. What he really needed was to...

Oh, hey, did you want to keep these for when your invisible boyfriend returns from his fake vacation?

I haven’t told you that today, Meg, because I don’t know.

He comes in through people. People who love us anyway. They jump right into the chaos with us and try to help us make sense of it. That’s what mercy is…it’s choosing to help, or...

It was about how men walk into a forest afraid because they know all the things that can happen. They might wake the noisy birds and cause chaos. But kids come into the trees and...

I turned my ear toward the door because I heard him breathing. When you’re alone and afraid, the simple sound of the steady in and out of air being drawn by another person is good...

Uncommon anxiety came to us in common hours when other people were doing mundane things like taking out the trash or checking their phones. But there was nothing to be done for this. We couldn’t...

Go to the Winter Dance with me.

It wouldn’t be real love if there weren’t the possibility for another response to him. If we couldn’t choose not to love him, then our love would be empty. That’s why there’s evil in this...

I found I could only glance at him for tiny moments and then I had to look away. He was perfect enough to hurt my feelings for a long time, and I wanted to let...

No. No, you can’t.

He leaned toward me and said his name like he was sharing a secret and it made me think he probably kept a lot of secrets. His smile was sweet and his teeth the tiniest...

And we want to understand them better.

Yeah, let’s go to the hotel. Grab your purse and I’ll find your coat.

You want to know why God gave us people to love? Because that’s the only way we can understand how he feels about us. Desperate and jealous.

Promise?” Well, that genie’s out of the bottle and there’s no stuffing her back in.

It could be why you’re still single.

I’d known cruelty in a school—cruelty that would keep these amateurs up all night. But this kind of scene—crowds batting around a person because they thought he was weak—happened to be my personal trigger.

It was an oddly satisfying idea to feel bereft as I left my mother this time. We only feel bereft when we’re deprived of something meaningful.

Kavanagh has a smart mouth.

Every moment of our lives we make choices. Most we don’t even know we’re making, they’re so dull or routine or automatic. Some are beyond explanation—like my mom choosing Wyatt’s memory over Dad and me.

Trusty steed.