As Hardy Cates stood there looking at me, really seeing me for the first time, it felt like the whole world had been snatched up in a great unseen hand, its motion arrested.

“Sooner or later everyone was driven to love someone they could never have.”

“I've never been convinced that everything in a relationship needs to be talked …”

“It’s all right,” the boy murmured as he felt her trembling. “My grandmother alw…”

“A couple of times in your life, it happens like that. You meet a stranger, and …”