Rainbow Rowell

He never hurries. He never shows his cards. He always hangs up first....Like when we first started talking on the phone, he would always be the one who got off first. When we kissed, he always pulled away first. He always kept me just on the edge of crazy. Feeling like I wanted him too much, which just made me want him more....[It was] excruciating and wonderful. It feels good to want something that bad. I thought about him the way you think about dinner when you haven't eaten for a day and a half. Like you'd sell your soul for it.

What did he have to mope about, really? What more did he want?...Love. Purpose. Those are the things that you can't plan for. Those are the things that just happen. And what if they don't happen? Do you spend your whole life pining for them? Waiting to be happy?

I had this whole plan when I graduated high school: I was going to go to college, date a few guys, and then meet THE guy at the end of my freshman year, maybe at the beginning of my sophomore year. We'd be engaged by graduation and married the next year. And then, after some traveling, we'd start our family. Four kids, three years apart. I wanted to be done by the time I was 35.

I didn't know love could leave the lights on all the time.

Sometime in October, one of his friends walked by and called him 'Chris.' (A name, at last. 'Say it loud and there's music playing. Say it soft and it's almost like praying.')

There's never been a moment," he barely said, "when I didn't recognize you."
She wiped her eyes. Her mascara smeared. He nudged the merry-to-round into motion. He could kiss her now. If he wanted.
"I'd know you in the dark," he said. "From a thousand miles away. There's nothing you could become that I haven't already fallen in love with."
He could kiss her.
"I know you," he said.