He carried the meaning in silence, exactly as he had carried it for seventeen years, and gave the crowd nothing, because the walk was not theirs to understand and not his to use.

It was Lily’s.

He was only her escort, carrying her into the light, and an escort does not steal the moment for himself.

I have never in my life seen a purer act of love, and it was performed by a boy in a red dress, in silence, while people laughed.

Chapter 12 — She Saw You Walk

I stood up from my seat.

I did not care, anymore, about the hundreds of eyes on us, or the school’s rules, or the diploma that slipped from my lap onto the floor, or the murmurs still moving through the crowd.