Matched (Matched #1)

by Ally Condie

mine. I am surrounded, as I always have been, by their love.

Every minute you spend with someone gives them a part of your life and takes part of theirs.

“I’m glad to give you part of my life,”

“I think,” he says finally, “she would ask you if you wondered.”

I feel something catch in my throat when I see that the color he has chosen for his clothing is a light green.

Is falling in love with someone’s story the same thing as falling in love with the person himself?

I care about you.”

Growing apart doesn’t change the fact that for a long time we grew side by side; our roots will always be tangled.

“But if you were Matched,” I say softly, “what do you think she’d be like?” “You,” he says, almost before I’ve finished. “You.”

We do not kiss. We do nothing but hold on and breathe, but still I know. I cannot go gently now. Not even for the sake of my parents, my family. Not even for Xander.

I hate the Officials the most when they do this: when they act as if they have seen it all before, as if they have seen me before.

“Let me believe in this, all of this, and you believe it, too.”

“I take back what I said,” he says later, as the whistle blows. “I have seen you in green. I see you in green everyday, here in the trees.”

My heart will always fly his name. I won’t go gentle.

the words of a poem that only two people in the world know.