“I still couldn’t look at her. Scared that if I did, I would attack her. And by attack, I mean maul her face with my lips.”

“She put her arms around his waist and looked up at his face. “I did? What did I take?”He bent down to kiss her. She stood to meethim halfway. His lips softly touched her lips and her neck as his hands became tangled in her hair.“I believe it was my heart.”

“My mother sighed, making me feel that I was placing an intolerable burden on her, and yet making me resent having to feel this weight. She looked tired, as she often did these days. Her tiredness bored me, made me want to attack her for it.”

“The bravest person I know is afraid of the dark. She sleeps with a night lamp always, but if her friends are threatened? She suddenly thinks she's a bear twelve feet tall and attacks whoever scared her friends.”

“Rene looked at Grendel. “What in the world is that?”“That’s our mutant attack poodle,” I told her.“Is he chewing on a gun?”

“At that moment I didn't particularly care if a band of raging marauders tried to do her in,but if there were frequent attacks on her "castle," I thought I should know.”