“I felt as I hadn't felt for ages. I had a foolish desire to burst into tears. for the first time I'd realized how all these people loathed me.”

“He was looking at me, jsut as I'd thought he would be, but like Bert's, his light was not what I expected. No pity, no sadness: nothing had changed. I realized all the times I'd felt people stare at me, their faces had been pictures, abstracts. None of them were mirrors, able to reflect back the expression I thought one I wore, the feelings only I felt.”

“The Oxys filled holes in me I hadn't realized were empty. It was, at least for those first few months, a wonderful way to be disabled. I felt blessed.”

“I'd heard about people falling in love, and I'd heard about lust. What I had never heard about was this all-consuming need to be inside another human being. I felt this desperate compulsion to become one with him. This was desire. This was to crave. This was what if felt like to want.”

“I hadn't felt too awful lying to Braden since his three-sixty back into predatory hottie with wicked eyes and fuck-me smile was the sole reason I'd had to resort to lying in the first place.”

“I felt I hadn't breathed since early morning, that my heart had not beat-and only now for the first time I took a breath, only now the floodgates in my chest opened...”