“Every bitter joule of rage had been converted into speed. She was empty. There was no pain. The air whistled past her ears. She listened intently. That silent music was all there was. It was the sound of the universe showing her mercy.”

“She breathes music. Lives it and bleeds it. Her headphones have become her heartbeat. Her lyrics are her life. Music is her outlet of pain, love, and rage. Every note unplayed is another minute unlived. Every song unsung is another moment lost forever. She relies on music to show her the way, make fantasies real and to ease the pain of everyday life. Each day is another chance to create pure artistry. Music is the reason she is who she is...the good and the bad. Her life without it is like a bird without wings or lungs with out air. Life is for the living. Death is for the dead. Her life is her music. Her death will be the note unsaid.”

“How she still thought of Max every day and it was like someone had emptied her lungs of air, and she would catch at her heart, afraid she was dying.”

“Her rage flopped awkwardly away like a duck. She felt as she had when her cold, fierce parents had at last grown sick and old, stick-boned and saggy, protected by infirmity the way cuteness protected a baby, or should, it should protect a baby, and she had been left with her rage--vestigial, girlhood rage--inappropriate and intact. She would hug her parents good-bye, the gentle, emptied sacks of them, and think Where did you go?”

“Or—but this more rarely happened—she would be convulsed with a rage of grief, and sob out her love for her mother, in broken words, and seem intent on proving that she had a heart, by breaking it.”

“This was something she would keep hidden within herself, maybe in place of the knot of pain and anger she had been carrying under her breastbone...a security blanket, an ace up her sleeve. She might never use it, but she would always feel its presence like a swelling secret stone, and that way when she let go of the rage, she would not feel nearly as empty.”