“But that did not stop her heart from shattering into countless pieces or her soul from shredding into slivers.”

“Talk to me. Look up, I thought. But she didn't, only stopped and picked a sprig of alyssum to smell the honey. I cut a shred from my heart and dangled it on a homemade hook before her.”

“In that moment her heart fell out of her chest. Like the glass filled vase he had brought to her, it dropped. It was shattered into a million small pieces.”

“No glass slippers, just a glass heart shattering into a million slivers of regret.”

“I'll just be your brother from now on."he said, looking at her with a hopeful expectation that she would be pleased, which made her want to scream that he was smashing her heart into pieces and he had to stop. "That's what you wanted, isn't it?" It took her a long time to answer, and when she did, her own voice sounded like an echo, coming from very far away."Yes," she said, and she heard the rush of waves in her ears and her eyes stung as if from sand or salt spray. "That's what I wanted.”

“She was incapable of dragging herself away from him; Even though talking over the situation with him had shattered her, being without him would have been even worse,as if it were only his presence that was stopping the pieces flying away in all directions.”