“I wanted you, nameless Woman of the South,No wraith, but utterly—as still more aloneThe Southern Cross takes nightAnd lifts her girdles from her, one by one—High, cool, wide from the slowly smoldering fireOf lower heavens,— vaporous scars!Eve! Magdalene! or Mary, you?Whatever call—falls vainly on the wave.O simian Venus, homeless Eve,Unwedded, stumbling gardenless to grieveWindswept guitars on lonely decks forever;Finally to answer all within one grave!And this long wake of phosphor, iridescentFurrow of all our travel—trailed derision!Eyes crumble at its kiss. Its long-drawn spellIncites a yell. Slid on that backward visionThe mind is churned to spittle, whispering hell.I wanted you . . . The embers of the CrossClimbed by aslant and huddling aromatically.It is blood to remember; it is fireTo stammer back . . . It isGod—your namelessness. And the wash— All night the water combed you with blackInsolence. You crept out simmering, accomplished.Water rattled that stinging coil, yourRehearsed hair—docile, alas, from many arms.Yes, Eve—wraith of my unloved seed!The Cross, a phantom, buckled—dropped below the dawn.Light drowned the lithic trillions of your spawn.”

“Take the back door," she said. "Claire, you and your strang friend-""Eve," they both said simultaneously, and Eve held out her fst for a bump. "Or, you could call me Eve the Great, Mistress of All She Surveys. Eve for short.”

“Every time I go to sleep, I know I may never wake up. How could anyone expect to? You drop your tiny, helpless mind into a bottomless well, crossing your fingers and hoping when you pull it out on its flimsy fishing wire it hasn't been gnawed to bones by nameless beasts below.”

“It's your call," he said softly, "but whatever you decide, I'll help you." He placed a soft, warm hand at the back of her neck and Laurel's breath caught in her chest. "Whatever you need, I'll be. If you need the science geek to give you answers from a textbook, I'm your guy; if you just want a friend to sit by you in bio and help you feel better when you're sad, I'm still your guy." His thumb slowly stroked across her earlobe and down her cheek. "And if you need someone to hold you and protect you from anyone in the world who might want to hurt you, then I am definitely your guy." His pale-blue eyes bore into hers, and for a second she couldn't breath. "But it's all up to you," he whispered.”

“When you start thinking about what your life was like 10 years ago--and not in general terms, but in highly specific detail--it's disturbing to realize how certain elements of your being are completely dead. They die long before you do. It's astonishing to consider all the things from your past that used to happen all the time but (a) never happen anymore, and (b) never even cross your mind. It's almost like those things didn't happen. Or maybe it seems like they just happened to someone else. To someone you don't really know. To someone you just hung out with for one night, and now you can't even remember her name.”

“There's a girl calm people don't know about. It's a girl teen standstill. A motionless peace. It doesn't come from anywhere but inside us, and it only lasts for a few years. It's born from being a not woman yet. It's free flowing and invisible. It's the eye of the violent storm you call my teenage daughter. In this place we are undisturbed by all the moronic things you think about us. Our voices like rain falling. We are serene. Smooth. With more perfect hair and skin than you will ever again know. Daughters of Eve.”