“When I finished bathing after dinner, Kumiko was sitting in the living room with the lights out. Hunched down in the dark with her gray shirt on, she looked like a piece of luggage that had been left in the wrong place.”

“You are indestructible .JFor some reason I felt light-headed when I finished writing and looked up at her, like I'd stood up too fast or the oxygen had left my brain. Oh pulled her arm back, looked thoughtfully at the words, and replied, "It's upside down, but I like it. You done good, Jacob.”

“Her heart had been through the shredder too many times to count, and she still had a small bit of hope left in her. She didn't like to admit. She certainly didn't like to think about it. But Jack had been her everything. Even after all the terrible things that had happened between them, she still couldn't look past the tiny piece of hope she'd kept locked away.”

“Magnus led her in one of the room on the first floor. A bath with a nice, big corner bathtub bordered on the bedroom. Like all rooms in this house this was also equipped luxuriously.„Clothes are in the cupboard. Towels and bubble bath already lie there. Feel like at home.“She nodded and looked at him waiting.He smiled again.„Should I join you? I could also need a bath.“She smiled back and shook the head.„No, thanks Magnus. I need a lot of place.“„Well, you could sit on my lap.“She closed the mouth tight her eyes and tried to look indignant, but in the meantime his flirting was a lot of fun for her. She liked the game between them. „Alone.“He smiled and made a small bow.„As you wish.”

“When I walked into the room, I looked down to the floor and saw that each and every garment I owned had been pulled from its rightful place and had been meticulously sliced into countless pieces. One thing was painfully obvious to me: these clothes were symbolic of me; they represented my body.What you really wanted was to slice me into countless pieces.”

“She loves most the wet colours of his neck when he bathes. And his chest with with its sweat which her fingers grip when he is over her, and the dark, tough arms in the darkness of his tent, or one time in her room when light from the valley's city, finally free of curfew, rose among them like twilight and lit the colour of his body.”