“Bruised, she spent the night with him; bruised, too, he held her as close as he could. It was all done, promised, and decided on.”

“He leaned closer, their faces drawing near, and he could feel the heat of her breath mingling with his. He closed his eyes against the memory of a thousand other kisses and touched his lips to hers. He felt a kind of spark, and all at once he felt her slowly coming back to him. She was the arm that held him close in times of trouble, she was the whisper on the pillow beside him at night.”

“When she went out she used to wear a lot of eye shadow, which married with the sulky way she sometimes held her mouth to give her a characteristic bruised look; a look that subtly made one want to bruise her more.”

“But in the night he woke and held her tight as though she were all of life and it was being taken from him. He held her feeling she was all of life there was and it was true.”

“Holding her gaze, he closed the final distance between them and went down to his knees, that beautiful bruised face looking up at her.”

“She feels bruised by her reading and by life too. She wonders, does she always fight her books before yielding to them?”