“I wasn't sad after my father kissed the streetcar. If anything, it was a relief. Much as I missed him, his dying gave me an excuse to feel the way I already felt. Which was the way I felt right now, under the laundry room fluorescents: hollow, pissed off, wanting to be wherever I wasn't. Until I got there. Then I wanted to be somewhere else.”

“I waned him back. I wanted him back so much I couldn't think about anything else. Everywhere I looked was suddenly somewhere Danny wasn't. My hands were empty because Danny wasn't holding them. My room echoed with quiet because Danny wasn't there whispering ridiculous things to make me laugh, or make me shiver.It seemed so right. Danny was mine, I was his, and that wasn't going to work if he was dead. So I would make him not dead, anymore.”

“I wanted him to think about me as much as I thought about him. I wanted him to miss me when I wasn't around, like I missed him. I wanted him to want me like he'd never wanted anyone else, the way that I wanted him. I wanted for him to never be able to get enough of me, as I seemed not to be able to get enough of him.”

“I wished I could have made him stay, to explain that I wanted things between us to be good, not so that he'd defend me better but, if I can put it this way, good in a natural way. Mostly, I could tell, I made him feel uncomfortable. He didn't understand me, and he was sort of holding it against me. I felt the urge to reassure him that I was like everybody else, just like everybody else. But really there wasn't much point, and I gave up the idea out of laziness.”

“No one else should see him like that, ever. Not my Rue. And he was mine, as much as I was his. I knew that now, just from the way he looked at me after I kissed him. Everything I felt for him, every ounce of yearning and desire and need, had shone out of his eyes as he stared up at me. And I knew right then, I knew… he belonged to me.”

“I wanted to play ball," he stated in a way that my body got very still and my eyes, already locked to his, became glued there. "It wasn't the money. It wasn't the fame. It was the game. The goddamned game. I didn't feel like I was breathin' right if I wasn't playin' or practicin'. Felt like life was still, someone hit pause, then I'd put on my pads and jersey and walk on the field and then everything would come alive. Dad and I were Eagles fans since I could remember. Puttin' that fuckin' jersey on, Christ, Laurie...Christ.”