“It stayed with him, like a part of him, like a birthmark, like a limb, it was on him, in him, him, his hymn: I had to do it for myself.”

“I don't understand it myself, really. It's like the idea of him is better than the him of him”

“Maybe the only reason I like him is because I had a crush on him for so long it became a part of me.”

“I was a fool. I should have grabbed him when I could have had him all to myself, snatched him up like a ripe mango at the market. But how was I to know that this was what love felt like?”

“But one day I will wear him down, I will catch him off guard, and he will lose the energy for the nightly battle, and he will get in bed with me. In the middle of the night, I'll turn to face him and press myself against him. I'll hold myself to him like a climbing, coiling vine until I have invaded every part of him and made him mine.”

“I wanted to like him, and yet, a small part of me needed to fear him.”