“All my life, up until that moment, I'd had a warm, protective blanket wrapped around me, knitted of aunts and uncles, purled of first and second and third cousins, knot-tied with grandmas and grandpas and greats. That blanket had just dropped from my shoulders. I felt cold, lost and alone.”

“I felt the electricity of his body behind me as he reached around me and took the card from my hand. He didn't move away, and I battled the urge to lean back into him, seeking the comfort of his strength. Would he wrap his arms around me? Make me feel safe, if only for a moment, and if only a delusion?”

“Barrons had just given me the most carnal, sexually charged hungry look I'd ever seen in my life, and I was pretty sure he didn't even know he had done it.”

“All my sins were trapped between its covers. And the damn thing just wouldn’t go away. I’d tried to escape culpability, and my culpability had had the nerve to take on a life of its own and hunt me.”

“Not now, old woman," I tossed over my shoulder coldly. "I need sleep." Funny. You didn‘t seem to need so much a few days ago." I felt the blood drain from my face. I wasn‘t ready for this confrontation. I might never be ready for it. In fact, sleep was the last thing on your mind," he said tightly. He was angry. I could hear it in his voice. What was he angry about? I was the one who‘d been through the emotional wringer. My hands curled into fists, my breathing grew shallow. I trusted him no more today than I had two months ago. "Fucking was all you wanted.”

“I’ll give you until nine P.M. tomorrow to get the bloody hell out of this country and out of my way. The nerve. I’d had to bite my tongue on the juvenile impulse to snap, Or what?—you’re not the boss of me, second only to an even more juvenile impulse to call my mom and wail, Nobody likes me here and I don’t even know why!”

“You were firing questions at me today, trying to get inside my head.You asked if I believed in God.I told you of course I do- I've always had a strong sense of self.Your house is quiet now, you're sleeping upstairs and I'm alone with this blasted, idiotic book that purports to tally the sum of my life, and fact is, maybe I do. But maybe, ka-lyrra, your God doesn't believe in me. -- From The (Greatly Revised) Black Edition Of The O'Callaghan Book of the Sin Siriche Du”