“Don't let the elegance act fool you," Varen said, drawing out his notepad. "She farts.”

“So." [Isobel] cleared her throat. "What are we doing?""We," [Varen] said at last, "are doing a project on Poe.""Didn't he marry his cousin or something?""The man is a literary god and that's all you have to say?”

“Wasn't he the one who sliced off his ear and mailed it to his girlfriend?""Van Gogh," said Varen, in a monotone that suggested he might be in pain."Van Gogh," Gwen said, leaning away, waving the apple. "Edgar Allan Poe. Close enough!”

“Hands quivering, she reached toward him. "Don't." He turned his back to her, facing the door. That word had stopped her once before. But not now. Not now that she had glimpsed through the funeral front of Varen's own eternal Grim Facade. Despite all the dark armor, the kohl eye liner, the black boots and chains, she saw him clearly now. She peered through the curtain of that cruel calmness, through the death stare and the vampire sentiments and angst and, behind it all, had found true beauty.”

“In love. In love with the stoic, the sullen, the eternally morose Varen Nethers?He would never allow it.”

“She looked up from the tag. "Uh, news flash. Your friends hate me.""They don't know you," he said. Opening his door, he climbed out. He turned back, though, and leaned in on the door frame, peering at her. "Besides," he said, "you'd be with me.”

“Isobel looked down at her lap, at her hands. She turned her left one over, remembering where Varen had written his number on her that first time. Those numbers were gone now, but in hindsight, he may as well have tattooed the moment onto her soul.”