“There is always that fine line between doing what we want and doing what we're told.”

“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?”

“Can I tell you something?" He tilted his head, moving in closer still, so close that she could feel his breath against her cheek. "Do you want to know what my grandma used to say about kisses on the forehead?"He pressed his lips to her brow, holding the silk soft kiss for a long moment while Isobel stood in place, unable to bring herself to shove him away."She told me it’s the kind of kiss we save for the dead.”

“But, Isobel thought with a bleak and sad smile, what better place to bury what was dead than in a cemetery?”

“I told you you’d come," said a nearby voice, one Isobel knew well. "You said you would."(…)"You shouldn’t have, though," he said, and looked up, his face twisted with anger. "Even if we knew you would, you shouldn’t have." He got up and began moving toward her."Why," he growled, "when we will only show you we are not worth it? Why, when we have no other choice but to prove to you we’re not worth it?”

“Please," she murmured at her burger, her voice no more than a squeaky whisper, "Don't do this.”

“This should make him happy. This should change him. But it doesn't. It can't. He's been changed already. And I don't know what to write anymore, because I'm afraid of what it will be. Because I can't think, and she asks me to write, but I won't know what to write. I can't think. I can't think. Isobel. Isobel. Isobel.”