“I hate skin; I hate bones and bodies. I want to curl up inside of him and be carried there forever.”

“i press my hands against his chest, wishing i could somehow be even closer to him. i hate skin; i hate bones and bodies. i want to curl up inside of him and be carried there forever.”

“I said that without love, there could also be no hate: without hate, no violence. Hate isn't the most dangerous thing, he'd said. Indifference is.”

“This is a monster-story, and he has come back to me a terror-creation, patched together, broken and hateful, and I will wake up and he will be here, and whole and mine again.”

“It's so strange how life works: You want something and you wait and wait and feel like it's taking forever to come. Then it happens and it's over and all you want to do is curl back up in that moment before things changed.”

“What does it feel like to be infected?""I-- I can't describe it." I force the words out. Can't breathe, can't breathe, can't breathe. His skin smells like smoke from a wood fire, like soap, like heaven. I imagine tasting his skin; I imagine biting his lips. "I want to know." His words are a whisper, barely audible. "I want to know with you.”

“An itchy feeling began to work its way through my body, as though a thousand mosquitoes were circulating through my blood, biting me from the inside, making me want to scream, jump, squirm. I ran.”