“So why are you telling me?""Well, for one thing, because I expect that Carnac will try to find some way to mention it, and if I hadn't told you first, you'd be thoroughly pissed off about it when he did."Warrick said nothing. Well, it had been a fifty-fifty bet which way round would prove more hassle in the end."Warrick, if there'd been another way—""No, no. I understand. I was merely contemplating the fact that informing me that you had sex with someone else last night—after drugging him—falls under the heading of your being unusually considerate.”

“I never trusted any man not to find someone else; to stay with me if he had another option. to not find something in me that would have him heading for the hills. that was the other reason for not thinking long-term- when someone walked out, as they invairiably did, it wasn't too big a shock. a disappointment but nothing, I hadn't been expecting.”

“We'd already talked in the stacks, and I knew you were different from any other girl I'd met. And you told me that your parents were dead, and I thought that you were so . . . lost and vulnerable. So when I saw you in the physics lab . . . and I saw you try and take care of someone that you thought who had been through what you'd been through; could be that . . . well, generous, and thoughtfull . . ." Guy said."But you hardly knew me." said Willow"I know . . . I didn't know that we'd even talk again, or that if we did, if we'd get along, or maybe you were seeing someone else . . . I just knew that the way you tried to protect someone's life that, especially given your situation . . . I just . . . I though that you had to be the most special girl I would ever meet . . .”

“I’m sorry, Abby. I panicked.”I shook my head. “I’m just glad you’re okay.”“Me? I would have been better off dead if Travis had seen me come out of that building without you. I tried to find you after you ran off, but then I got lost and had to find another way. I walked along the building looking for that window, but I ran into some cops and they made me leave. I’ve been flippin’ the fuck OUT over here!” he said, running his hand over his short hair.”

“How would you like it if I said to you, 'It kills me to say this, but you're actually a tiny bit beautiful?" he had asked, pissed off. She hadn't said anything then, which was rare for her. "Would you have been lying?" She said after a long silence. "Lying about what?" More quiet. "About me being a tiny bit beautiful.""Shit, yeah."-But later that night, he had sent her a message on MSN. Of course I was lying. The "tiny" bit part, anyway.”

“The pause was to Elizabeth's feelings dreadful. At length, with a voice of forced calmness, he said: "And this is all the reply which I am to have the honour of expecting! I might, perhaps, wish to be informed why, with so little endeavour at civility, I am thus rejected. But it is of small importance.""I might as well inquire," replied she, "why with so evident a desire of offending and insulting me, you chose to tell me that you liked me against your will, against your reason, and even against your character? Was not this some excuse for incivility, if I was uncivil? But I have other provocations. You know I have. Had not my feelings decided against you— had they been indifferent, or had they even been favourable, do you think that any consideration would tempt me to accept the man who has been the means of ruining, perhaps for ever, the happiness of a most beloved sister?”