“..."There’s really no way I can explain it to her without *still* sounding like scum," I complained to Sinter."The 'sympathy shack-up' doesn’t score many points," he agreed.*”

“She doesn’t complain about anything I do; she is physically unable to. That’s because I fixed her early. I told her in heartfelt tones that one of the reasons I love her is because she never complains. So now of course she doesn’t dare complain.”

“There are little pockets of old time in London, where things and places stay the same, like bubbles in amber,” she explained. “There’s a lot of time in London, and it has to go somewhere—it doesn’t all get used up at once.” “I may still be hung over,” sighed Richard. “That almost made sense.”

“I want to explain everything to him, show him that it’s really not as screwed up as it all sounds, but then I remember that it is.”

“I wished I could have made him stay, to explain that I wanted things between us to be good, not so that he'd defend me better but, if I can put it this way, good in a natural way. Mostly, I could tell, I made him feel uncomfortable. He didn't understand me, and he was sort of holding it against me. I felt the urge to reassure him that I was like everybody else, just like everybody else. But really there wasn't much point, and I gave up the idea out of laziness.”

“And I still love you in my own fucked-up way. I miss you, I really do. Can we still be friends?”