“...she lost twenty minutes sitting on the floor with her arms wrapped around her knees, smiling into the pretty glow and imagining herself a contented farmer's wife waiting for her man to come in from the fields.”

“He moved around the wide counter, silent as always. She was sitting on the floor, her arms wrapped around her knees, her fist in her mouth to try to quiet her sobs, and he realized he hadn’t actually seen her cry before. [..]She must have felt his eyes on her, for she suddenly swallowed her sob on a choked gasp and looked up at him, her huge, sorrow-filled eyes a sharper pain than the knife slash.He moved slow enough, so as not to spook her, to give her plenty of time to move, but she stayed where she was, her huge eyes looking into his, and she fucking broke his heart, if he still possessed such a useless organ.”

“He turned her in his arms and kissed her. His hands were full of woman as she wrapped herself around his body so tight they were melded together from shoulders to hip. But her kisses…they stole his breath with their hunger for him.”

“She was afraid, but she couldn't just sit around waiting for someone to save her. She had to try to save herself, try to figure it out.”

“She laughs and looks out the window and I think for a minute that she's going to start to cry. I'm standing by the door and I look over at the Elvis Costello poster, at his eyes, watching her, watching us, and I try to get her away from it, so I tell her to come over here, sit down, and she thinks I want to hug her or something and she comes over to me and puts her arms around my back and says something like 'I think we've all lost some sort of feeling.”

“Alexander tilted his head and kissed her deeply on the lips. He let go of her hands, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing herself against him. They kissed as if in a fever... they kissed as if the breath were leaving their bodies.”