“It was strange. That little zing that went through me when she looked up with those big green eyes. It was at that moment I wondered why girls ever needed me - The Hook-up Doctor, I mean. If they had all the power she had in those eyes, they could have anything they wanted.”

“But those eyes, those big green eyes of hers, they bore right into me with crippling force. She wanted it too much; the space Tommy had left in her, she wanted me to fill it. And I couldn't. She looked too young and too scared. almost like she didn't really want it either, she just needed it. I couldn't stick it in and fuck her pain away. I did not know how to fuck at all, let alone as therapy.”

“She looked up and ran her eyes over me,slowly, while I stood and wondered why. Had she forgotten what I looked like? But she finished with a big smile. She really did like me, the idiot.”

“You saw me before I saw you. In the airport, that day in August, you had that look in your eyes, as though you wanted something from me, as though you’d wanted it for a long time. No one had ever looked at me like that before, with that kind of intensity. It unsettled me, surprised me, I guess. Those blue, blue eyes, icy blue, looking back at me as if I could warm them up. They’re pretty powerful, you know, those eyes, pretty beautiful, too.”

“Have you ever been anyone's?""No. And you?""I've never wanted to.""Neither have I. Until I saw this lovely girl in Seattle, with big gold eyes, and pink, full lips... and I wondered if she could understand me...”

“That meant I could come back whenever I could manage it. And she was telling me to go. She knew the decision was too big a load for me to carry by myself. She knew me through and through. She had eyes in the back of her heart.”