“Todd!” she says again but this time in a way that asks me to look at her and I do and she stops Angharrad at the edge of the square and she’s looking at me, looking right into my eyes–And I read her–And I know exactly what she’s thinking–And my Noise and my heart and my head fill up fit to burst, fill up like I’m gonna explode–Cuz she’s saying–She’s saying with her eyes and her face and her whole self–“I know,” I say back to her, my voice husky. “Me, too.”And then I turn to the Mayor and I’m filled with her, with her love for me and my love for her–And it makes me big as an effing mountain–And I take it and I slam all of it into the Mayor–”

“I study her,” Patch said. “I figure out what she’s thinking and feeling. She’s not going to come right out and tell me, which is why I have to pay attention. Does she turn her body toward mine? Does she hold my eyes, then look away? Does she bite her lip and play with her hair, the way Nora is doing right now?” Laughter rose in the room. I dropped my hands to my lap. “She’s game,” said Patch, bumping my leg again.Of all things, I blushed.”

“Shy, she’s yours, that’s what you say. Control your woman,” High demanded. “Get her ass out.”My eyes went to Shy to see him looking at High, and he wasn’t looking pissed. He was looking reflective. Then he said, “Tab and I don’t play it that way. You wanna order your old lady around, do what you do, not for me to say. I asked her to go, she didn’t go. Not gonna make her. But you try, you’ll deal with me.”God, I loved my guy.”

“I am as wrapped up in her as a vine that clings to a tree seeking for sustenance. She’s tied me to her for eternity. She’s my home. She’s my reason for being. To win and hold her heart is my only purpose.”

“I can read it.I can read her.Cuz she’s thinking about how her own parents also came here with hope like my ma. She’s wondering if the hope at the end of our hope is just as false as the one that was at the end of my ma’s. And she;s taking the words of my ma and putting them into the mouths of her own ma and pa and hearing them say that they love her and they miss her and they wish her the world. And she’s taking the song of my pa and she’s weaving it into everything else till it becomes a sad thing all her own.And it hurts her, but it’s an okay hurt, but it hurts still, but it’s good, but it hurts.She hurts.I know all this.I know it’s true.Cuz I can read her.I can read her Noise even tho she ain’t got none.I know who she is.I know Viola Eade.”

“How are you?” Charlie asks. She’s turned to me wearing this grave expression, her features all set in a row. I expected her to be pissy about my being nonresponsive all weekend, or at least about my being late this morning, but if she is, she’s not acting like it.“Um, fine. Are we going?”Charlie glances back at Olivia.“He’s an asshole,” Olivia says.“She’s a bitch,” Charlie says.”