“Didn’t he have to admit, begrudgingly, that in some extra-perverse corner of his brain the idea of having to be out of town before sundown appealed to him? New Orleans had been the only constant thing in his life. But didn’t he yet an itchy foot sometimes, didn’t he sometimes think about just throwing all his stuff in his car and going?Of course he did. Everybody did, even normal people, the ones with triple mortgages and orthodontists’ bills and responsibilities to everything except what they really wanted.”

“That girl had ruined his life. He had fallen in love with her fast and hard. Stella had stormed into his perfectly normal life and scrambled it until he didn’t know what was worth fighting for anymore. All his dreams and ambitions featured her now. Every time he imagined his future life, he saw her in it, and every time that happened he had to remind himself that she didn’t want to be imagined there. She didn’t want him, not for the long run.When in fact, Stella was all he wanted.”

“That had been her plan, he decided. The devious witch. She’d planted the seed in his brain, stirred up his loins, as he was only a man, after all, and now she could torment him just by being in the same vicinity.Well, two could play this game.Rather than waiting for Darcy to pick up the orders, he carried them out himself. Just to show Brenna O’Toole that she didn’t trouble him in the least.The perverse creature didn’t even glance his way as he swung into the pub and wound his way through the crowd to the tables.”

“He was serious. He didn’t want her to hold him close. He didn’t want to pretend she was his mother. He didn’t want to imagine going home in her car to pet her black labs. He didn’t want to dream about sitting down to a home-cooked spaghetti dinner at her kitchen table with her family. Those things would never be his. He watched her eyes switch from hazel to green.”

“One evening Milarepa returned to his cave after gathering firewood, only to find it filled with demons. They were cooking his food, reading his books, sleeping in his bed. They had taken over the joint. He knew about nonduality of self and other, but he still didn’t quite know how to get these guys out of his cave. Even though he had the sense that they were just a projection of his own mind—all the unwanted parts of himself—he didn’t know how to get rid of them. So first he taught them the dharma. He sat on this seat that was higher than they were and said things to them about how we are all one. He talked about compassion and shunyata and how poison is medicine. Nothing happened. The demons were still there. Then he lost his patience and got angry and ran at them. They just laughed at him. Finally, he gave up and just sat down on the floor, saying, “I’m not going away and it looks like you’re not either, so let’s just live here together.” At that point, all of them left except one. Milarepa said, “Oh, this one is particularly vicious.” (We all know that one. Sometimes we have lots of them like that. Sometimes we feel that’s all we’ve got.) He didn’t know what to do, so he surrendered himself even further. He walked over and put himself right into the mouth of the demon and said, “Just eat me up if you want to.” Then that demon left too.”

“But he didn’t know the half of it. That it wasn’t just his refusal that had haunted her. It was him. Everything about him.”