“My life," she said dramatically, with her eyes closed, "is one heaping bowl of warmed-over despair, seasoned with equal dashes of aggravation and angst!”

“She looked up from closing it to find Jace watching her through hooded eyes. “And one last thing,” he said. He reached over and pulled the sparking pins out of her hair, so that it fell in warm heavy curls down her neck. The sensation of hair tickling her bare skin was unfamiliar and oddly pleasant. “Much better,” he said, and she thought this time that maybe his voice was uneven too.”

“When she told a story, she rolled her eyes and waved her head and was very dramatic.”

“And in the depth of her eyes were all these years—seasons they’d known, paths they’d trod.Slowly he entered her again. Everything reflected in her gaze: shyness, yearning, ripples of pleasure.The pleasure turned fierce, then ferocious. He labored to draw breath. In the wash of her climax, she closed her eyes. He closed his own eyes and yielded to the moment.”

“We stood up and bade each other farewell, but love and despair stood between us like two ghosts, one stretching his wings with his fingers over our throats, one weeping and the other laughing hideously.As I took Selma's hand and put it to my lips, she came close to me and placed a kiss on my forehead, then dropped on the wooden bench. She shut her eyes and whispered softly, "Oh, Lord God, have mercy on me and mend my broken wings!”

“We will be one step down from the Creator," she said, her olive-hued face tightening into an expression that she considered dramatic. "Imagining a world and then making it.”