“Mom was silent for a moment. “I’m sorry, Melissa, but can you blame me for worrying? In less than an hour I found out you’re being stalked by a killer, sleeping with a stranger, and hiding with him in an empty apartment. You have to admit that sounds…unsettling.”

“Can you meet me?" "Sure I can. What else are friends for but swooping in to the rescue when their girlfriends are are being stalked by creepy strangers?”

“Well, then I’m going to have to kick your ass. No one gets to punish you. Enough of this shit, Kyle. You’re more than this. You know better than this. Yes, Mom left. But Dad stayed. I stayed. You’re more than enough for us. This is our family. You don’t get to throw away your life. I’m sorry, but you don’t. This is self-serving bullshit.”

“You worry about hurting me, but you never seem to worry about me hurting you. And I’m the one with the killer touch.”

“We're strangers, we're not friends. I hate this, and I hate them.And I found out that you're angry, and you're sorry you ever met me”

“It’s one of those unpleasant opioid feverish half-sleep states, more a fugue-state than a sleep-state, less a floating than like being cast adrift on rough seas, tossed mightily in and out of this half-sleep where your mind’sstill working and you can ask yourself whether you’re asleep even as you dream. And any dreams you do have seem ragged at the edges, gnawed on, incomplete.”