“Okay. Enough." I got out of the closet, brushing myself off, then turned around to face her. "This is happening. So you need to go downstairs, face your fears, and make the best of it, and everything will be okay."She narrowed her eyes at me. "When did you suddenly become so positive?""Just get out of there.”

“Four years of sitting in your room reading, and now you're out here with the common folk," I say. "What did inspire you to suddenly make the trip?""I would have come sooner," she says, brushing her hair out of her face. "You just never invited me.”

“Okay. But I'm just going to be out there - having a tea party with her cats or whatever it is she has in mind. You need me? You yell. You want to leave? We go. I'll get you out of here, no matter what.”

“No, Nathan, no." She wrapped his face in her hands. "I just need you--all of you--so much that I'm going crazy. I need your laugh. I need your company. I need you to sleep beside me and I need you to wake when I wake. I need you with everything in me.”

“She looked so happy, so content, so beautiful. Her long brown curls swept around her face at every turn. I loved the way she would always get a strand of hair caught just over her nose so she would have to brush it away with her fingers.”

“That is not my car!”“Correction. You used to drive a falling apart Toyota. B.A.”Had his lips just brushed her hair? She shivered. And though she knew better than to ask, she did it anyway.“Okay. You got me. What’s B.A.?”“Before. Adam. After Adam, you drive a BMW. I take care of what is mine. That Toyota wasn’t safe.”Figured that arrogant beast would define himself as the dawning of an epoch.“I’m not yours. It was too, and you can’t just go around stealing.”“I didn’t, and I filled out the paperwork myself.”