“IF her life had taught her anything, it was that you never really knew what people had going on beneath the surface. People were shit. The only difference between them and animals was people felt the need to hide it.”

“Fuck, she was so sick of herself-herself and her fucking emotional retardation. How did people do this shit all the time, this wanting people, caring about them? How did they stand it, how did they ever get anything done? She was sick of being lost.”

“Smart to avoid being with anyone she might actually really feel something for, who might actually really feel something for her. Smart to avoid getting involved with people she knew she could -”

“So don’t go, she wanted to say, but she couldn’t. Not when he looked so happy, so excited about what his future might hold. That was the way normal people felt when they were trying to move up, when they’d found someone to love who loved them back. Not the way Chess felt, like she was trying to stem an arterial bleed with her fingertip.”

“Love was full of secrets. Love masked so many evils. Love controlled people, it liked to them, it made them believe things that weren’t true and it hid the truth from them. People said love was blind, but what they meant was that love blinded them. It made them more vulnerable than anything else could. And it felt so fucking good.”

“She’d fucked him over hardcore. She’d betrayed him and she’d lied to him, and she knew that as far as he was concerned she’d led him on and used him as well, had consorted with people who wanted to see him dead and given them information to help them make him so. Most of all, she’d hurt him. And if the pain in her chest was anything close to what he’d felt, she was more than willing to admit he deserved to get his own back. Was willing to do more than admit it; was willing to take it, in the hopes he’d eventually decide she’d been punished enough and they could maybe move on.”

“How the hell did people do this, this emotion-and-forgiveness thing? How did they stand these feelings? She could barely handle it and she had lovely, necessary, reason-for-living drugs to smooth over the rough spots. How did people do this shit sober?”