“B4 U,my life ws lyk a moonless night.Very dark, but der wer stars,points of light & reason.And den you shotacross my sky like a meteor.Suddenly everythng ws on fire;ter wsbrilliancy,der ws beauty.Wen u wer gone,wen d meteor hadfallen over d horizon,everythng went black.Nothing had changed,butmy eyes wer blinded by d light I cudn’t c d stars anymore & ter was no more reason, for anything.”

“Before you, Bella, my life was like a moonless night. Very dark, but there were stars, points of light and reason. ...And then you shot across my sky like a meteor. Suddenly everything was on fire; there was brilliancy, there was beauty. When you were gone, when the meteor had fallen over the horizon, everything went black. Nothing had changed, but my eyes were blinded by the light. I couldn’t see the stars anymore. And there was no more reason, for anything.”

“I most be upfront wif u, God said dis month, He will update u, upgrade u, uphold u wen eva u are uptight, see to ur upkeep, uplift u wen u are upset, uproot every upheavel in ur life and d upshot of it all will amazed ur foes.”

“Detective Ramos confided in me, 'If something happens to you on my watch my ass is O-U-T.' 'How do you think I’d feel? D-E-A-D.”

“I am D U N: done!”

“Nothing‟s going to change, Jamie had said that day, but I‟d known even then this wasn‟t true. My mother had always been the point that I calibrated myself against. In knowing where she was, I could always locate myself, as well. These months she‟d been gone, I felt like I‟d been floating, loose and boundaryless, but now that I knew where she was, I kept waiting for a kind of certainty to kick in. It didn‟t. Instead, I was more unsure than ever, stuck between this new life and the one I‟d left behind”