“There was a metal rod inside of Colin. The rod went from his stomach to the middle of his head. It was made of steel and sugar, and had been dissolving inside of Colin for ten or fifteen years, slow and sweet, above and behind his tongue; and he could taste it in that way, like an aftertaste, removed and seeping and outside of the mouth. Sometimes he’d glimpse it with the black, numb backs of his eyes. But what he really wanted was to wrench it out. Cut it up and chew it. Or melt it. Bathe in the hard, sweet lava of it.”

“And there, surrounded by death above and below, he sticks his tongue out and tastes the sweetness of life.”

“It is blissfully silent as Matt flutters his hands across my stomach and up the insides of my thigs, making me shiver. He smells like Downy fabric softener and sometimes tastes like it too....He smells like clean comfort and tastes like flowers, mint and salt. His arms are hard, his hips and thighs are solod with muscle, mouth hot, tongue alive, and all I want is wanting when we are in the darnkess in the L.”

“Colin emphatically pushed the book cover shut when he finished reading. "Did you like it?" His dad asked."Yup," Colin said. He liked all books, because he liked the mere act of reading, the magic of turning scratches on a page into words inside his head.”

“She could not make up her mind what would be inside his head and what out. She thought of her own head as a switchbox where she controlled from; but with him, she could only imagine the outside in, the whole black world in his head and his head bigger than the world, his head big enough to include the sky and planets and whatever was or had been or would be.”

“colin was certain he would feel better once he had gotten some sleep. At one o-clock in the morning he was wishing he could close his eyes and die. By 3 oclock, he thought he had. Colin sprawled out on the bed, face down, with his arms spread wide. Oh yes, death would have been a treat.”