“Why the hell was she smiling like that?...Her mouth was blown so wide that the soft insides showed at the corners, like another grin was building in there. As if her laughter tumbled. Like joy was a living thing.”

“She needed facts. Facts were bricks. Maybe she could build herself a wall with them, too, one tall and wide and strong enough to keep her alive when he was gone.”

“...a companion had seemed unnecessary fuel when her body still burned at the core, waiting to ignite. But now, with the wind blowing icicles through her [Kit] veins, it felt like she, too, was in the grave. All her nuclear energy had been snuffed like a match between the night's icy fingers.”

“Now her life was under attack, and she [Kit] was shocked to find how fragile everything she'd built really was. She was dumbfounded, too to find that while people were being ripped from her life like paper dolls from a chain, she longed to be the one who'd be gone first.”

“All right," Marcus said, like he was doing me a grave favor. "But take it slow, sister. Any sudden moves and we'll drop you like a used-up ho on the corner of Fifth and Bridger.”

“The kiss was like swollen storm clouds ready to erupt, and when he moaned into my mouth, it was dewy and thunderous and zinging with ozone.”

“But no life was without it's strain & strife, not if it was fully lived. Opening up to experience, even the good ones like trust & love, was to open yourself up to the pain. I suppose the key was to not compound matters by making the rest of it unnecessarily hard. My need for control had certainly done that in the past. So I made a promise to myself in that moment. I would make a concerted effort to reach for what was soft & good in this world. I'd find a place to settle into, and hold still so that this world's good and soft could reach back & touch me as well.”