Are you stalking me, Mr. Fulton?" The idea both amused and horrified Jazz.

Love makes you weak. This I know for sure. Mom loved Roger. Roger loved Mom.And look what happpened there. She died. She thought her love made her strong. She kept telling me-after she was diagnosed-she ket telling me, "I'm going to beat this Kyra. I'm going to come out of it. I love you and I love your father and that love is my strength. You're my strength.

[She] was made up of skin and bones and hate and crazy, and hate and crazy don't weigh anything.

Anger and hatred, when left unfed, bleed away like air from a punctured tire, over time and days and years. Forgiveness is stealth.

One time you told me that the opposite of love isn't hate. And I didn't understand that, but I think I do know. Because if you hate someone, you most still care, right? You have to care a little bit; otherwise you would just ignore them and forget they even live. Or lived.

Yes, pain meant life. But the symmetric property did not apply; Life did not mean pain.

He moved to run a hand through her cornrows, then pulled back remembering the one time he's tried that-Connie had lectured him on the Eleventh Commandment: Thou shalt not touch thy black girlfriend's hair. Ever.