I felt like a car that had only been operated by one driver… a car its new prospective buyer was determined to take to the Daytona 500.

When I thought of Eric with someone else, I wanted to rip out all his beautiful blonde hair. By the roots. In clumps.

The night swelled with magic; not the beneficent kind of love-magic that sweeps couples away, but the kind of magic that rips and tears, the enchantment that creeps out of the woods and pounces.

The sweetest part of being a couple is sharing your life with someone else. But my life, evidently, had not been good enough to share.

Eric followed Vlad Tepes’s stubby finger, identifying me as the future Happy Meal. Then he stared at Dracula, looking up from his kneeling position. I couldn’t read his face at all, and I felt a stirring of fear. What would Charlie Brown have done if the Great Pumpkin wanted to eat the little red-haired girl?

I could just envision Sam imagining that I wanted him to go out to the lake with me, only to be confronted by Jannalynn and whatever she thought of as a romantic dinner -- live rabbits they could chase together, maybe.

It wasn't enough to be kidnapped, I had to be insulted too.