I love you, you see...and I fear I have no way to say or show it that isn't terrible, except coming here. I would kill everyone in the world for you, if you wanted.......Or not obviously

His words were still clear in her mind from that first meeting. "Whoever eats this will love you." She looked into the mirror, at her birthmark, bright as blood, at her kiss-stung lips, at the absurd smile stretching across her face. Carefully separating out the crushed pieces of shell, she pulled the dried pulp free from its cage of veins. Piece by piece, she put the sweet brown fruit in her own mouth and swallowed it down.

Little mouse," a voice said through the keyhole. "Don't you know the more you wriggle, the greater the cat's delight?

On the way out to the car, Philip turns to me. “How could you be so stupid? I shrug, stung in spite of myself. “I thought I grew out of it.” Philip pulls out his key fob and presses the remote to unlock his Mercedes. I slide into the passenger side, brushing coffee cups off the seat and onto the floor mat, where crumpled printouts from MapQuest soak up any spilled liquid. “I hope you mean sleepwalking,” Philip says, “since you obviously didn’t grow out of stupid.

I thought of how proud he was when he took the marks- cutting the skin of his throat in a long slash and then packing it with ashes until keloid scars rose up. He called it his second smile.

Flattery will get you everywhere," Sam says, "Except, apparently, off a roof.

Nobody ever really sees me the way I am, underneath everything. But she did. She does.