I feel an unfamiliar but pleasant sensation in my lips, tugging them upward. This is... new.

It's a strange feeling, being so utterly surrounded by her. Her life scent is on everything. She's on me and under me and next to me. It's as if the entire room is made out of her.

I think we crushed ourselves down over the centuries. Buried ourselves under greed and hate and whatever other sins we could find until our souls finally hit the rock bottom of the universe. And then they scraped a hole through it, into some ... darker place.

I hate that she's hurt. I hate that she's been hurt, by me and by others, throughout the entire arc of her life. I barely remember pain, but when I see it in her I feel it in myself, in disproportionate measure. it creeps into my eyes, stinging, burning.

Came to . . . see you.” “But I had to go home, remember? You were supposed to say good-bye.” “Don't know why you . . . say good-bye. I say . . . hello.” Her lip quivers between reactions, but she ends up with a reluctant smile. “God you're a cheeseball. But seriously, R—

The sports arena Julie calls home is unaccountably large, perhaps one of those dual-event 'super venues' built for an era when the greatest quandary facing the world was where to put all the parties.

I wish people were willing to dig a little deeper than the surface elements of a premise before tossing one story in with another.