She’s never where she is,' I said. 'She’s only inside her head.

One can bear anything. The pain we cannot bear will kill us outright.

So much wanting and longing, clutching, desiring, passion and hatred and terrible need. Here, death was suitable, there was room for it, the grip of life's relentless urges slackened, replaced by this icy simplicity. This wasnt her death. It was his. That was the sad and honest truth. Though it would stay with her, it would be more like a black onyx heart on a silver chain, worn privately, under her clothes, close to her body, all her life. The guilt, the beauty, everything. It wasnt over, it had only begun. Well ok then, Okay.

I was tired of men. Hanging in doorways, standing too close, men who made you love them then changed their minds.

Panic was the worst thing. When you panicked, you couldn't see possibilities. Then came despair.

After all the fears, the warnings, after all, a woman's mistakes are different from a girl's. They are written by fire on stone. They are a trait and not an error.

The word rattled in my head like rocks in an oatmeal box.