He looks tired, like someone walked on his skin and left footprints.

The sky was electric blue above the trees but the yard felt dark. Stephanie went to the edge of the lawn and sat her forehead on her knees. The grass and soil were still warm from the day. She wanted to cry but she couldn't. The feeling was too deep.

I’m like America ” he said. Stephanie swung around to look at him unnerved. “What are you talking about ” she said. “Are you off your meds ” “Our hands are dirty ” Jules said.

Reading is the nourishment that lets you do interesting work.

some mornings... I sit at the kitchen table shaking salt into the hairs on my arm, and a feeling shoves up in me: it's finished. Everything went past without me.

I'm a dogged person. I respond to adversity with a steely resistance.

She'd risked everything, and here was the result: the raw, warped core of her life.