Being a parent wasn't just about bearing a child. It was about bearing witness to its life.

Me, I was already jaded and tarnished, skeptical that a fantasy world could keep reality at bay.

You saved me," I said. Nathaniel put his hands on either side of my face. "I had to," he said. "So you could save me back.

The thing that most people didn't understand, if they weren't in his line if work, was that a rape victim and a victim of a fatal accident were both gone forever. The difference was that the rape victim still had to go through the motions of being alive.

If he says jump, she doesn't even ask "How high?" She goes out and buys a pogo stick.

Life was all about being in a certain place, at a certain time.

The only monsters I have ever known were men.