We're gonna be late for English, and I gotta take these pantyhose off on the way. I'm gettin' a serious wedgie.

My mom was there, in some form, in some sense, in some universe. My mom was still my mom, even if she only lived in books and door locks and the smell of fried tomatoes and old paper. She lived.

Are you kidding? I'm supposed to put my books in this filthy tin coffin?

I walked over and picked up one of the jugs. "What's this? Some kind of Caster disinfectant?" Lena took it out of my hand and lined it up with the others. "Yeah, it's called bleach.

Even in the slippery blur of heat and arms and noise, Lena affected everything in her wake, a pull as powerful as the moon to the tides, or the planets to the sun. I was caught in her orbit, even as she pulled away from mine.

Fate decides until challenged by the fated

The toes of our ratty black sneakers touched.