Hours later, Adam propped himself up on an elbow and stared down at Gabrielle, pondering what made beauty. He thought he was beginning to understand. It wasn't symmetry of features; it wasn't perfection. It was uniqueness. That which one person had that no other possessed. That which was only their own.

He didn't just kiss, he claimed ownership. Took her mouth with urgency, as if his life depended on his kissing her.

It began as most thing begin. Not on a dark and stormy night. Not foreshadowed by ominous here comes the villain music, dire warning at the bottom of a teacup, or dread portents in the sky. It began small and innocuously, as most catastrophes do. A butterfly flaps its wings somewhere and the wind changes, and a warm front hits a cold front off the coast of western Africa and before you know it you’ve got an hurricane closing in. By the time anyone figured out the storm was coming, it was too late to do anything but batten down the hatches and exercise damage control.

They loved so intensely that moments of their life have been etched into the very fabric of the mansion. Some say the king designed it that way, so if one day he lost her he could come live with her residue.

Keep hoping to see the light in her eyes. Even knowing it'll mean she's saying good-bye.

Oh ye of little faith. Not for IYD... But you didn't even try.

Every time I think I’m getting smarter I realize that I’ve just done something stupid. Dad says there are three kinds of people in the world: those who don’t know, and don’t know they don’t know; those who don’t know and do know they don’t know; and those who know and know how much they still don’t know. Heavy stuff, I know. I think I’ve finally graduated from the don’t-knows that don’t know to the don’t-knows that do.