Chin held high, Miss Ohio beamed at an imagined crowd. "I want to be a motivational speaker." "What are you going to motivate people to do?" Smile still in place, she cut her eyes at Adina. "You know. Motivational ... stuff.

No, I call. Come back. I'm here, he says. But I can't see. It's too bright. You can't hold back the light, Gemma. I'm here. Trust me.

God doesn't like lesbians," Grandma Huberman hised, throwing the magazine in the trash. Jennifer knew what lesbian meant, and she knew she probably was one. But she couldn't understand why God would hold that against her or against Monica Mathers, who'd never started a war or killed anybody, and whose deadeye three-pointers were straight-up amazing. After all, hadn't God made both of them? But people were like that, she'd noticed. They'd invoke Godly privilege at the weirdest of times and for the most stupid reasons.

Did you hear? You are free." Yessss. Choice. It is a fine thing. And I choose to take you back, Most High.

In each of us lie good and bad, light and dark, art and pain, choice and regret, cruelty and sacrifice... No one can live in the light all the time.

And when it comes, her kiss is like something not so much felt as found.

Really, being a librarian is a much more dangerous job than you realize.