It was exactly what I wanted-beautiful distraction.

She attempted to turn again; I held on. I wasn't holding tight enough to keep her, but she wasn't pulling hard enough to get away.

Are you alone?" So that's what this call was about. For some reason, the question made my throat tighten. "No," I said, "Elvis is here. Would you like to talk to him?

They were always walking away from him. But he never seemed able to walk away from them.

Isabel had gone silent in a way that shouted the silence to me.

His lips tasted cool and sharp, peppermint, winter, but his hands, soft on the back of my neck, promised long days and summer and forever.

Did no one tell him that pain lives in this sand, dug in and watered with our blood?