He lifted his eyes to the girl. She looked afraid. She always looked afraid, these days. The world was a scary place. She said: "Take me with you." He woke up.

It's rude to stare, but the great thing about staring at a sedated person is that they don't know you're doing it.

Okay, outside," the clerk said. "Conversation outside. Bye! Have a nice night!

She doesn't know any better, what a girl like her needs is a man with both his legs on the land. A man who will hold her down so that she doesn't fly away. She doesn't know yet that someone like you looks better on the shelf than in your hand.

People don't change who they are. They only change what they do with it.

This new world was a vicious, sleek world made of street lights and tight jeans, sharp smiles and fast cars. This was a city, edited. A city, pared down to its bare minimums, beautiful and abusive.

She couldn't make it untrue.