Every third step I ran, my breath exploded out of me all in a rush. One step to suck in another cold lungful. One step to let it excape. One step of not breathing.

You made this?' Finn looks at me. 'No, Saint Anthony brought it to me in the night. He was very put out I didn't give it to you right then.

I wasn’t sure what expression I was expecting her to wear when she saw that it was me. I’d braced myself for disgust or anger. But she just looked at me like I was — nothing. An annoyance, maybe.

She screamed, the high scream that was neither human nor animal but something terrible in between, the sort of sound that you never forget no matter how many beautiful things you hear afterward.

That was pretty much all you needed to know about Cole, right there. He saw something he didn't quite understand, liked it, and took it to be his.

Afterward, Isabel drove me home and I shut myself in the study with Rilke, and I read and I wanted. And leaving you (there arent words to untangle it) Your life, fearful and immense and blossoming, So that, sometimes frustrated, and sometimes understanding Your life is sometimes a stone in you, and then, a star I was beginning to undertand poetry.

You're not that girl,' Cole said, sounding tired. 'Trust me, I've seen enough of them to know. Look. Don't cry. You're not that girl either.' 'Oh yeah? What girl am I?' 'I'll let you know when I figure it out. Just don't cry.