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.

I walk through the seasons and always the birds are singing and screaming and keening for love When you're with me it seems so absurd that I should be jealous of the jay and the dove.

When he kissed me, his lips soft and careful, it was all the thrill of our first kiss and all the practiced familiarity of the accumulated memory of all our kisses.

I don't think I ever believed in love, not really. Just though it was something James Bond made up, a long time ago, to get laid.

He'd only been gone two seconds, but the room got brighter when they were together, as if they were two elements that became brilliant in proximity. At Sam's clumsy efforts to carry the vacuum, Grace smiled a new smile that I thought only he ever got, and he shot her a withering look full of the sort of subtext you could only get from a lot of conversations whispered after dark. It made me think of Isabel, back at her house. We didn't have what Sam and Grace had. We weren't even close to having it. I didn't think what we had could get to this, even if you gave it a thousand years.

We don't have time to be sad

Where do you live?" Adam's mouth was very set. "A place made for leaving" "That's not really an answer." "It's not really a place.