I slithered out of the sinkhole on my stomach. It was not the sexiest move I'd ever performed, but I was impressed nonetheless.

I slowly climbed back to my feet, walked back into the emergency department through the silently swishing glass doors, and, covered in my girlfriend's blood, lied perfectly for the first time in my life. "I tried to stop her.

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.

It was a strangely disorienting feeling, to have something you'd relied on for so long start to change, like finding out that gravity no longer worked on Mondays.

I had risked everything, and I had nothing to show for it but my open hand, lying empty and palm up toward the ceiling.

Maura whirled towards Blue. "Blue, if you ever see that man again, you just walk the other way." "No," Calla corrected. "Kick him in the nuts. Then run the other way.

I was suddenly overwhelmed by what an incredible person this boy was, standing in front of me, and by the fact that he was mine and I was his.