Once upon a time, this moment - this last light of the evening the day before the race - was the best moment of the year for me. The anticipation of the game to come. But that was when all I had to lose was my life.

More than anything, the journal wanted. It wanted more than it could hold, more than words could describe, more than diagrams could illustrate. Longing burst from the pages, in every frantic line and every hectic sketch and every dark-printed definition. There was something pained and melancholy about it.

I wasn’t sure which of us was being more selfish—her, for wanting something that no one could promise, or me, for not promising her something that was too painfully impossible to want.

She leaned toward me, offering her neck, and I kissed her just behind her ear.

His wife's a brand of Christian that forbids a gathering that involves young women dancing in the streets but not races where men die

His mother had told him that when you looked into the eyes of God at the pearly gates, all the questions you ever had were answered. Ronan had a lot of questions. Waking Glendower might be like that. Fewer angels attending, and maybe a heavier Welsh accent. Slightly less judgment.

Knowing what I was, and wanting me, anyway.