He was full of the restless, dissatisfied energy that always seemed to move into his heart after he visited home these days. It had something to do with the knowledge that his parents’ house wasn’t truly home anymore — if it had ever been — and something to do with the realization that they hadn’t changed; he had.

I could have screamed, but I didn’t. I could have fought, but I didn’t. I just lay there and let it happen, watching the winter-white sky go gray above me.

I leaned across the table towards the crumb-thrower. "Do that again," I said, loud enough to be heard over the opera singer, Dolly, my mother, and the smell of the breadsticks, "and I will sell your firstborn child to the devil.

Sorry for hurting you, she said right in my ear, but it wasn't really an apology, because you don't bite someone's earlobe to tell them you're sorry.

I would say that by virtue of your not acting parental up to this point, you've relinquished your ability to wield any power now. Sam and I are together. It's not an option.

It's for personal reasons," I say stiffly, which is what my mother had always told me to say about things that had to do with fighting with your brothers, getting any sort of illness that had intestinal ramifications, starting your period, and money.

He danced on the knife’s edge between awareness and sleep. When he dreamt like this, he was a king. The world was his to bend. His to burn.