Even though she had been warned, she tripped over the bike. She probably tripped because she'd been warned and was telling herself not to trip over the bike. She did that sometimes. It was often easier not to know what obstacles were in the way.

I looked at the stained-glass image of the lamb in the window above me, but that only reminded me that lambs are famous for being led to slaughter, or sometimes hanging out with lions in ill-advised relationships.

I still have a whopping bad case of what you call scag magnetism. I thought i had gotten rid of it there, but it looks like scary guys still materialize from thin air in my presence. They are drawn to me. I am the North Pole, and they are the explorers of love.

Salt. Wound. Together at last.

You can never visit the same place twice. Each time, it's a different story. By the very act of coming back, you wipe out what came before.

I remember how, at first, I had felt the tension in his lips, as if he was trying to make a barrier between us - then they had relaxed, parted slightly. And that's when I had known he wanted to kiss me, wanted to give in. That little parting of the lips, the little sigh that came out... I would hear that sigh forever. That little, little sound when the whole world seemed to open up.

I could envision it all to clearly: Stuart or Debbie finding the dented door off its hinges, lying in the snow. "She came in, ravaged the boy, stole plastic bags, and ripped off the door in her escape," the police would say in the APB. "Probably making her way to bust her parents out of jail.