Courage, Alexander..... Courage, Tatiana

He came over in long pur­pose­ful strides, sat at the edge of her bed, and in a ten­der, pos­ses­sive ges­ture wiped the lip­stick off her lips. “What is that?” he asked. “All the other girls wear it,” Ta­tiana said, quickly wip­ing her mouth, breath­less at the sight of him. “In­clud­ing Dasha.” “Well, I don’t want you to have any­thing on your lovely face,” he said, stroking her cheeks. “God knows, you don’t need it.

This is days and days and months and years and all the minutes in between, just you me.

....and when Tatiana lifted her glistening eyes to him, Alexander was looking down at her with his I’ll-get-on-the-bus-for-you-anytime face.

Tatiana, I love you. Do you hear me? I love you like I’ve never loved anyone in my whole life. Now, get up. For me, Tatia. For me, please get up and go take care of your sister. Go on. And I’ll take care of you.” His lips kissed her cheek.

Love is when he is hungry and you feed him. Love is knowing when he is hungry.

With my writing, because I live it, I have to be consumed by it, and that means you have to forget your other life, which is constantly pulling you from your work.