What else could he possibly have done? What choices did he ever have?

At the end of the day it's about how much you can bear, how much you can endure. Being together, we harm nobody; being apart, we extinguish ourselves.

Pressed up against him, I can feel the thud of his heart against mine, his ribcase expanding and contracting rapidly against my chest, the warm whisper of his breath tickling the side of my neck, the brush of his leg against my thigh. Resting my arms on his shoulders, I pull back a little to get a look at his face. But he isn't smiling any more.

He shakes his head with a slow smile. You'd better be right. If the phone rings, I'm unpluggining it, I swear to God-“ You'd do that to your five-year-old sister?“ I gasp in mock outrage. For one whole night alone? Jesus, Maya, I'd sell her to the gypsies!

But I don't want to be fine, not if it means she's going to let go of my hand; not if it means we're going to go back to being polite strangers.

Before there was anything, there was Lochan.

If I move, if I speak, if I so much as blink, I'm going to lose this battle.