I had learned early to assume something dark and lethal hidden at the heart of anything I loved. When I couldn't find it, I responded, bewildered and wary, in the only way I knew how: by planting it there myself.

We had no one else to learn this from- none of our parents were shining examples of relationship success- so we learned this from each other: when someone you love needs you to, you can get a hold of your five-alarm temper, get a hold of the shapeless things that scare you senseless, act like an adult instead of the Cro-Magnon teenager you are, you can do a million things you never saw coming.

Man ought to fear the darkness, not that surrounds him, but that which breeds within his heart

Smoked like it was fuel and he was going to get every last inch to the gallon.

Above the front door the fanlight glowed blue, delicate as wing-bones.

In the hazy afternoon light through the windows he looked beautiful and dissolute, shirt open at the collar and streaks of golden hair falling into his eyes, like some Regency buck after a long night's dancing.