It is a fact that cannot be denied: the wickedness of others becomes our own wickedness because it kindles something evil in our own hearts.

How could you hide from a murderer who lived under your skin?

Shelley was something of a sensualist. He relished touch—pressure. How would it feel, physically, to take this creature apart?

“I guess some people must find it funny that Tom was a fat kid.” Claire Padgett smiles, but there’s not a drop of humor in it. “Yeah, I guess a certain type of person would find that deliciously ironic, considering how things came out in the wash.”

“It’s love. Love is the absolute killer.

but forever could be so, so brief.

but the quote came to him whole cloth, the words leaping from a dark cubbyhole in his memory.

I thought: This is how it COULD be. If I wasn’t ME. If I existed in a different body, an acceptable body, a body everyone loved. If I didn’t live in North Point, where I’m like this train on rails: I know where I’m going, hate it, but can’t change course. This was who I could’ve been if the ball had bounced just a bit differently, you know?

The moon hung in its western altar like the last melancholy guest at a dinner party, who was too lonely to leave.