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Charlie wasn’t Lena’s first love, but he counted on being her last.

I tell my sister what I didn’t tell my father, I love you. Please, don’t die.

“Oh, Jesus.” It’s the greatest shame since 1929’s stock market.

Everyone they pass is consumed by some desperate interior story.

Ike’s voice left behind on the shore as Tina plunges in again.

I found Lowell’s gun a long time ago. He’s not a genius at hiding things.

Writing to you is like putting a note in a bottle, hoping it will reach Japan.

I should call my loves while I can to listen to the grackles croak.

When she gets to Lenny’s he offers her a beer and a bong hit...

“I don’t care how tired we are. I’m not not having sex on my wedding night.”

She had felt to him like some floating spirit of who she used to be.

The strange man expected to be picked up by aliens during the eclipse.

It seemed to her that they only ever touched each other in transient, sudden ways.

His beauty comes from his power. I am as wary as I am drawn to it.

Definitely believe what you hear about the problems with painkillers.

A dead body leaned sideways against a wall. Its eyes were open.

References to and portrayals of hypocrisy, moral sloth, venery.

Buster’s reasons for looking after Marco weren’t entirely altruistic.

They all pivoted to face us, tan mannequins on a conveyor belt.

He bound me to blind obedience, for which I’d shown a propensity.

Neither fame nor wealth could provide consolation for life’s brevity.

He knew what those friends were worth: he knew the girls too.

Professor Flacks could tell you everything about James Joyce.

The angel lay in his body effervescent as a flake of alabaster.

If life is an open vein, what’s brave about a sleeve-heart, sweetheart?

Your words will strike her heart like Saint Teresa’s flaming arrow.

Rebecca Lehmann

I never felt heart stop or skin burn, just the first split second of sound.

My “lonelymaking.” Also known as my horrible secret, continent-wide.