The Insides Of Our Own

When They Finished Laughing They Were On Their Way To Being Not Just Friends, But The Dearest Of Friends, The Sort Of Friends Whose Lives Are Shaped By The Friendship.

...like A Grain Of Sand That Gets Into An Oyster's Shell. What If The Grain Doesn't Want To Become A Pearl? Is It Ever Asked To Climb Out Quietly And Take Up Its Old Position As A Bit Of Ocean Floor?

What Was New Was The Fact That, Despite My Heart Doing Its Fight-or-flight, Help-we're-prey-and-hey-stupid-that's-a-vampire Number, I Was Glad To See Him. Ridiculous But True. Scary But True.

Everything Was An Adventure, At Night, When You Were Where You Shouldn't Be, Even If It Was Somwhere You Could Go Perfectly Well In Daylight, And It Was Then Only Ordinary.

She Fell Asleep, Leaning On His Chest, And He Edged Her A Little Off A Particularly Painful Bruise, Leaned His Head Back Against The Tree He Had Propped Them Up Against, And Closed His Own Eyes.