And as he leaned in to kiss me, my eye saw his open mouth grow larger and larger until it seemed it could swallow me whole.

— Alexandra Kleeman

But I had no idea who this person might be, or who any of the people might be who sat at that table and watched me at the door and claimed to have feelings not exactly for me, but at me.

— Alexandra Kleeman

He was so far away now, or maybe he just looked distant because we were imaging different things for our future.

— Alexandra Kleeman

I did have a friend,' I said.' And your friend trespassed upon you,' the Wally replied.

— Alexandra Kleeman

I didn't know what to say. I knew I had a big choice to make. Furthermore, I could let it all go and try to love him, try to trust him, try to make something lasting and good. He obviously had strong feelings for me or about me. And he wasn't being so bad right now. We could build something sturdy, beautiful. Or I could try to make a dash for the door by crawling under the dining room table. There was a good chance that he would kill me later either way.

— Alexandra Kleeman

I find it increasingly difficult to speak of my feelings at will.

— Alexandra Kleeman

I got up to go back to the kitchen and put the cake in the oven. Probably it would not go well for the cake, or for whoever tried to eat the cake. It did not look as though the cake was going to turn out particularly nice, having been made for confusing reasons and lacking certain essential ingredients. But what else was there to do? Wasn't a terrible cake better than some terrible cake batter?

— Alexandra Kleeman

I had seen the few things I cared about forget me seamlessly. I had seen the life I never really fit into heal up around my absence like a wound scabbed over.

— Alexandra Kleeman

I left the room before I could figure out exactly what bothered me about his response. Was it the way it seemed to assume a future for the two of us? A future in which I would continue to be unable to leave this house? Was it the presumption that I was making a cake for him when, really, I had no idea why I was making a cake at all?

— Alexandra Kleeman

I missed you more now than I had when I lost you. I was forgetting the bad things faster than I forgot the good, and the changing ratio felt a little bit like falling in love even though I was actually speaking to you less and less.

— Alexandra Kleeman