[ How like him to use the words generous and stingy to describe her in one breath without batting an eye. How like him to mean both and neither. She allows her shoulders to ease a touch, the grip on his arm releasing only at the very last, but her gaze remains fixed on him, his eyes. It is her words that she soften to take on his cadence and his volume, deliberate in the undertaking, the argument and the example in one. ]

We can stay up all night talking like we used to. Or say nothing, like we used to. But taking chunks out of each other's minds, well, it's a bit like cheating, isn't it?

[ To take his words and recite them back to him with a fresh coat of paint and her very own brand of grit, never taking the easy road. Medicine coated in sugar for easy consumption. It's not that she doesn't truly believe what she says, but that she wants to believe it only doesn't yet, and faith doesn't take root so easily in such arid and skeptical soil as hers. ]

I want you. [ Each syllable accented (I, you, want) so it won't bear repeating. ] We'll find a way to make this work.