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“She pursued his lips,' Zach laughs. 'Another one I misread! Pursued for "pursed." You know. She pursed her lips. So whenever you do that now, reach out and touch my lips to shut me up? I think, she pursued his lips.' 'That's so silly,' smiles Rachel. 'I know that. Now I'm pursuing your lips,' he adds. When Zach kisses her, Rachel is often aware of the pulse in his lower labial, a small heartbeat there. She is aware of a pulsing and a slight thickening of tissue. How many times has this boy bled from his mouth? How many times.”

“What I was really thinking,' resumes Rachel, 'is—well, that there's fate, you see. I don't dismiss it, I don't think it's idiotic. It's quite scientific, actually. What we become. Who we—meet, end up with,' she continues, flames in her cheeks. 'You think we would have met, no matter what? Even if I were some lushy? Some loon? Street kid?' 'You're laughing at me.' 'Just asking,' he says. 'Everyone has one person, I think. For life. That's all.”

“You know how there are words that never really—they are never really quite right. You can't quite trust them. Use them. You know. Without pause.' 'There are words I stare at,' Zach says. 'Strange. Every time. Misled, that's one. I see mizzled. And unshed. I read unched.' 'Me too! But that's a different thing—except, now you mention it, it's odd about unshed, that it's only for tears. Mostly. Hardly ever blood, for instance, you don't see unshed blood. Unched. Not really.' 'Not in my case anyway. Mine sheds all over the joint! I'm a bleeder all right.”

“Why so sad?" Zach queries in fairy-tale tones. "Rachel?" "O my brother Ivanushka," she recites. "A heavy stone is round my throat, silken grass grows through my fingers, yellow sand lies on my breast." "That's perishing gloomy," Zach remarks. "It ends happily though. Gracious! Everything sounds depressing this morning," adds Rachel. "There's a teacher at my school, she's very young, but she goes, Gracious! Just like a dowager. Makes me laugh. Except this morning. I can't help it. I am too depressed. I hate those voices so much. In the Gardens." "Stop listening," Zach scolds and put his hands in her hair—silken grass grows through his fingers.”

“He wonders aloud at the origins of valentining. 'You're right,' Rachel says. 'It is a verb. Can be. And birds valentine each other, make mating calls. And usually mate in mid-February. You see?' 'But why Valentine?' asks Zach. 'Why valentining?' 'There were many Saint Valentines,' offers Tasha. 'I don't know what the link is between their martyrdom and love letters.' Zach is not very interested in the old tradition or the archaic verb. He is not bothered by the mating calls of passerines or the saints named Valentine and their associated symbols—he is merely fishing. Does Rachel think the tradition silly? If he were to send her a valentine, how strange would that be?”