Veronica Rossi

Her hand holding his for a dozen paces. His, resting on the small of her back for a moment. Touches that had no real purpose but to say I__ here and We are together still.

His hand snapped shut over the device and then he crossed his arms. Aria stared in horror. Her Smarteye was buried in a Neanderthal__ armpit.

She__ fallen into a deep silence once, when the sun appeared, and it was then he__ wondered most what she was thinking.

I don't think that incident necessarily defines you as bad. I think it makes you human. And I believe you would have stopped yourself. I think that's what makes a person good. Not that you make mistakes, but that you recognize them. You feel remorse for them. You want to correct them and do better.

Your voice sounds like a midnight fire. All warm and worn in and golden. I could listen to you talk forever." "I could never do that". She laughed at him. He brought his lips to her ear. "Your scent is like violets early in spring," he whispered. Then he laughed at himself because though it was true, he sounded like the worst kind of fool.

It's time, Perry". He let her go. She took a step back, taking in his face one last time. His green eyes. The bend in his nose and the scars on his cheek. All the tiny inperfections that made him beautiful. Without a word, she turned and made her way downhill.

In the afternoon, they stopped to eat on a rocky outcrop. Perry brushed a kiss on her cheek while she was chewing, and she learned that it was the loveliest thing to be kissed for no reason, even while chewing food. It brightened the woods, and the never sky, and everything.

What I was trying to say,_ he whispered, __s that I see you in everything. There isn__ a word for you that means enough, because you__e everything to me.