bits and pieces from the book thief :
Rudy?
She did more than mouth the word now. “Rudy?”
He lay with his yellow hair and closed eyes, and the book thief ran toward him and fell down. She dropped the black book. “Rudy,” she sobbed, “wake up….” She grabbed him by his shirt and gave him just the slightest disbelieving shake. “Wake up Rudy,” and now, as the sky went on heating and showering ash, Liesel was holding Rudy Steiner’s shirt by the front. “Rudy, please.” The tears grappled with her face. “Rudy, please, wake up, ***damn it, wake up, I love you. Come on, Rudy, come on, Jesse Owens, don’t you know I love you, wake up, wake up, wake up….”
But nothing cared.
The rubble just climbed higher. Concrete hills with caps of red. A beautiful, tear-stomped girl, shaking the dead.
“Come on, Jesse Owens—-“
But the boy did not wake.
In disbelief, Liesel buried her head into Rudy’s chest. She held his limp body trying to keep him from lolling back, until she needed to return him to the butchered ground. She did it gently.
Slow. Slow.
“God, Rudy…”
She leaned down and looked at his lifeless face and Liesel kissed her best friend, Rudy Steiner, soft and true on his lips. He tasted dusty and sweet. He tasted like regret in the shadows of trees and in the glow of an anarchist’s suit collection. She kissed him long and soft, and when she pulled herself away, she touched his mouth with her fingers. her hands were trembling, her lips were fleshy, and she leaned in once more, this time losing control and misjudging it. Their teeth collided on the demolished world of Himmel Street.
He stood in the waist-deep in the water for a few moments longer before climbing out and handing her the book. His trousers clung to him, and he did not stop walking. In truth, I think he was afraid. Rudy Steiner was scared of the Book Thief’s kiss. He must have longed for it so much. He must have loved her so incredibly hard. So hard that he would never ask for her lips again, and would go to his grave without them.
