Ruby, give me one reason why we can’t be together, and I’ll give you a hundred why we can. We can go anywhere you want. I’m not your parents. I’m not going to abandon you or send you away, not ever.

But inside or out, I was alone, and I was beginning to wonder if I always had been, if I always would be.

They were never scared of the kids who might die, or the empty spaces they would leave behind. They were afraid of us-the ones who lived.

I was just an okay person.

The most important thing you ever did was learn how to survive. Do not let anyone make you feel like you shouldn't have.

I think maybe the most frustrating feeling in the world is to have something to say buy not know how to put it into words. To have lived through something but not be able to get it out of you before it festers.

I pulled myself from his mind, day by day, piece by piece, memory by memory, until there was nothing of Ruby left to weigh him down or keep him bound to my side.