We could have been happy. I know that, and it is perhaps the hardest thing to know.

Reading the situation correctly is part of getting through it safely.

And I laugh at myself for thinking I could touch the sky.

Growing apart doesn't change the fact that for a long time we grew side by side; our roots will always be tangled. I'm glad for that.

It's been so long since I've let myself feel anger that I don't just feel it. It covers my mouth and I swallow it down, the taste sharp and metal as though I'm gnawing through foilware.

The beauty of dystopia is that it lets us vicariously experience future worlds - but we still have the power to change our own.

If you let hope inside, it takes you over. It feeds on your insides and uses your bones to climb and grow. Eventually it becomes the thing that is your bones, that holds you together. Holds you up until you don't know how to live without it anymore. To pull it out of you would kill you entirely.