Love can make us do dreadful things.

We stood back-to-back, blocking and striking in harmony; sometimes it felt like his arms and legs were an extension of me. I could count on him to keep them off me from behind.

He was the heat of a fire and the sweetness of the moon I'd only just met.

Is that love? It seems like a pale word, too easily tossed about by people who don’t know the meaning of it, who twist it for their own ends. I’m afraid of it now, right up there with clowns, close spaces, and open flames.

I'll always want him. Until every sun goes dark in every sky, until I am nothing more than long-forgotten cosmic dust, I will want him. And even then I suspect my particles will long for his.

Right now, I wish I’d stayed because I want you at my side. That sounds pretty selfish, but I don’t mean it that way. You just never needed me that way; I said it to you once as I was leaving—that you love me, but you don’t need me. You don’t lean. But I admire that about you, and I could use some of your strength right now.

Nobility and self-sacrifice sound wonderful in theory, but now he’s seen how it feels. A dead hero is still dead at the end of the day, and you’re still alone.