Because it takes more courage to heal the world's hurts than to inflict them.

So I make no effort to hide my pain. I don’t ever put it all on display like this—but for today and all the rest of the days of the trial, I must. My every flinch, every flicker of pain, will be magnified a hundred times over, then dissected by the pundits and talking heads. But I’m told it’s necessary; the world needs to see me vulnerable and wounded. I cannot appear not to care or to lack remorse, but that removes a crucial component of my self- defense mechanism and leaves me bleeding for all the world to see. I suppose that’s rather the point.

Most people can’t stomach silence; it provides too much opportunity to think about things they prefer to avoid.

As I dive between the legs of a big Gunnar, I see Mair wind up and slam her shockstick hard as she can between the V of another guy’s thighs. Falling, he makes a noise that I can’t say I’ve heard a human utter before, sort of like I imagine a puppy would sound being put through a juicer.

Sometimes the past needed to stay buried; it was the only way you could move on. And sometimes you had to dig it up, because that too was the only way.

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.

Yet sometimes being a friend meant letting people do things that hurt, like putting distance between you, just because it made them happy.