Sometimes when you meet someone, there’s a click. I don’t believe in love at first sight but I believe in that click. Recognition.

My body was a machine, plain and simple. I worked it to stay strong; I fed it to keep it running.

I’m as forgiving as the wall you hit at two hundred kilometers an hour.

My heart shifted a little in my chest; it seemed to swell and beat against my bones until I couldn't hear.

He'd said the sun could burn me. It certainly looked angry enough, all orange and glowing mad.

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.

Each love is unique. Special. Giving to one never takes away from another.