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.

. . . and I don’t expect him to suborn his life into mine any more than I would change my dreams for him. We’re not one soul, one being, however much we love each other.

I know just how he feels that it’s come to this. Sometimes, love isn’t enough, even when it’s all you have.

Every army has a beginning, no matter how humble.

He has to take me as I am, broken bits and all.

Before he bent his head, I knew what he was going to do. Touch his lips to mine. Oh, and I wanted him to... I stilled, hardly daring to breathe. The old refrain of cant and shouldn't sank beneath the weight of new worlds like please and yes.

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.