Even though I'm seventeen, I guess I still thought this would always be true - that there would always be that lost-and-found, and not the lost-and-still-lost that I am now trapped inside.

This is the trap of having something to live for: Everything else seems lifeless.

People read vampire novels and say, Oh I want to read another vampire novel. People read fantasy, and theyre like, Oh I love fantasy. I dont know that people are necessarily finishing Hunger Games and immediately wanting to read another dystopian tale.

I try to be a careful person. Most of the time my carelessness is completely unintentional.

I should talk to him I know I should talk to him. But I do not talk to him. I watch after him from afar and love him.

The world is quieter now. It is never quiet, but it can get quieter. What strange creatures we are, to find silence peaceful, when permanent silence is the thing we most dread. Nighttime is not that. Nighttime still rustles, still creaks and whispers and trembles in its throat. It is not darkness we fear, but our own helplessness within it. How merciful to have been granted the other senses.

As long as we can conjure, who needs anything else? As long as we can agree on the magical lie and be happy, what more is there to ask for? “I loved you from that moment on,” I say. “I loved you from that moment on,” you agree.