I didn't tell him that what I was most scared of, most haunted by, was something I didn't understand and could never run away from. It was myself.

You are so intense. Like a storm. It's shocking how intense you are.

I was staring to learn how to forget the things that made me sad. It was like a charm you followed step-by-step, collecting and blending the ingredients, placing everything in its proper place, reciting the incantation. It was the magic of forgetting.

At least the girls in stories were alive before they died.

Sometimes I wanted to peel away all of my skin and find a different me underneath.

At first we raced through space, like shadows and light; her rants, my raves; her dark hair, my blonde; black dresses, white. She's a purple-black African-violet-dark butterfly and I a white moth. We were two wild ponies, Dawn and Midnight, the wind electrifying our manes and our hooves quaking the city; we were photo negatives of each other, together making the perfect image of a girl.

I'll be inside the one who holds you. And then I won't be.