I search my brain for the truth. “I want it more than anything, just as long as you promise me one thing.” “And what’s that?” “That if at any time it gets to be too much for you, you’ll leave me—walk away and get out.” “That will never happen,” he guarantees me. “You need to give me some credit. You left me, ripped out my heart, and then came back acting like a robot, and you know what? We made it through. You and I, good or bad, belong together. We make each other whole.

You've always had a good grasp on what's right and wrong. You just have a hard time admitting that sometimes you choose the wrong.

You really need stitches," she tells me."Or you're going to have a scar." I try not to laugh. Stitches aren't going to help. They fix skin, cuts, wounds, heal stuff on the outside. Everything broken with me is on the inside. "I can handle scars, especially one's on the outside.

It hurts to be around life. People don't understand how close death is, right over their shoulders, around the block, at the end of a street. It's everywhere.

I take my time because I love how it feels to carry her, the way she needs me, the way I need to protect her.

I look into his eyes, no longer afraid what's in them, but afriad I'll lose what they carry.

Love you more than life itself, more than the sun and the air. You own my soul, Ella May. Micha