Do you think the ability to sleep in counts as a special skill?” I asked Dad, trying to sound torn over the decision. “Yes, list that. And don’t forget to write that you can eat an entire meal in under five minutes,” he replied. I laughed. It was true; I did tend to inhale my food. “Oh, the both of you! Why don’t you just write down that you’re an absolute heathen!” My mother went storming from the room.

So here I was expecting at the very best a cordial welcome from the girls who were prepared to fight me to the death for someone I didn’t want. Instead I was embraced.

You’re too beautiful for your own good. Once you leave, we’ll have to send some of the guards with you. You’ll never survive on your own, poor thing.

P.S. May, don’t these strawberry tarts just make you want to cry?

I remembered suddenly that Aspen had always been this way. He sacrificed sleep for me, he risked getting caught out after curfew for me, he scrounged together pennies for me. Aspen's generosity was harder to see because it wasn't as grand as Maxon's, but the heart behind what he gave was so much bigger.

He gave a dark chuckle. “But you’re not, so you had absolutely no qualms about kneeing me in the groin, right?” “I hit your thigh!” “Oh, please. A man doesn’t need that long to recover from a knee to the thigh,” he replied, his voice full of skepticism.

There are some things you don't learn about yourself until you let someone else into the most intimate places of your heart.