Life is much different from the days when there were lilies in my mother’s garden, and all my secrets fit into a paper cup.

and I've always known it, the way I love a song I hear for the first time, even before I know all the words, the way I love my favorite color, and the way that the train would speed past my bedroom when it was very quiet and I'd feel it in my stomach rushing through me. I love you in a way that I've never felt needed to be said.

There's nothing here to say good-bye to. There's no dancing girl. No mischievous smile. She's gone, off with her sisters, broken free, escaped. And if she were here now, she would say, "Go.

No matter how lonely it makes me, and no matter how wide and horrific the loneliness, at least I remember who I am.

I can hear my brother's voice in my head. Your problem is that you're too emotional. But how can I not be emotional, Rowan? How can I not care?

I lost everyone I loved," I tell him. I wait for him to look at me, and then I add, "The day I met you.

There are so many of us, so many girls. The world wants us for our wombs or our bodies, or it doesn't want us at all.