Because even if the lie is beautiful, the truth is what you face in the end.

There’s a limit to how much living can be done in a life without freedom.

I've done it all before, I tell myself, and I can do it again. Trust is the strongest weapon.

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.

Did you tell freedom hello for me?

The sullen boy sitting before me is not my husband, and the girl he is fretting over isn't me, will never be me.

Before I can process what’s happening, Deirdre has opened her hands and Linden has taken the ring from her and slipped it onto my finger. “Rhine Ashby,” he says. “My wife.