I start trying to stay unconscious. The problem with this is that no amount of willpower can change the reality.

Perhaps... you love too fiercely.

His three wives are huddled together on the bare mattress, one of them dying; when we're together, we form an alliance he can't touch. He's scared to even try.

I wonder if she has figured out that I'll never love Linden, especially not in the way she does, and that he'll never love anyone the way he loves her. I wonder if she realizes, despite all her efforts to train me, that I can never take her place.

Eventually I realize that I am holding on to him just as tightly as he holds on to me. And here we are: two small dying things, as the world ends around us like falling autumn leaves.

None of the wives mention the security guards by the door, who will probably tackle us to the ground if we try to leave without our husbands.

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.