Maybe it is desperation. Maybe we can't let things fall apart without trying. We can't let go of the people we love.

And everywhere girls, tumbling from trees like orange blossoms and hitting the earth with sickening thuds. They crack open.

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 wanted so badly to tell him, but something about that entire night seemed so beautiful, so bizarre, that I didn't trust it with my secrets.

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.

I've loved you since the day I stole the atlas for you," Gabriel says, because he thinks I'm asleep.

Set fire to the broken pieces; start anew.