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.

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

You’re insane, you know that?” he says. “It’s the only thing keeping me afloat,” I say.

Fall has always been my favorite season. The time when everything bursts with its last beauty, as if nature had been saving up all year for the grand finale.

who once had dreams of saving the world, now laughs at anyone who tries.

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

But there’s no such thing as free. There are only different and more horrible ways to be enslaved.