He kissed back, all the pages spread out around us like riddles waiting to be solved. Let them wait. Let my genes unravel, my hinges come loose. If my fate rests in the hands of a madman, let death come and bring its worse. I'll take the ruined craters of laboratories, the dead trees, this city with ashes in the oxygen, if it means freedom. I'd sooner die here than live a hundred years with wires in my veins.
Lauren DeStefanoSo how long do you think itโll be?โ he says. โBefore the next hurricane comes along to take you home.โ โCan I tell you my biggest fear?โ I say. โYes. Tell me.โ โThat it will be a very windless four years.
Lauren DeStefanoAnd everywhere girls, tumbling from trees like orange blossoms and hitting the earth with sickening thuds. They crack open.
Lauren DeStefanoSometimes we don't know how afraid we are until we've reached a strange door and we don't know what will be on the other side.
Lauren DeStefanoI should not have loved my daughter as I did. Not in this world in which nothing lives for long. You children are flies. You are roses. You multiply and die.
Lauren DeStefanoWe can change so many times in our lives. We're born into a family, and it's the only life we can imagine, but it changes. Buildings collapse. Fires burn. And the next second we're someplace else entirely, going through different motions and trying to keep up with this new person we've become.
Lauren DeStefano