My head is my favorite swimming pool.

I shake my head, watching snow tumble and swirl from an all-white sky. The world seems so clean if you only look up

Do you know what my father used to say?" I ask her. "He used to say that songs had a heart. A crescendo that can make all your blood rush from your head to your toes.

And then I wonder, does my brother think of me this way? We entered this world together, one after the other, beats in a pulse. But I will be first to leave it. That's what I've been promised. When we were children, did he dare to imagine an empty space beside him where I then stood giggling, blowing soap bubbles through my fingers? When I die, will he be sorry that he loved me? Sorry that we were twins? Maybe he already is.

It's quiet for a while, and then Rowan says; "We could talk now. We're alone out here. No walls." "There are always walls." I say.

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.

You've been captive for so long that you don't even realize you want freedom anymore.