He sits next to me, careful to avoid my hair that's splayed out around my head like blood. A bullet to the forehead, boom, blond waves everywhere.

You can try to please everyone and risk accomplishing nothing, or go for your dreams and risk pissing a few people off.

I don't know if it was love or an illusion. I don't know if there's ever a way to be certain.

I nod like I'm not at all unnerved by this new cold side to him. Not cruel like his father. Not warm like the husband who sought me out on quiet nights. Something in between. This Linden has never woven his fingers through mine, never chosen me from a line of weary Gathered girls, never said he loved me in a myriad of coloured lights. We are nothing to each other.

When we were first married, I thought he must have been the most heartless, hateful man I'd ever known, but he was just as much a prisonor as I was. Where Vaughn imprisoned me with walls, he imprisoned his son with ignorance.

He sits next to me, careful to avoid my hair that's splayed out around my head like blood. A bullet to the forehead, boom, blond waves everywhere.

He looks at me, and I don't know what he sees. I used to think it was Rose. But she's not here with us now, in this room. It's just him and me, and the books. I feel like our lives are in those books. I feel like all the words on the pages are for us.