In one of the tents, Julian is sleeping. And in another: Alex

This is what happens when you try to help people. You get screwed.

The salt blowing off the sea makes the air feel textured and heavy.

This is what I want. This is the only thing I've ever wanted. Everything else—every single second of every single day that has come before this very moment, this kiss—has meant nothing.

I feel a flash of grief so intense it almost makes me cry out: not for what I lost, but for the chances I missed.

And when we are with Alex, I might as well not be there. They speak in a language of whispers and giggles and secrets; their words are like a fairy-tale tangle of thorns, which place a wall between us.

He is my world and my world is him and without him there is no world.