I love you. They can't take it away.

I put my forehead on his collarbone, place one hand on his chest. Its rhythm reassures me: He is real, and he is now.

Old words; words that nearly brought me to my knees. Live free or die

That is the strangest thing about the world: how it looks so different from every point of view.

They told us love was a disease. They told us it would kill us in the end. For the very first time I realize, that this, too, might also be a lie.

So are you going to be my knight in shining armor or what?' Kent does a little bow. 'You know I can't resist a damsel in distress.

When I’m running, there’s always this split second when the pain is ripping through me and I can hardly breathe and all I see is color and blur—and in that split second, right as the pain crests, and becomes too much, and there’s a whiteness going through me, I see something to my left, a flicker of color […]—and I know then, too, that if I only turn my head he’ll be there, laughing, watching me, and holding out his arms. I don’t ever turn my head to look, of course. But one day I will. One day I will, and he’ll be back, and everything will be okay. And until then: I run.