That is what hatred is. It will feed you and at the same time turn you to rot. It is hard and deep and angular, a system of blockades. It is everything and total. Hatred is a high tower. In the Wilds, I start to build, and to climb.

She was mine before she was yours.

It's a miracle I was able to get out of the house today. It's a miracle I'm even wearing pants, a double miracle I remembered to wear shoes.

This is the first day of my new beginning. From now on I'm going to do things right. I'm going to be a different person, a good person. I'm going to be the kind of person who would be remembered well, not just remembered.

But from the beginning, I knew that in a world where destiny was dead, I was destined, forever, to love him. Even though he didn't - though he couldn't - ever love me back.

Still, the vivid green of the grass-where the grass is actually managing to assert itself through the dirt-seems out of place. This seems like a place where the sun should never shine: a place on the edge, at the limit, a place completely removed from time and happiness and life.

Less than a month ago all of August still stretched before us - long and golden and reassuring, like an endless period of delicious sleep.