We're on the other side of the fence now, Lena,' she says, tiredly, as she passes. "Don't you get it? You can't tell me what to feel.

What glitters may not be gold; and even wolves may smile; and fools will be led by promises to their deaths.

And when it started to get dark you pointed to the sky, and told me there was a star for every thing you loved about me.

Live free or die. Four words. Thirteen letters. Ridges, bumps, swirls under my fingertips. Another story. We cling tightly to it, and our belief turns it to truth.

I close my eyes. An image flashes—emerging from the van with Julian after our escape from New York City; believing, in that moment, that we had escaped the worst, that life would begin again for us. Instead life has only grown harder.

Mistake, mistake, mistake. A strange word: stinging, somehow.

I wonder if this is how people always get close: They heal each other's wounds; they repair the broken skin.