I cry for everything I abandoned and because I, too, have been left behind -- by Alex, by my mom, by time that has cut through our worlds and separated us.

You have to go forward: It's the only way. You have to go forward no matter what happens. This is the universal law.

I'm not scared, if that's what you're wondering. The moment of death is full of sound and warmth and light shooting away, arcing up and up and up, and if singing were a feeling it would be this, this light, this lifting, like laughing... The rest you have to find out for yourself.

No guest rooms.” I shake my head resolutely. “I want to be in a room room. A lived-in room.

And you should hear the music. Incredible, amazing music, like nothing you've ever heard, music that almost takes your head off, you know? That makes you want to scream and jump up and down and break stuff and cry.

The mark of the procedure. A real one. Lu is cured.

He was still in love with you, anyway.