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.

I vowed after that day that I would be your hero too, no matter how long it took

We’ll go.” Her voice is surprisingly deep and forceful. Set in her sunken, shipwreck face, her eyes burn like two smoldering coals. “We’ll fight.

But if you do believe, then you already know all about magic.

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

Time and space recede and blast away like a universe expanding forever outward, and leaving only darkness and the two of us on its periphery, darkness and breathing and touch.

The flip side of freedom is this: When you're completely free, you're also completely on your own.