My heart is drumming in my chest so hard it aches, but it's the good kind of ache, like the feeling you get on the first real day of autumn, when the air is crisp and the leaves are all flaring at the edges and the wind smells just vaguely of smoke - like the end and the beginning of something all at once.

I feel like I'm playing some giant video game, or trying to solve a really complicated math equation. 'One girl is trying to avoid forty raiding parties of between fifteen to twenty people each, spread out across a radius of seven miles. If she has to make it 2.7 miles through the center, what is the probablitiy she will wake up tomorrow morning in a jail cell? Please feel free to round pi to 3.14'.

I've never really thought about it before, but it's a miracle how many kinds of light there are in the world, how many skies: the pale brightness of spring, when it feels like the hole world's blushing; the lush, bright boldness of a July noon; purple storm skies and a green queasiness just before lightning strikes and crazy multicolored sunsets that look like someone's acid trip.

The secret is,” I say, whispering right into his ear, “that yours was the best kiss I’ve ever had in my life.” “But I’ve never kissed you,” he whispers back. Around us the rain sounds like falling glass. “Not since third grade, anyway.” I smile, but I’m not sure if he can see it. “Better get started, then,” I say, “because I don’t have much time.

But this isn’t like anything I’ve ever seen, or imagined, or even dreamed: This is like music or dancing but better than both.

Do the other kids make fun of you? For how you talk?' 'Sometimes.' 'So why don't you do something about it? You could learn to talk differently, you know.' But this is my voice. How would you be able to tell when I was talking?

Funny how time heals. Like that bullet in my ribs. It's there, I know it's there, but I can barely feel it at all anymore.