Like I've been sketched by an amateur artist: if you don't look too closely, it's all right, but start focusing and all the smudges and mistakes become really obvious.

I'll find you," he says, watching me with the eyes I remember. "I won't let you go again

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.

Over the past week, I’ve accepted that I will never love Julian as much as I loved Alex. But now that idea is overwhelming, like a wall between us. I will never love Julian like I love Alex.

But for now, the future, like the past, means nothing. For now, there is only a homestead built of trash and scraps, at the edge of a broken city, just beyond a towering city dump; and our arrival-hungry, and half-frozen, to a place of food and water and walls that keep out the brutal winds. This, for us, is heaven.

It's amazing how words can do that, just shred your insides apart. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me - such bullshit.

This is what I want. This is the only thing I've ever wanted. Everything else—every single second of every single day that has come before this very moment, this kiss—has meant nothing.