It is a beautiful world for the people who get to play the fist.

And there it is: Even though we’re standing in the same patch of sun-drenched pavement, we might as well be a hundred thousand miles apart.

Until, one day, she wasn’t.

I remember a story I once heard about drowning: that when you fall into cold water it's not that you drown right away but that the cold disorients you and makes you think that down is up and up is down, so you may be swimming, swimming, swimming for your life in the wrong direction, all the way toward the bottom until you sink. That's how I feel, as though everything has been turned around.

I’m not the Hana everyone told me I would be after my cure.

Fear. Blame. Don't forget. Mom. I love you. -Lauren Oliver, Delerium

Someday she will be saved, and the past and all its pain will be rendered as smoothly palatable as the food we spoon to our babies.