Some things are better left buried and forgotten.

And when I wake up it's wonderful, like I've been carried quietly onto a calm, peaceful shore, and the dream, and its meaning, has broken over me like a wave and is ebbing away now, leaving me with a single, solid certainty. I know now.

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.

No one can tell us no. No one can make us stop. We have picked each other and the rest of the world can go to hell.

I'd rather die on my own terms than live on theirs. I'd rather die loving Alex than live without him.

I didn't realize then what a privilege that was: to be bored with your best friend; to have time to waste.

Here's another thing to remember: hope keeps you alive. Even when you're dead, it's the only thing that keeps you alive.