It's like there's a filter set up in my brain, except instead of making things better, it twists everything around so what comes out of my mouth is totally wrong, totally different from what I was thinking.

That's the beauty of the cure. No one mentions those lost, hot days in the field, when Thomas kissed Rachel's tears away and invented worlds just so he could promise them to her, when she tore the skin off her own arm at the thought of living without him.

And you should hear the music. Incredible, amazing music, like nothing you've ever heard, music that almost takes your head off, you know? That makes you want to scream and jump up and down and break stuff and cry.

I know some of you are Thinking maybe I deserved it. But before you start pointing Fringers, let me ask you Is what I did really so bad? So bad I deserved to die? So bad I deserved to die like that? Is what I did really much worse Then what anybody else does? Is it really so much worse Than what you do?

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 have had to give up so much, so many selves and lives already. I have grown up and out of the rubble of my old lives, of things and people I have cared for.

The sun has just risen, weak and watery-looking, like it had just spilled itself over the horizon and is too lazy to clean itself up.