Because?' I prompt 'Because I'm sorry, but I can't help it, and I really need to kiss you right now.

Now I'd rather be infected with love for the tiniest sliver of a second than live a hundred years smothered by a lie.

It's surprisingly nice out here, peaceful and pretty-strange to be standing in the middle of a little garden while enclosed by the massive stone walls of the prison, like being at the exact center of a hurricane, and finding peace and silence in the middle of so much shrieking damage.

Chance. Stupid, dumb, blind chance. Just a part of the strange mechanism of the world, with its fits and coughs and starts and random collisions.

The whole point of growing up is learning to stay on the laughing side.

Running is a mental sport, more than anything else. You're only as good as your training, and your training is only as good as your thinking.

I wish I could close my eyes and be blown into dust and nothingness, feel all my thoughts disperse like dandelion fluff drifting off on the wind. But his hands keep pulling me back: into the alley, and Portland, and a world that has suddenly stopped making sense.