I’ve always hated being looked at.

If you’re smart, you care. And if you care, you love.

That's the way I feel, at least: like there's a real me and a reflection of me, and I have no way of telling which is which.

Is this freedom? Is it happiness? I don't know. I don't care anymore. It is different--it is being alive.

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?

And for a moment―for a split second―everything else falls away, the whole pattern and order of my life, and a huge joy crests in my chest. I am no one, and I owe nothing to anybody, and my life is my own.

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