I wrapped my arms around me as tightly as I could, and stared up at the stars. Had I not been so cold and wanting to escape so badly, I could have stared at them forever: They were amazingly beautiful, so dense and bright. My eyes could get lost up there if I left them looking long enough. [...] They swallowed me up. They were like a hundred thousand tiny candles, sending out hope.

It was like I existed in a kind of parallel universe, thinking thoughts and feelings that no one else understood.

You told me once of the plants that lie dormant through the drought, that wait, half-dead, deep in the earth. The plants that wait for the rain. You said they'd wait for years, if they had to; that they'd almost kill themselves before they grew again. But as soon as those first drops of water fall, those plants begin to stretch and spread their roots. They travel up through the soil and sand to reach the surface. There's a chance for them again.

I stayed there, curled up into the warmth of your body, under the blankets, like something soft in a shell. Your arms were firm as rock around me.

But without humans, the wild would take over. It would only take a hundred years or so for nature to win again.

I could hear you, talking to the daffodils and tulips, whispering to the fairies that lived inside their petals. Each separate flower had a different family inside it.

It was so big, that view. I’ll never remember it properly. How can anyone remember something that big? I don’t think people’s brains are designed for memories like that. They’re designed for things like phone numbers, or the color of someone’s hair. Not hugeness.