Then I realize from the hollow sound of her gun's click that her gun isn't loaded. Apparently she just wants to slap me around with it.

He pauses when he finishes undoing the last button, then closes his eyes. I can see the pain slashed across his face, and the sight tears at me. The Republic's most wanted criminal is just a boy, sitting before me, suddenly vulnerable, laying all his weaknesses out for me to see.

You try to walk in the light.

It feels like it's the end of the world if you don't do well on your SATs.

My heart is ripped open, shredded, leaking blood. I can't let him leave like this. We've been through to much to turn into strangers.

We can heal. Perhaps we can return to that same place we once stood, when we were both young and innocent.

Day just smiles at me, an expression so sad that it breaks through my numbness, and I begin to cry. Those bright blue eyes. Before me is the boy who has bandaged my wounds on the streets of Lake, who has guarded his family with every bone in his body, who has stayed by my side in spite of everything, the boy of light and laughter and life, of grief and fury and passion, the boy whose fate is intertwined with mine, forever and always. "I love you," he whispers. "Can you stay awhile?