It hurts every day, the absence of someone who was once there.

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?

So, tell me,” he whispers. “How fast did you climb those fourteen stories?” Thomas makes a disapproving sound in his throat, but I break into a grin. Storm’s past. Metias loves me again. “Six minutes,” I whisper back to my brother. “And forty-four seconds. How do you like that?” “That must be some sort of record. Not that, you know, you’re supposed to do it.

Be true to yourself. But that's something everyone says and no one means. No one wants you to be yourself. They want you to be the version of yourself that they like.

My mother used to hope that I would rise up from my humble roots. Become someone sucessful, or even famous. I'm famous all right, but I don't think it's what she had in mind.

Well...can't be any more dangerous than your crazy hospital break-in yeah?"-Tess (pg 59)

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.