[...] Tess and I are a good match. She understands intimately where I came from. She can cheer me up on my darkest days. It's as if she came perfectly happy home instead of what Kaede just told me. I feel a relaxing warmth at the thought, realizing suddenly how much I'm anticipating meeting up with Tess again. Where she goes, I go, and vice versa. Peas in a pod. Then there's June. Even the thought of her name makes it hard for me to breathe. I'm almost embarrassed by my reaction. Are June and I a good match? No. It's the first word to pop into my mind. And yet, still.

I hope,” he replies softly, “to get to know you again. If you are open to it. There is a fog around you that I would like to clear away.

Each day means a new twenty-four hours. Each day means everything's possible again. You live in the moment, you die in the moment, you take it all one day at a time. -Day

Tomorrow, I will take on all of these things. I will be unstoppable.

Mom used to say that having three boys was kind of like having a pet tornado that talked back.

Day, the boy from the streets with nothing except the clothes on his back and the earnestness in his eyes, owns my heart. He is beauty, inside and out. He is the silver lining in a world of darkness. He is my light.

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