Or had she always loved him? It's likely. Restricted as she was from speaking, she wanted him to kiss her. She wanted him to drag her hand across and pull her over. It didn't matter where. Her mouth, her neck, her cheek. Her skin was empty for it, waiting.

And then there's the sickness I feel from looking at legs I can't touch, or at lips that don't smile at me. Or hips that don't reach for me. And hearts that don't beat for me.

That was when the world wasn't so big and I could see everywhere. It was when my father was a hero and not a human.

A fighter can be a winner, but that doesn't make a winner a fighter.

All my friends seem to be smart arses. Don't ask me why. Like many things, it is what it is.

The days and nights come apart. I feel them corroding at the seams.

I looked at myself in that window, oblivious to all the people around me and I stared and smiled that particular smile. You know that smile that seems to knock you and tell you how pathetic you are? That's the smile I was smiling.