Imagine smiling after a slap in the face. Then think of doing it twenty-four hours a day.

I try hard and aim big. People can hate or love my books but they can never accuse me of not trying.

The city buildings in the distance are holding up the sky, it seems.

But then, is there cowardice in the acknowledgment of fear? Is there cowardice in being glad that you lived?

The scrawled words of practice stood magnificently on the wall by the stairs, jagged and childlike and sweet. They looked on as both the hidden Jew and the girl slept, hand to shoulder. They breathed. German and Jewish lungs.

Together, they would watch everything that was so carefully planned collapse, and they would smile at the beauty of destruction.

I'd been in love with her for years. I never left this suburban town. I didn't go to university. I went to Audrey.