A week passes but it feels as if he's never been anywhere else. It's one of the things war does to you. Everything you see works to replace moments and people from your life before, until you can't remember why any of it mattered. It doesn't help if you're a soldier. The effect is the same.

I'd never met anyone so vibrant or alive. He moved like light.

Maybe happiness was an hourglass already running out, the grains tipping, sifting past each other. Maybe it was a state of mind.

She was also incredibly confident, with a way of moving and talking that communicated that she didn't need anyone to tell her she was beautiful or worthwhile.

A week passes but it feels as if he's never been anywhere else. It's one of the things war does to you. Everything you see works to replace moments and people from your life before, until you can't remember why any of it mattered. It doesn't help if you're a soldier. The effect is the same.

It was our favorite part of the day, this in-between time, and it always seemed to last longer than it should--a magic and lavender space unpinned from the hours around it, between worlds.

It gave me a sharp kind of sadness to think that no matter how much I loved him and tried to put him back together again, he might stay broken forever.