Oh Alexander," she said, "what do you want from me..." "Everything!" he whispered fiercely.

You are my hand grenade, my artillery fire. You have replaced my heart with yourself.

Here I am, your one man circus freak show, having bled out for mother Russia, having desperately tried to get to you, now on top of you with this scourge marks, and you, who used to love me, who was sympathized, internalized, normalized everything, you are not allowed to turn away from me....this is what I am going to look like until the day I die. I can't get any peace from you ever unless you find away to make peace with this. Make peace with me. Or let me go for good.

Dear God, Tatiana prayed in bed that night, turning to the wall and pulling the white sheet and the thin brown blanket over herself. If You are there somewhere, please teach me how to hide what I never knew how to show.

....and when Tatiana lifted her glistening eyes to him, Alexander was looking down at her with his I’ll-get-on-the-bus-for-you-anytime face.

Tatia: I think its too big to fit

We walk alone through this world, but if we're lucky, we have a moment of belonging to something, to someone, that sustains us through a lifetime of loneliness.