Sometimes in my tent, late at night, I think I can hear the stars scraping against the sky.

I start to unbutton his shirt. "Got to get these clothes off," I mutter. "You don't know how long I've waited to hear you say that." Smile. Lopsided. Sexy.

It isn't up to me to break his heart; that's time's job.

Are you okay?" I (Cassie) call up to him. "Um. Define okay." (Ben) "Okay means you're not bleeding to death." "I'm okay.

But hope is no less realistic than despair. It is still our choice whether to live in light or lie down in darkness.

I will teach you to love death. I will empty you of grief and guilt and self-pity and fill you up with hate and cunning and the spirit of vengeance. I will make my final stand here, Benjamin Thomas Parish.

If I had faced it then, I wouldn't be facing it now, but sooner or later you have to choose between running and facing the thing you thought you could not face.