The lizard stared up at us, and we stared back, taking each other in. He was little and defenseless, I felt sorry for him already. This was a screwed-up place he'd just come into. But he didn't have to know that. Not yet, anyway. There in that room, where it was hot and cramped, the world probably still seemed small enough to manage.

You could just tell when a person belonged somewhere. That is something you can't fake, no matter how hard you try

It was kind of soothing, these sounds of lives being lived all around me, for better or for worse. And there I was, in the middle of them all, newly reborn and still waiting for mine to begin.

But it was too early to know: there were always more pages to go, more words to be written, before the story was over.

That sucks, though," Wes said finally, his voice low. "You're just setting yourself up to fail, because you'll never get everything perfect." "Says who?" He just looked at me. "The world," he said, gesturing all around us, as if this party, this deck encompassed it all. "The universe. There's just no way. And why would you want everything to be perfect, anyway?" "I don't want everything to be perfect," I said. Just me, I thought. Somehow. "I just want—

You should have seen your face," she said, her breath hot in my ear. "Sa-woooon.

This was our common ground, the secret we shared but never spoke aloud. I should have been with him; she should have left him alone. Shoulda, coulda, woulda. It's so easy in the past tense.