I told you, everyone understands a quest.

Are you crazy? Flirting with Eli Stock in front of Belissa Norwood, in Belissa Norwood’s house, while eating Belissa Norwood’s cupcakes?

It was always late at night, when everything and everyone else was quiet, that those voices would rise like ghosts, soft and haunting, filling your mind until sleep finally came.

She took the sun when it came and the rain the same way.

As if at the age of eighteen life already sucked beyond any hope of improvement.

When you had to do something, you had to do it. And eventually, if you were lucky, you did it well.

But what he didn't understand was that this dreamland was preferable, walking through this life half-sleeping, everything at arm's length or farther away. I understood those mermaids. I didn't care if they sang to me. All I wanted was to block out all the human voices as they called me name again and again, pulling me upward into light, to drown.