only a matter of time before it broke through our fragile web of denial, forcing us to confront the truth and acknowledge who we are: two people in love – a love that nobody else could possibly understand.

At the age of five she has already come to terms with one of the life's harshest lessons: that the world isn't fair.

This whole time, my whole life, that harsh, stony path was leading up to this one point. I followed it blindly, stumbling along the way, scraped and weary, without any idea of where it was leading, without ever realizing that with every step I was approaching the light at the end of a very long, dark tunnel. And now that I've reached it, now that I'm here, I want to catch it in my hand, hold onto it forever to look back on - the point at which my new life really began.

What else could he possibly have done? What choices did he ever have?

He will think Lochan wasn't loved, but he was, more deeply than most people are in a lifetime.

If I move, if I speak, if I so much as blink, I'm going to lose this battle.

If I keep breathing, then I have to keep living, and if I keep living, then I have to keep hurting, and I can't - not like this.