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.

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.

Being together, we harm nobody; being apart, we extinguish ourselves.

Never before have I imagined my life without him—like this house, he is my only point of reference in this difficult existence, this unstable and frightening world. The thought of his leaving home fills me with a terror so strong, it takes my breath away. I feel like one of those seagulls covered in oil from a spill, drowning in a black tar of fear.

It's horrible being ashamed of someone you care about; it eats away at you. And if you let it get to you, if you give up the fight and surrender, eventually that shame turns to hate.

He shakes his head with a slow smile. You'd better be right. If the phone rings, I'm unpluggining it, I swear to God-“ You'd do that to your five-year-old sister?“ I gasp in mock outrage. For one whole night alone? Jesus, Maya, I'd sell her to the gypsies!

Out of the millions and millions of people that inhabit this planet, he is one of the tiny few I can never have.