Time has stopped; time is racing. Lochie's lips are rough yet smooth, hard yet gentle. His fingers are strong: I feel them in my hair and on my neck and down my arms and against my back. And I never want him to let me go.

At what point does a fly give up trying to escape through a closed window – do its survival instincts keep it going until it is physically capable of no more, or does it eventually learn after one crash too many that there is no way out? At what point do you decide that enough is enough?

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

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!

Lochie. The boy I once loved. The boy I still love. The boy I will continue to love, even when my part in this world is over too.

Get through today – you can fall apart tomorrow. Get through tomorrow, you can fall apart the day after . . .

And I know how he feels—it’s so good it hurts. I think I’m going to die from happiness. I think I’m going to die from pain. Time has stopped; time is racing.