This was the first place I everfelt strong. Every time I breathe this air I feel it again.

I suppose everything is bound to look different when you aren't on your way to die.

It's what you deserve to hear," I say firmly, my eyes going cloudy with tears. "That you're whole, that you're worth loving, that you're the best person I've ever known.

Today you will choose your factions. Until this point you have followed your parents’ paths, your parents’ rules. Today you will find your own path, make your own rules.

At home I used to spend calm, pleasant nights with my family. My mother knit scarves for the neighborhood kids. My father helped Caleb with his homework. There was a fire in the fireplace and peace in my heart, as I was doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing, and everything was quiet. I have never been carried around by a large boy, or laughed until my stomach hurt at the dinner table, or listened to the clamor of a hundred people all talking at once. Peace is restrained; this is free.

I note how calm she looks and how focused she is. She is well-practiced in the art of losing herself. I can't say the same of myself.

Why did you do it?" I say. "You want me dead. You were willing to do it yourself! What changed?" He presses his lips together and doesn't look away, not for a long time. Then he opens his mouth, hesitates, and finally says, " I can't be in anyone's debt. Okay? The idea that I owed you something made me sick. I would wake up in the middle of the night feeling like I was going to vomit. Indebted to a stiff? It's ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. And I couldn't have it.