That's what love does. When it's right, it makes you more than you were, more than you thought you could be.

Living without virtues is to live divorced from society, seperated from the most important thing in life, community.

I wonder if fears ever really go away, or if they just lose their power over us.

But maybe what I saw as fearless was actually fear under control.

You're too important to just... die.

Do you know him well?" I ask.I am too curious; I always have been. "Everyone knows Four," she says. "We were initiates together.I was bad at fighting,so he taught me every night after everyone was asleep." She scratches the back of her neck, her expression suddenly serious. "Nice of him." She gets up and stands behind the members sitting in the doorway. In a second, her serious expression is gone,but I still feel rattled by what she said, half confused by the idea of Four being "nice" and half wanting to punch her for no apparent reason.

I look older. Maybe it's the short hair or maybe it's just that I wear all that has happened like a mask. Either way, I always thought I would be happy when I stopped looking like a child. But all I feel is a lump in my throat. I am no longer the daughter my parents knew. They will never know me as I am now.