I try to catch my breath and calm myself down, but it isn't easy. I was dead. I was dead, and then i wasn't, and why? Because of Peter? Peter? I stare at him. He still looks so innocent, despite all that he has done to prove that he is not. His hair lies smooth against his head, shiny and dark, like we didn't just run for a mile at full speed. His round eyes scan the stairwell and then rest on my face. "What?" he says. "Why are you looking at me like that?" " How did you do it?" I say.

Yesterday he told me he thought I would have to pretend to be weak, but he was wrong. I am weak already. I brace myself against the wall and press my forehead to my hands. It’s difficult to take deep breaths, so I take short, shallow ones. I can’t let this happen. They attacked me to make me feel weak. I can pretend they succeeded to protect myself, but I can’t let it become true.

I touch her cheek to slow the kiss down, holding her mouth on mine so I can feel every place where our lips touch and every place where they pull away. I savor the air we share in the second afterwards and the slip of her nose across mine. I think of something to say, but it is too intimate, so I swallow it. A moment later I decide I don't care. "I wish we were alone," I say as I back out of the cell. She smiles. "I almost always wish that.

It's strange how time can make a place shrink, make its strangeness ordinary.

Suicide to them is an act of selfishness. Someone who is truly selfless does not think of himself often enough to desire death.

Come on,'he says.' I have something else to show you.

That's why you like me!' I exclaim. 'Because you're not nice either! It makes so much more sense now.' 'Come on,' he says. 'We're going to see Johanna.' 'I like you, too.' 'That's encouraging,' he replies flatly. 'Come on. Oh for God's sake. I'll just carry you.