I hear footsteps and Four's hands wrap around my wrists. I let him pry my hands from my eyes. He encloses one of my hands perfectly between two of his. The warmth of his skin overwhelms the ache in my fingers from holding the bars. "You all right?" he asks, pressing our hands together. "Yeah." He starts to laugh.

That’s one way of looking at it. I prefer to look at it another way—which is that if they are persistent enough, even tiny drops of water, over time, can change the rock forever. And it will never change back.

I could never hurt him enough to make his betrayal stop hurting. And it hurts, in every part of my body.

I want to break something, or hit something, but I am afraid to move, so I start crying instead.

It isn’t right to wish pain on other people just because they hurt me first.

We believe that preparation eradicates cowardice, which we define as the failure to act in the midst of fear.

He holds my face in both hands and kisses me back. I press into the distance between us until it is gone, crushing the secrets we have kept and the suspicions we have harbored-for good, I hope.