I love you," I say. I said that once, before I went to Erudite headquarters, but he was asleep then. I don't know why I didn't say it when he could hear it. Maybe I was afraid to trust him with something so personal as my devotion. Or afraid that I did not know what it was to love someone. But now I think the scary thing was not saying it before it was too late. Not saying it before it was almost too late for me.

Then Drew shuffles into the dining hall. I drop my toast, and my mouth drifts open. Calling him “bruised” would be an understatement. His face is swollen and purple. He has a split lip and a cut running through his eyebrow. He keeps his eyes down on the way to his table, not even lifting them to look at me. I glance across the room at Four. He wears the satisfied smile I wish I had on.

Eyes open, then," I say, tapping the skin between my eyebrows. I don’t really need her eyes to be on mine, but I feel better when they are.

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

Humans can't tolerate emptiness for long.

You know what mom told me once? She said that everyone has some evil inside them, and the first step to loving anyone is to recognize the same evil in ourselves, so we're able to forgive them.

Writing means not just staring ugliness in the face, but finding a way to embrace it.