I traded cowardice for cruelty; I traded weakness for ferocity.

The cruelty of fate is that I must travel with the people I hate when the people I love are dead behind me.

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.

I think about pressing myself against him, but I can't, because all our secrets would keep a space between us.

It's like he knows, he knows I have a thing for her.

I do trust you, is what I want to say. But it isn't true -- I didn't trust him to love me despite the terrible things I had done. I don't trust anyone to do that, but that isn't his problem; it's mine.

I am afraid of her, afraid of what she says-and thrilled by it too, because it means I don't have to accept that I am smaller than I once believed.