That dot covers all the places we've ever been. You could cut that piece of land out of the ground and sing it into this ocean and no one would even notice. I feel that fear again, the fear of my own size. 'Right. So?' 'So? So everything I've ever worried about or said or done, how can it possibly matter?' He shakes his head. 'It doesn't.' 'Of course it does,' I say, 'All that land is filled with people, every one of them different, and the things they do to each other matter.

Our ability to know about ourselves and the world is what makes us human

I'll have to keep looking for more of them, more brief moments of freedom in a world that refuses to allow it.

To me, when someone wrongs you, you both share the burden of that wrongdoing - the pain of it weighs on both of you. Forgiveness, then, means choosing to bear the full weight all by yourself. Caleb's betrayal is something we both carry, and since he did it, all I've wanted is for him to take its weight away from me. I am not sure that I'm capable of shouldering it all myself - not sure that I am strong enough, or good enough.

Sometimes all I want is to be a few inches taller so the world does not look like a dense collection of torsos.

I feel like someone is pressing me into a mold that does not fit my body, forcing me intothe wrong shape.

Caleb," I say, "I love you." His eyes gleam with tear as he says, "I love you, too, Beatrice.