I started writing because I decided I was too old to play pretend in the backyard. Then I found that I could create those imaginary worlds on the page.

I can't force you. I can't make you want to survive this." He pulls me against him and runs his hand over my hair, tucking it behind my ear. His fingers trail down my neck and over my shoulder, and he says, "But you will do it. It doesn't matter if you believe you can or not. You will, because that's who you are.

She wanted us to have more than five choices. Now we have none.

I am better off doing as abnegation taught me: turning away from myself, projecting always outward, and hoping that in whatever is next, I will be better than I am now.

I take a deep breath. I'm not sure where that swell of desperation came from, but know that I've acknowledge it, it's impossible to ignore, like a living thing has awakened from a long sleep inside me. It writhes in my stomach and throat. I need to leave. I need the truth.

No need to continually insist upon your unshakable masculinity.

He smiles in my memory. A curled lip. Straight teeth. Light in his eyes. Laughing, teasing, more alive in memory than I m in reality. It was him or me. I chose me. But I feel dead too.