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

All that land is filled with people, every one of them different, and the things they do to each other matter.

Sometimes, all it takes to save people from a terrible fate is one person willing to do something about it. Even if that "something" is a fake bathroom break.

I settle into their pace. The uniform pounding of feet in my ears and the homogeneity of the people around me makes me believe that I could choose this. I could be subsumed into Abnegation’s hive mind, projecting always outward.

What is wrong with you?' I shake my head. 'Pull it together.' And that's what it feels like: pulling the different parts of me up and in like a shoelace. I feel suffocated, but at least I feel strong.

All I want is to become someone new. In this case, Tobias Johnson, son of Evelyn Johnson. Tobias Johnson may have lived a dull and empty life, but he is at least a whole person, not this fragment of a person that I am, too damaged by pain to become anything useful.

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.