Grief is not as heavy as guilt, but it takes more away from you.

We believe in ordinary acts of bravery, in the courage that drives one person to stand up for another.

Drink this," she says. "What is it?" my throat feels swollen. I swallow hard. "What's going to happen?" "Can't tell you that. Just trust me." I press air from my lungs and tip the contents of the vial into my mouth. My eyes close.

As a teenager, I put a lot of pressure on myself, and a lot of that, for me, was about finding a moral high ground. As I've grown up, I've decided to abandon that because it made me judgmental and also stressed me out.

He holds my face in both hands and kisses me back. I press into the distance between us until it is gone, crushing the secrets we have kept and the suspicions we have harbored-for good, I hope.

How is it I know this little about the boy who says he loves me -- the boy whose real name is powerful enough to keep us alive in a train car full of enemies?

I know that I'll be writing for young adults for a long time. Mostly because I just love the readers and the teachers and librarians that I interact with.