I wanted to sit her at the bar and interrogate her as to her dreams. Did she want to get out of this town, or did she fight, cheat, and steal to get to be somewhere so unassuming?

I wanted a life of adventure. I wanted to travel. I wanted to work my way up to being Somebody. I wanted to leave a mark on the Earth and be remembered.

I wanted to author her story before she had the chance to live it all. I expected she kept her history from those who could not charm it out of her beneath bed sheets or starry skies.

We need the life… We need to know what we take left someone weaker or dead. It reminds us what we were. The Hunger when you start out, it isn't in the stomach or brain. You want to kill because you hate that others get to live.

Every weekend, I fall in love again. By Sunday, the last thing I want to do is let her go, release her back into the cold water of life.

There weren't always happy endings and children would do well to know that vile things could happen to them, that witches and wolves were desperate to steal them should they be disobedient or foolish or simply unlucky.

Being certain one is alive isn't something to which one pays mind. If you could ask the question, you were fine. If you could not, hopefully you had a cozy coffin.

My life edges out any sense of sanity I can have, and I come to realize there won't be a point where things can be ordinary again, or as ordinary as I would have them.

She closes my door behind her and all the petty stresses of life reappear, eager to make up for lost time. I've developed a phobia of that door closing for the last time, of losing her in any way or of being lost.