You don’t get to do this when you’re a girl, so when the opportunity for violence finally presents itself, I want all of it at once.

Because you made it here on a lot less” he says and he has no idea how on the mark he is.

The infected give chase and I won’t look back, can’t. Hearing them is enough, a cacophony of breathless shrieking that all means one thing: mine, mine, mine.

And there was so much time in the school, time to weigh words, turn them into things like I’m here because they’re not, so I have to make it mean something. I’m afraid everything I was is gone and all that’s left is everything I’m not.

It’s a slow process; he always seems reluctant to let her go and I think she likes to savor that as much as possible.

Before I tore the label off, this color was either called Paradise or Hit and Run. I wonder what it would be named if they had to call it what it really is. The color of your insides. The stuff your heart beats. Nothing you can afford to lose.

Or maybe you get so used to the mess of home, you convince yourself over time everything’s exactly where it belongs.

Whenever I’d see a glass or bottle in my father’s hands, my whole body would steel itself for the inevitable drama of a man who didn’t know when to say when.

I wonder if all hearts are made with the same pockets for fear and pain and sadness. They must not be, or if they are, maybe we all don’t know how to use them. Because otherwise so many of our stories would have ended differently.

People aren’t supposed to be able to fathom eternity. It’s an amount of time beyond all human comprehension. But ever since everything ended, I think I’m getting closer to understanding it. These little tastes of it in the way hell stretches around us, making pain endless and moments like this one rare and fleeting. Making moments like this one everything.