“Ella held herself rigidly against all emotion until she arrived at the dark haven of her room. Then she threw herself across her bed and cried because life was such a tragic thing.”

“She cried for herself, she cried because she was afraid that she herself might die in the night, because she was alone in the world, because her desperate and empty life was not an overture but an ending, and through it all she could see was the rough, brutal shape of a coffin.”

“She cried herself to sleep, and I held her until she stopped. I rolled over and pushed my face into the pillow. I figured if I could muffle my own crying, I would not wake her.”

“She held herself until the sobs of the child inside subsided entirely. I love you, she told herself. It will all be okay.”

“She imagined herself at age nine, running through these very halls, crying out to her older self across the years.”

“She fancied herself superiour to her surroundings: surely there were higher things to live for. Yet the ugliness of this room was but a part of what she felt to be the dreariness of all life outside of books.”