“I deserved the shaking and the headaches and the fact that every single time I took a breath I felt a squeezing in my chest, my heart beating even though I wished it wasn't.”

“Like a heart, and I wish mine wasn't beating.”

“Something in me, in my bruised heart, wakes up, and even though I'm terrified, I don't push the feeling away.”

“I have been smashed and put back together so many times nothing works right. Nothing is where it should be, heavy thumping in my shoulder where my heart now beats.”

“He's looking at me as if the whole world waits for my next breath, with an intensity that makes my heart pound and my palms sweat and then he smiles, a sweet curve of his mouth, and my breath catches, but then I freeze because there is something about it, something beyond it that I know, that makes my mind go blank with fear and pain.”

“Whatever happened to me just now has gotten to me, broken past the fragile shell I've built. More than my memory is gone. My soul has wings that beat to a heart I don't understand and I see things, feel things that I know aren't from here, but that are so real.”

“I don't know how I know that, but I do. I can feel the beat of that truth inside me. Taste it bitter on my tongue.Sometimes, like now, I didn't think I want to know who I really am.”