“I fucked up. More than I have ever fucked up before. I had the love of my life in my hands for one beautiful, exquisite moment before I ripped her apart and my heart bore the paper cuts.”

“Then I gave up trying to please her and simply fucked her, ripping viciously. It was like murder. I didn't care; my cock had gone crazy.”

“I’ll tell you what: I may have fucked my life up flatter than hammered shit, but I stand here before you today beholden to no human cocksucker.”

“I put my own feelings before what was right for you, for us. And I shouldn't have done that. Seriously, I fucked it all up.”

“I thought it might be a fine time to say the Three Little Words. And I steeled myself to say them as I stared up at that starriest night, convinced myself that she felt it, too, that her hand so alive and vivid against my leg was more than playful, and fuck Lara and fuck Jake because I do, Alaska Young, I do love you and what else matters but that and my lips parted to speak and before I could even begin to breathe out the words, she said, “It’s not life or death, the labyrinth.”

“I wanted to wrap that moment up in tissue paper and save it forever someplace near my heart, just so I could take it out and look at it when the world was too harsh. The beautiful drunk boy in the pillow fort in my living room telling me I was exquisite.”