“Pain is the enemy. It is a ghost. I will allow it to wash over me, through me, leaving nothing in its wake.”

“I know some words floated through my ears, but my mind refused to absorb their meaning. I just shook my head slowly as the wall of pain washed over me, leaving me submerged and broken in the flood.”

“The waves of pain that had only lapped at me before now reared high up and washed over my head, pulling me under. I did not resurface.”

“My aloneness had never bothered me; I hadn't even been aware of it. But now it overwhelmed me. The awareness washed over me with painful sharpness and deep grief. Now that I had company.”

“And when I wake up it's wonderful, like I've been carried quietly onto a calm, peaceful shore, and the dream, and its meaning, has broken over me like a wave and is ebbing away now, leaving me with a single, solid certainty. I know now.”

“Rage washes through me like a fucking wave crashing against the shore. I want to kill Caleb. Beat him to death in the most painful ways.”