“I felt lighter when I had finished, and for once emptiness was a sweet relief and a condition to be treasured.”

“But the same things that had once attracted menow left me with a mild sense of unease. Ivy would say I was getting smarter, but I just felt…empty.”

“I always felt that the great high privilege, relief and comfort of friendship, was that one had to explain nothing”

“She'd said that revenge was not sweet, that it was bloody. She was wrong. It *was* sweet. For one fleeting, glorious moment you felt incredible satisfaction. Then it was gone, empty, and you had to go on living. The power high that filled me with her light had faded, and all I tasted now were bitter ashes.”

“I told myself that if I didn't care, this wouldn't have hurt so much - surely that proved I was alive and human and all those touchy-feely things, for once and for all. But that wasn't a relief, not when I felt like a skyscraper with dynamite on every floor.”

“I had wondered a million times how I could possibly go on living when my heart was gone? How was it possible that it still beat in my chest when it felt so empty?”