“This is when I forgave my parents. This big secret that was not ready to reveal itself was the reason my parents had sent us here. This colossal secret was the reason my parents had been absent from their children, had never talked too much, but clearly had plenty to give. This is when I forgave my parents. On the remainder of our silent journey to the island, my soul was anything but mute. This is when I mourned the death of Murdoch and Elizabeth Benedict for the first time.”

“It was 12:08 a.m. I had just six minutes to get to the top of the lighthouse. I took off running up the rocks, trying to go as fast as I could while maintaining some sort of balance. When I got up to the lighthouse door, a loud explosion echoed through the sky behind me and I spun around. I shielded my eyes with my hand from the cold rain, which was now coming down harder than ever, as I looked at the interruption into the otherwise quiet Scottish night. Giant flames rose up into the air on the beach below the manor and two long lines of fire burst horizontally across the sky. The world was on fire.”

“I’m so scared,” I whispered, as more tears began to roll down my cheeks. I looked up at them. “That big world out there…I barely remember it.”

“I kissed him again and through all the new chaos enveloping my life, there was one solid truth that I would always hold to. I would be alone for centuries over centuries, past lives through future lives, until my soul met Andrew’s again. This love was special, this love was rare, and it did not get any better than this.”

“I wondered if parents had an easier time with the secrets their children kept than children did with the secrets of their parents. A parent's secrets seemed like some sort of betrayal, where my own just seemed like a fact of life and growing up and away. I was supposed to be independent, but he was supposed to be available. Him having his own life seemed selfish, where me having my own was the right order of things.”

“Yes they are my parents but unlike those who haven't been adopted, I also have another set of parents. I know my adoptive parents love me and I love them, but I have a different connection with them than I would experience if I had been raised in my birth home. I still need to know who my birth parents are.”

“Uh, I have to warn you that I have an eye phobia. My parents had to hold me down to get drops in my eyes when I had pinkeye as a child”