Paula Stokes

Rose lived the same life I did, but she doesn__ have PTSD. No bad dreams, no missing memories. Sometimes I__ jealous that she seems to deal with everything better than I do. But then I__l catch her with this hollow look in her eyes and think maybe she just disguises everything for my benefit.Maybe she__ broken on the inside too.

Jesse stirs again. This time his fingers twitch. As much as I want to see him open his eyes, I can__ be here for that. It__l make leaving him too hard. I turn toward the doorway and I__ outside in the main room of the ICU when I hear his weakened voice say, __inter?__ hurry back to the waiting area. Hopefully he__l think he dreamed me. Maybe he did. Sometimes I feel like I__ not even real anymore

To me, Mother Nature isn't nearly as scary as human nature.

I go back for seconds and thirds and fourths and fifths, when it__ good. Just not if it means some guy gets to put a leash on me.

I think about the way Baz teased me earlier, how he wanted to know what it felt like to have someone who would do anything for me. Maybe it sounds comforting to know there is a person out there who would risk his life to protect you__ person who would back off when you asked and then come to you when you changed your mind. Especially when that person is as kind and decent as Jesse. The truth is, it__ terrifying. It__ just one more opportunity for me to be a monster.

We__e like magnets, you know. Only I__ spinning, so I keep pulling you in and then pushing you away. I like you, but then you hurt me, so I run. I like you, but then something makes things feel impossible, so I turn away. And you. You__e so constant. Your orientation never wavers. You feel what you feel and you want what you want without hesitation or doubt. God, I envy that. I feel like if someone stripped away my hesitation and doubt that there__ be nothing left.

You know what I regret the most?_ Trinity says, her voice just above a whisper. I don__ answer. All I can think about is how crappy it is that my fourteen-year-old sister already has regrets.

Our __rotective bubbles___ur houses, our cars, our friends, our online identities__ight make us feel secure, but most of it__ just an illusion. It__ easy to get hurt, just like it__ easy to hurt other people.

There are so many different ways for someone to say your name. I__ not sure I ever realized that before I met Jesse. Prior to him, it was just Rose calling out to me with love and affection or Gideon relaying his quiet approval or disapproval. Crisp, clear notes. When Jesse says my name, it__ a chord, a mash-up of several intense emotions all reflected in two syllables.

The truth never hurts worse than finding out someone you care about lied to you.

But if you want him, you might have to fight for him." I let my head fall to the tabletop. "For the love of all that is dead and Chinese, please, no more fighting. This army needs a break.

Standing up for yourself is about more than flinging barbed-wire insults around. Its about picking your battles, knowing when to fight, knowing exactly what and who is worth fighting for.

Jesse and I might as well be caught in a snow globe. Tonight is just a single perfect moment trapped in glass. Tomorrow our protective bubble will be shattered.

I can__ seem to wipe away the blood. I rub my hands against my nightgown, but traces of the red remain, staining the lines of my palms and the crescents beneath my fingernails. I wipe harder, gathering and bunching the soft cotton inside my fists. The fabric has been slit up the center and for a moment I worry that I__e been cut, that maybe the blood is my own. I try to ask what__ happening, but there__ a mask over my mouth and nose. Suddenly it hits me____ in an ambulance.I don__ remember how I got here.

I dream of a small room and a man with one eye. Blood seeps like scarlet tears from his empty socket. I turn away and the room becomes a hallway that becomes a stairway that becomes a roof. The wind tugs at my body; the sky tries to wrap me in stars. Below me, a gazebo glows with red light. A line of black cars crawls like cockroaches through the streets. An air conditioner exhaust fan chitters angrily near the roof__ edge, one of its blades bent just enough to scrape against the side of the casing. For a second I let the wind push me close enough to the fan__ razor- sharp blades that a lock of my hair gets snipped and sent out into the night. As it twists and flutters toward the gazebo, I think about just letting go, letting the breeze carry my body into the whirling blades, the wind scattering pieces of me throughout the city. Blood and flesh seeping into the cracked pavement. Flowers blooming wherever I land.

I am not warm. That is why my sister chose the name Winter for me.

I__e read so many stories online about how tragedy brings people together, how hard times encourage bravery and sacrifice, how a crisis can turn ordinary folks into heroes. But what about the opposite, when something horrible happens and it strips us bare, exposing weaknesses we didn__ even know we had. What about when tragedy makes people worse?

No,_ Gideon says. __o guns. The most dangerous weapon you have is your brain. Give someone a gun and they tend to quit using it.