Because even if the lie is beautiful, the truth is what you face in the end.

There are so many of us, so many girls. The world wants us for our wombs or our bodies, or it doesn't want us at all.

A strange thing, words. Once they're said, it's hard to imagine they're untrue.

I miss something I never even had.

I've loved you since the day I stole the atlas for you," Gabriel says, because he thinks I'm asleep.

I wish I had a memory of that first violent shove, the shock of cold air, the sting of oxygen into new lungs. Everyone should remember being born. It doesn't seem fair that we only remember dying.