Your strengths might make you hard to approach, and might make your words sound uglier than what you actually mean, but they also make people look up to you.

Day just smiles at me, an expression so sad that it breaks through my numbness, and I begin to cry. Those bright blue eyes. Before me is the boy who has bandaged my wounds on the streets of Lake, who has guarded his family with every bone in his body, who has stayed by my side in spite of everything, the boy of light and laughter and life, of grief and fury and passion, the boy whose fate is intertwined with mine, forever and always.

"I love you," he whispers. "Can you stay awhile?

Forever and ever, kid, until you're sick and tired of seeing me.

Sometimes, the sun sets earlier. Days don’t last forever, you know. But I’ll fight as hard as I can. I can promise you that.

Now, as we stand three feet apart and stare at each other, I feel the full distance that comes with spending so much time apart, a moment filled with the electricity of a first meeting and the uncertainty of strangers.

But sometimes, you find yourself standing in exactly the right position, wielding exactly the right weapon to hit back.