Those Beyond the Wall (The Space Between Worlds #2)

by Micaiah Johnson

Sometimes when you want to fix something too bad, you break it.

I remind myself that wanting to shift someone else’s boundaries is a burden and a threat, not a gift or a compliment.

And the smile I give him feels just like a noose.

They’ll learn that to love something is to open wide and hope what you love is digestible.

“Exlee says jealousy is a poison you make for others but drink yourself.”

Need can make any act harmful. Even love.

I want to show Exlee how much I’ve changed, but sometimes the girl I was is sitting right beneath my skin, as toxic and reactionary as ever.

That’s all growth is, getting too big to stay somewhere that used to feel good. Just having one less place in the whole world that fits right.

In the smallest part of my mind, the part where I am an unwanted child wrist-deep in other people’s blood, I’ve never believed I was worthy of our friendship.

But I am here to tell you the multiverse is also full of people you can never be. Of paths you can never take. Of rooms with only one way out. Possibilities, when you get down to it, are rainbows: beautiful and meaningless.