“Maybe I’m a fool to think that I could have pretended to be a normal eighteen-year-old. To convince myself I could play the part indefinitely, only to come back to this. It makes things worse somehow. Do you know the first thing Mother said, when she found me on that bridge, ready to fall?” Tala shook her head. “‘Where does it hurt?’ she asked.” He looked back up into the sky, blinking rapidly for a
