He’d accepted long ago that some people, no matter how good their heart was or how much love they had to give, would always be alone. It was their lot in life, and Linus had figured out, at the age of twenty-seven, that it seemed to be that way for him. Oh, there was no specific event that brought along this line of thinking. It was just that he felt … dimmer than others. Like he was faded in a crystal-clear world. He wasn’t meant to be seen.

