I want to reach back into my history with a grade-school pink eraser, scrubbing away my decisions like mistakes on a math test. To bad I drew my mistakes in ink.

But the point is that trying to make things better sometimes makes us better, too. The point is I'm trying to create good things in the midst of the bad. Grief or no grief. And in my case, it's still somewhere in between.

Even the constellations can see us now: we are seventeen and shattered and still dancing. We have messy, throbbing hearts, and we are stronger than anyone could ever know.

Summer crushes happen all the time, right? Because you feel far away from the real world, everything seems more...possible. Every person seems more vital.

My dark days made me strong. Or maybe I already was strong, and they made me prove it. Jonah Daniels has his own grief, but he doesn't understand what it feels like to waste away in a castle dungeon where you have been chained to crumbling walls. And, when the dragons close in, you only think: Good. Let this be over.

I know it's difficult to bare your heart, but it's the least stupid thing in the world.