"Because of everything you were involved in, I will spend the rest of my life hiding in the outback, mourning the death of a man who was already dead when I met him!"

"At first I didn't want to touch anything, as if his room were a crime scene, or a tomb filled with offerings. After a few minutes, I had to, or I was going to go insane. I curled up in his closet, as I had in my dollhouse, inhaling the scent of him. I trailed my palms over his books, the cool leather so much like his skin. I packed up his diary and his watch, to take with me."

"A few days later, I finally guessed the password to his digital diary. I stayed up reading by its own light, tears flowing ceaselessly down my cheeks. He'd begun keeping it when he'd joined the army, and I learned how he'd had to mature and adapt- for he'd quickly had to learn how to fight, how to strategize, how to be a soldier instead of a boy trying to support his family. I learned how much he missed his mother, how much attention he paid to how brightly the sun shone and how healthy the trees around him were and how fragrant the soil. How much he'd grown to care for and respect my father. How sometimes he still thought of giving up and going beyond the gate and putting a bullet in his head, but knew he couldn't do it- that he had to hang on.

    "On the last page, he'd written simply, 'She's so beautiful.' I shut the diary and kissed it. I took to carrying it about like a blanket. I slept with it beneath the cheek every night, pretending that it was the inside of his arm."