If I Don't Survive," I Say, "tell

At Home I Used To Spend Calm, Pleasant Nights With My Family. My Mother Knit Scarves For The Neighborhood Kids. My Father Helped Caleb With His Homework. There Was A Fire In The Fireplace And Peace In My Heart, As I Was Doing Exactly What I Was Supposed To Be Doing, And Everything Was Quiet. I Have Never Been Carried Around By A Large Boy, Or Laughed Until My Stomach Hurt At The Dinner Table, Or Listened To The Clamor Of A Hundred People All Talking At Once. Peace Is Restrained; This Is Free.

My Heart Beats So Hard It Hurts, And I Can't Scream And I Can't Breathe, But I Also Feel Everything, Every Vein And Every Fiber, Every Bone And Every Nerve, All Awake And Buzzing In My Body As If Charged With Electricity. I Am Pure Adrenaline.

Hearing Him Talk About His Mother, About His Intact Family, Makes My Chest Hurt For A Second, Like Someone Pierced It With A Needle.

I Used To Go Outside Every Day And Invent These Elaborate Worlds And Scenarios In My Head, And When I Grew Too Old For Playing Pretend, I Started To Write Everything Down Instead.

Be Brave, Beatrice. I Love You.