for a moment, she let herself be defeated, wished herself not exactly annihilation but into a temporary absense, into being nowhere and no one just for a little while.

and it was the pretending that might explain how she could smile so brightly while her mind felt nothing – as if, at these times, there existed a disconnection between outer and inner, a shutting...

mia knew the weight that said nothing will ever be different from what it is now, that the world has lost all dimension and has turned to stone.