The Hearts We Sold

This was how normal people survived their own fairy tales. They became their own kind of monster.

Nothing comes for free. We just don't know what it'll cost.

She became her own knight; she collected those broken promises and whispered apologies and fashioned them into armor

She was a girl held together by knitted yarn and magic.

Life is a weirdly themed party

She reached down, found his hand with hers. Their fingers tangled, wrists pressed together. No pulse between them.

Fairy tales with all the shine taken away from them were simply stories of desperation. Of hungry wolves devouring children and jealous stepsisters who hacked off their own toes to fit inside a glass slipper.

I feel like that sometimes...I feel like I'm this collection of broken pieces I don't know what to do with.

I just want to matter,' he said unsmiling. It was like pulling a curtain back, peering behind a mask made of smiles and quips. This was the real James, this young, bright, desperate thing. There was a burning intensity to his eyes, and she saw for the first time a boy who would sell his heart--not for some hobby, but because he thought it was the only way to life the life he wanted. They had that in common.

We're all just moments and most of us don't matter. We study less than one percent of all humanity in our history books.

That is why I take the younger ones, you see. You already give parts of your hearts away so easily--little fragments attached to celebrities, to hobbies, to ill-fated love affairs. Your kind have the best chance at survival.

She had walked willingly into a fairy tale, into a world where she could trade her heart for her freedom. She may as well have donned a red cloak and strode into a darkened forest. She had always known there would be wolves.

It was always the small words that did a person in.

Actions fueled by desperation. They were the worst kinds of decisions, because desperate people could see the error of their ways and simply not care. They would rush headlong into a bad situation because they could see no other options.

Standing on the edge of that darkness, she felt the stirrings of reckless want. A wild sort of bravery beat within her, taking up the hollow space in her chest where a heart should have resided.

But were they truly victims? If they made a deal, knowing fully what they were trading for a wish--but then again, could a person ever truly know the consequences of giving away their heart?

By the time she was ten, Dee had put away her fairy-tale books and decided she only believed in real things. Then the demons declared themselves not two months later.

I like to keep my dreams attainable. Eat cheese, sleep on a nice bed, have my work in the same museum as Rothko--the usual.

Glad to see word reached you. I forgot my phone and somehow throwing pebbles at random windows seemed like a losing strategy." "My roommate thinks I'm running drugs," said Dee flatly. "And that you're my dealer." James blinked. "At least she thought I looked enterprising." "She said you looked homeless." James straightened the sleeves of his orange leather jacket. "It's vintage