My mind pieced it together—the letters he had carved across my flesh like constellations, each invisible stroke a connective thread binding me to him. The I beneath my collarbone, the word he had branded across my breast while I writhed and failed, the to trembling above my navel, the you hovering just above where I ached most desperately.

The sentence assembled itself in the darkness, letter by letter, until it blazed behind my blinded eyes.