Julia looks at the high stone walls penning us in from all sides, then over at me, chewing on her bottom lip. "I was still thirteen when you started to build them. It was silly...but I convinced myself it was my fault. That my trespassing was the final straw."

"In a way, it was," I say, surprising myself.

Surprising Julia, too. "How?"

"You...were the last good thing, the last genuine person I met before my family descended like vultures, picking me apart. And I guess I just wanted to let my ...