“What’s the difference?” I asked him. “Between the love of your life, and your soulmate?”
“One is a choice, and one is not.”
“You’ve been silent your whole life. You were silent when we met, silent when you suffered. Silent when life kept hitting you. I was like that too, a little. But not like you. You are a stillness. And I tried to move you. It didn’t work. But that doesn’t mean you didn’t move me. I heard everything you didn’t say. I heard it so loudly that I couldn’t shut it off. Your silence, Senna, I hear it so loudly.”
“Tell me a truth, Senna."
"I don't know how."
"Then tell me a lie."
"I don't love you."
"The truth is for the mind," he says. "Lies are for the heart. So let's just keep lying.”
“We are all going to die, but I’m going to die first. In the very last second of my life, I will think of you.
Senna”
“There is a string that connects us that is not visible to the eye. Maybe every person has more than one soul they are connected to, and all over the world there are those invisible strings… Maybe the chances that you’ll find each and every one of your soul mates is slim. But sometimes you’re lucky enough to stumble across one. And you feel a tug. And it’s not so much a choice to love them though their flaws and through your differences, but rather you love them without even trying. You love their flaws.”
“Senna: “Why are you here?”
Isaac: “Because you are.”
“He kissed me with color, with drumbeat, and a surgeon’s precision. He kissed me with who he was, the sum of his life—and it was all encompassing. I wondered what I kissed him with since I was only broken parts.”
“Humans weren’t made to carry someone else’s weight. We can barely lift our own.”
“Maybe lifting someone else’s weight makes yours a little more bearable”
“Isaac: “It hurts me when you cry.”
Senna: “I’m crying, but I don’t feel anything,”
Isaac: “Yes, I know. That’s what hurts me the most.”
“Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.”
“You breathed life back into me. It was instinct for me to be there with you. I didn’t want to save you, I just didn’t know how to leave you.”
“That's why writers write—to say things loudly with ink. To give feet to thoughts; to make quiet, still feelings loudly heard.”
“We are lovers, fear and I. She calls to me, and I let her in.”
“I was sitting in a white room hating myself, until you breathed life back into me. You loved me so much that I started to love myself.”
“Isaac is touch, and he is sound. He is smell and he is sight. I tried to make him a single sense like I did with everyone else, but he is all of them. He overpowers my senses and that is exactly why I ran from him. I was afraid of feeling brightly—afraid I would become used to the color and sounds and smells, and they would be taken from me. I was a self-fulfilling prophecy; destroying before I could be destroyed. I wrote about women like that, I didn’t realize I was one.”
“I heard everything you didn’t say. I heard it so loudly that I couldn’t shut it off. Your silence, Senna, I hear it so loudly.”
“But there is something about the process of convincing yourself that you don’t care that just confirms even more that you do.”
“I like pain. I like when it lingers. It reminds a person of what they've lived through.”
“People lie. They use you and they lie, all the while feeding you bullshit about being loyal and never leaving you. No one can make that promise, because life is all about seasons, and seasons change.”
“His lips move against my hair. “I’m sorry, Senna.”
I tremble. He’s sorry? Him? “For what?” There is a million year pause.
“I couldn’t save you this time.”
I cry into his chest. Not because he couldn’t. Because he wanted to.”
“Every time you want to remember what love feels like, you look for me.”
“How many times have you been in love, Doctor?"
"Twice. The love of my life, and now my soulmate."
"What's the difference? Between the love of your life, and your soulmate?"
"One is a choice, and one is not...There is a string that connects us that is not visible to the eye. Maybe every person has more than one soul they are connected to, and all over the world there are these invisible strings. Maybe the chances that you'll find each and every one of your soulmates is slim. But sometimes you're lucky enough to stumble across one. And you feel a tug. And it's not so much a choice to love them through their flaws and through your differences, but rather you love them without even trying. You love their flaws.”
“Life is too short to hide your wrongs. So I hide myself instead.”
“Nick loved me enough to leave me alone. Isaac knew me better than I knew me. I said I wanted to be left alone, he knew better. I said I wanted white, he knew better. He brightened me. He enlightened me. Because Isaac was my soulmate. Not
Nick. Nick was just some great love. Isaac knew how to heal my soul.”
“It’s your darkness that pulls me in. Your mud vein. But sometimes having a mud vein will kill you.”
“Bad things happen because we live in a world with evil.”
“Love doesn’t leave. It bears all things.”
“Nick was wrong about me. Having a mud vein didn’t kill me; it saved me. My vein drew Isaac. He was the light and he followed me into the darkness. He became the darkness, then he carried my burdens so I wouldn’t have to.”
“Love is a Godgiven tool, she tells me. It screws things back in place that were loose, and it cleans out all the broken pieces that you don't need anymore.”
“It’s never that I don’t want to be with you. It’s that you don’t want to be with me.” -Isaac”
“I know I need him. And I hope he needs me. What we have is fucked up and twisted, but it serves a need. I know I've always been wired differently. He only brought to the surface what was already there.”
“Play around. Dive into absurdity and write. Take chances. You will succeed if you are fearless of failure.”
“Even a broken clock shows the correct time twice a day.”
“Julian, sometimes girls are like junk food. They look good, and they sure taste good… but you know they're not healthy for you and cause cavities so it's better to just leave 'em alone. Got me?”
“Sex.
Love.
Fucking.
Call it what you want but they are all the same. Each one requires you to give a piece of yourself that you can never get back.
But with the right person, everything will align perfectly. The world stops turning on its axis, time slows and you realize that while you're losing a piece of yourself, you're also gaining something in return. What they give you fits you just right.”
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