[ His eyebrows do a sort of twist, like he hadn't considered-- And anyway, ]
It is not a fair thing to compare. Love is not-- [ well. ] Sometimes it is happy, yes, but just as often it is excruciating, and one does not balk from it just for that.
Well—no. [ Conceding, fairly lightly. ] Maybe not just for that. Sometimes you have to work through pain to reach something at the end of it. But there should be an end to it, no?
There was an end because I ended it. [ is how we're describing that event. ] I do not mean to say I did not have happy moments with him, the one in my ribs — some of the happiest in my life, only some of the hardest as well.
But that is the way of it, yes? To love and be loved, one must open one's heart, and what could be easier to wound than that?
[ Prettily put. It makes his smile a little wistful—which is to say, he allows it to make his smile a little wistful—even if put in plainer words it wouldn’t sound nearly so appealing. ]
I am sure some bruising is inevitable.
[ Again: that’s what they're talking about here, right? ]
What do you suppose love should look like? [ A genuine question, not a prelude to an answer of his own. ] Not the feeling. The act. On its own, when it is disentangled from lust and fear. What do you think it should inspire someone to do?
[ Ilias's brows knit, focus bleeding into memory — stars glimpsed through skylights; sunlight through a veil of pine and the season's last flowers; words sparking to life beneath both. Love. ]
To challenge one another, [ he decides, finally. ] To know and accept and protect the other, yes, but more than that, to help each other grow.
[ You know that if you had to, you would break it. (To give it a stronger shape.)
A bare touch sharper, ] In the ways one chooses, I mean to say; not in the ways anyone else might want.
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The smile is sweet, though. ]
And neither one makes you happier than the other?
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It is not a fair thing to compare. Love is not-- [ well. ] Sometimes it is happy, yes, but just as often it is excruciating, and one does not balk from it just for that.
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But that is the way of it, yes? To love and be loved, one must open one's heart, and what could be easier to wound than that?
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I am sure some bruising is inevitable.
[ Again: that’s what they're talking about here, right? ]
What do you suppose love should look like? [ A genuine question, not a prelude to an answer of his own. ] Not the feeling. The act. On its own, when it is disentangled from lust and fear. What do you think it should inspire someone to do?
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To challenge one another, [ he decides, finally. ] To know and accept and protect the other, yes, but more than that, to help each other grow.
[ You know that if you had to, you would break it. (To give it a stronger shape.)
A bare touch sharper, ] In the ways one chooses, I mean to say; not in the ways anyone else might want.