“Because I am terrified. Petrified. I am so afraid that I’d let myself have this feeling of happiness only for it to be yanked away from me. Only for me to find myself picking up the pieces again and again, until there is nothing left of me but ashes. I almost died the last time my heart got broken. And you and I both know, if I allow myself to fully love you, to give you my soul and my heart, then there is no going back. There is no ‘after you’ for me, Gideon. There is only you. And if I let myself love you, if I let myself truly love you, and something happens, I won’t survive it. I will not
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