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To the difficult girls who built their armor early.
Life does not allow you opportunities to travel down every path, to see the outcome of every choice. You can spend your entire existence frozen in one spot, squinting into the future, or you can decide to move. Pick a path and never look back.”
“If you let it, fear will make ruins of the future. You will build the rest of your life on the grave of every good thing you might have had, if only you had let yourself try.”
“Today, everyone I love is together and alive. Tomorrow, that might not be the case. I understand how easy it is to dwell in the aftermath of all your worst fears. To spend every day bracing for tomorrow’s pain. But, Essiya, you can’t survive in the future. You don’t exist there yet,” Sefa said. “How do I stay calm? Simple. I recognize that I am afraid because I still have something to lose, and if I’m afraid, then it hasn’t been lost yet. It means I have a chance to change the outcome.”
“Do not let the future reach you here. Do not let it torture you before its time.”
I’ve told you before, my liege—life is not an equation you can calculate over and over again. Every choice won’t be perfect, but you still have to make it.
Our choices come when we realize what we have grown into; when we look at the world around us and recognize our role in it. Only then, when you decide whether you will grow roots or tear yourself free, can you be truly held to account.”
What is so special about your soul that it must always remain perfectly pristine? Souls are made to be marked. To fracture and break. We spend lifetimes repairing them, and by the time you go to your grave, your soul should look nothing like what you started with.” “I agree.” The mournful words doused the lit end of my anger. “But the essence of who you are does not change.
“You don’t understand,” she whispered. Jeru tensed, and we both glanced at her tear-stricken face. “What life is left? I can’t mourn him longer than I loved him. I am not strong enough for this.” “Nobody is,” Jeru said. “You do it anyway.”
