The Love That Split the World

by Emily Henry

“You don’t know everything,” he says softly. “Not yet you don’t. And when you see those good things—and I promise you, there are so many good things—they’re going to be so much brighter for you than they are for other people, just like the abyss seems deeper and bigger when you stare at it. If you stick it out, it’s all going to feel worth it in the end. Every moment you live, every darkness you face, they’ll all feel worth it when you’re staring light in the face. Okay?”

To be yourself will cause you to be exiled by many, Grandmother used to say. To comply with others’ wants, though, will cause you to be exiled from yourself. The tension is painful, but there is no choice to make, Natalie.

Your quest for self-awareness has resulted in crippling self-consciousness.

“Sometimes the most beautiful moments in our lives are things that hurt badly at the time. We only see them for what they really were when we stand at the very end and look back.”