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It was an eternal feeling, this sense of being unwelcome. No matter where she was, Effy was always afraid she was not wanted.
What sort of things would she wonder about, if she weren’t always waiting for the next wave to come?
Love is a fire that cannot burn alone.’”
Anything can be taken from you, at any moment. Even the past isn’t guaranteed. You can lose that, too, slowly, like water eating away at stone.”
“That makes me want to cry.” She wished he hadn’t said it. “I know. It’s not the most original argument, and I’m hardly the first scholar to make it—that the ephemerality of things is what gives them meaning. That things are only beautiful because they don’t last. Full moons, flowers in bloom, you. But if any of that is evidence, I think it must be true.” “Some things are constant,” Effy said. “They must be. I think that’s why so many poets write about the sea.” “Maybe the idea of constancy is what’s actually terrifying. Fear of the sea is fear of the eternal—because how can you win against
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But stories were devious things, things with agendas. They could cheat and steal and lie to your face. They could crumble away under your feet.
“Love is terrible, isn’t it?”
“That’s why the one line became so famous. ‘I will love you to ruination.’ I think we all understand what it’s like to be wrecked by it. Even me.”
The weight of a memory is one thing. You get very used to swimming with it dragging you down. Once it’s loosed, you hardly know what to do with your body. You don’t understand its lightness.”
The truth was very costly at times. How terrible, to navigate the world without a story to comfort you.