“Perhaps it is because now I live in his story. Now I am a part of his, and he of mine, and the part we write sometimes feels like the only part that matters.”

“He's in pain. I am, too. It strikes me that perhaps this is part of what we are fighting to choose. Which pain we feel.”

“Maybe only parts of our stories can keep us safe. The whole can feel like too much to bear.”

“I love you."lightning. Once it has forked, hot-white, from sky to earth, there is no going back.It's time. I feel it, I know it. My eyes on him, his on me, and both of us breathing, watching, tired of of waiting. Ky close his eyes, but mine are still open. what will it feel like, his lips on mine? Like a secret told, a promise kept? Like that line in the poem-a shower of all my days- silvery rain falling all around me, where the lighting meets the earth? The whistle blows below us and the moment breaks. We are safe.For now.”

“Was [Sisyphus] from your province?'I don't know. I don't know if he's real,' Ky says. 'If he ever existed.''Then why tell his story?' I don't understand, and for a second I feel betrayed. Why did Ky tell me about this person and make me feel empathy for him when there's no proof that he ever lived at all?Ky pauses for a moment before he answers, ...'Even if he didn't live his story, enough of us have lived lives just like it. So it's true anyway.”

“I like the places where one part meets another, I think, eyes to cheek, wrist to hands.”

“Even if he didn't live his story, enough of us have lives just like it. So it's true anyway.”