“It’s the Longing that ultimately undoes you. When it finds you, it gnaws at your bones and tugs at your chest. It fills you up inside like rot and makes you dream dreams and it drowns you. The Longing keeps you in bed, clutching at your sheets while the world goes on outside. It smells like old leaves and cigarette smoke, mixed with the scent of far-off places you will hear of, but never see. It’s the gloss on a lover’s lips the moment you realize you will never kiss those lips again. It is the bittersweet, unrequited love of creation and it will break your heart again and again and again. If you know the Longing the way I do, then these words are redundant. We understand each other perfectly, you and I.”

“Celia, wait,” Marco says, standing but not moving closer to her. “You are breaking my heart. You told me once that I reminded you of your father. That you never wanted to suffer the way your mother did for him, but you are doing exactly that to me. You keep leaving me. You leave me longing for you again and again when I would give anything for you to stay, and it is killing me.” “It has to kill one of us,” Celia says quietly.”

“When your dreams are of some world that never was or of some world that never will be and you are happy again then you will have given up.”

“It is like a beautiful sunset you see once in your life, one you swear you will never forget as long as you live. And you never do forget, but you never have a reason to restore the memory—so it remains hidden inside. Until one day, for no apparent reason, you remember that sunset. You recall the way your skin felt as the sun brushed across it, the way the colors painted the sky. You wonder why it took you so long to go back to that place again, swearing you won't take so long next time. Only you do forget the memory and you may or may not ever relive it again.”

“Close your mouth, Nicole! You may never speak words again for as long as you live!”

“Listen to me, he said, when your dreams are of some world that never was or some world that never will be, and you're happy again, then you'll have given up. Do you understand? And you can't give up, I won't let you.”