“I was betrayed, one more day, of my short life.You were carried away, had no shame, to suffocate my being.I was me, but you weren't you. You were sticking to me like a scab.So, I peeled you away...Bled for days...And stepped out of myself.”

“One day you will ask me which is more important? My life or yours? I will say mine and you will walk away not knowing that you are my life.”

“I can't bring myself to trust you. But even if you were to betray me, and even if you were to become my enemy... would it be okay for me to love? Could you... let me love you?”

“When my friend Melot set the trap, I think I knew it. I turned to death full face, as I had turned to love with my whole body. I would let death enter me as you had entered me. You had crept along my blood vessels through the wound, and the blood that circulates returns to the heart. You circulated me, you made me blush like a girl in the hoop of your hands. You were in my arteries and my lymph, you were the colour just under my skin, and if I cut myself, it was you I bled. Red Isolde, alive on my fingers, and always the force of blood pushing you back to my heart.”

“No, you were certainly not trying to seduce me, more like trying to wound my ego, break my heart, I dunno. Did you like how you felt when you walked away? Do you prefer that emotion to this?”

“—And you completely blow me away and rip my world up and everything else, and then you go back to ignoring me.” “I blew you away?” I squeak out before I can stop myself. He stares at me steadily. “You blew everything away.”