“He was hurting, and I hurt with him. We had never been able to maintain any level of detachment from each other’s suffering, and wedidn’t now.”

“He reached for my hand, looking sad. “Don’t get hurt, Buttercup.” I shrugged. “Life hurts. As long as it doesn’t kill us, we weather it.”

“I loved your eyes first,” I told him , repeating his words from a few weeks ago back to him, because it was true, and because we were two halves of a whole—we had been all along, and he’d been so clever to know it right away. I used to think it was insanity, but now I was beginning to think that it was pure brilliance. “I see it, too, James. I see the other half of my soul in you.”

“Life hurts.  As long as it doesn’t kill us, we weather it.”

“There you go, belittling us again. You must know by now that I've never done any of this for anyone else. I was a slut once with my body, but I've never been a slut with my heart.”

“That’s the emptiest feeling, to know that you would hurt someone else just to feel something.”

“I want to share my life with you, to bemonogamous with you, and my past is in the past. I wish there was some way I could prove it to you, once and for all. I do have a sordid past, but I’ve never lied to any of the women I’ve been with, and I’ve never promised to anyone the things I promise to you.”