“No, I had never intentionally caused anyone physical pain, but I had hurt Ian deeply enough just by hurting myself. Human lives were so impossibly tangled. What a mess.”

“It would hurt to leave, but its what I had to do. Besides, growing pains were supposed to hurt a little.”

“Oh gods... oh gods... I had hurt him... so many times, I had hurt him. By trying to hurt myself, I had hurt him. By trying to push him away, I had hurt him. Every time I opened my mouth and belittled myself with my "turns of rough poetry", I had sliced his heart as fine as my wrists. I did not know why he loved me as he did. I might never know. But as I stood there and held him, my back nagging at me and my leg screaming in protest, I realized that the least I could do was welcome his love with an open heart. And part of doing that was loving myself enough to want to live.”

“I wouldn't intentionally hurt anyone in this whole world. I wouldn't hurt them physically or emotionally, how then can people so consistently do it to me? Even my parents treat me like I'm stupid and inferior and ever short. I guess I'll never measure up to anyone's expectations. I surely don't measure up to what I'd like to be.”

“I hurt myself deeply, though at the time I had no idea how deeply. I should have learned many things from that experience, but when I look back on it, all I gained was one single, undeniable fact. That ultimately I am a person who can do evil. I never consciously tried to hurt anyone, yet good intentions notwithstanding, when necessity demanded, I could become completely self-centred, even cruel. I was the kind of person who could, using some plausible excuse, inflict on a person I cared for a wound that would never heal.”

“That’s why it was so impossible to tell him goodbye — because I was in love with him. Too. I loved him, much more than I should, and yet, still nowhere near enough. I was in love with him, but it was not enough to change anything; it was only enough to hurt us both more. To hurt him worse than I ever had.”