Natalie

“She closes her eyes. He probably won’t come back, she thinks. Or he will, differently. What they have now they can never have back again. But for her the pain of loneliness will be nothing to the pain that she used to feel, of being unworthy. He brought her goodness like a gift and now it belongs to her. Meanwhile his life opens out before him in all directions at once. They’ve done a lot of good for each other. Really, she thinks, really. People can really change one another.
You should go, she says. I’ll always be here. You know that.”
― Sally Rooney, Normal People

“It's all messy: The hair. The bed. The Words. The Heart. Life...”
― William Leal

“Caught between the no more and the not yet, between maybe and already, or between never and always, irrealis moods have no tale to tell – no plot, no narrative, just the intractable hum of desire, fantasy, memory, and time.”
― André Aciman

“The irrealis domain: the might-have-been that never happened but isn't unreal for not happening and might still happen, though we fear it never will and sometimes wish it won't happen or not quite yet.”
― André Aciman, Homo Irrealis: Essays