ilya

“...What time are you seeing her?'
'How do you know it's a woman?'
'This isn't my first rodeo
'What do you mean?'
'You look like you got hit by a bus, and you dusted yourself off, and did it again for the hell of it. You look like you're wondering when the next time you can get hit by that bus is.”
― Caleb Azumah Nelson, Open Water

“The trouble is, you are not only sharing dinner tables with her, you are in the process of beginning to share your life in a way you have not before. You’re”
― Caleb Azumah Nelson, Open Water

“You know that to love is both to swim and to drown. You know to love is to be a whole, partial, a joint, a fracture, a heart, a bone. It is to bleed and heal. It is to be in the world, honest. It is to place someone next to your beating heart, in the absolute darkness of your inner, and trust they will hold you close. To love is to trust, to trust is to have faith. How else are you meant to love? You knew what you were getting into, but taking the Underground, returning home with no certainty of when you will see her next, it is terrifying.”
― Caleb Azumah Nelson, Open Water

“She tells you she loves you and now you know that you don't have to be the sum of your traumas, that multiple truths exist, that you love her too.”
― Caleb Azumah Nelson, Open Water