Maria

“It was this almost otherworldly feeling, where you’re so small, but not in a way that’s degrading or upsetting, but the fact that you’re on the planet at the same time as something so big and so significant, I don’t know—it was strangely life-affirming? Like you’re not alone in the world. And I get that same feeling when I’m near Sam Penny. Other feelings too, like this buzzy electricity. And it’s there, all thick in the air, us trying to learn about the other. It feels like we’re cramming for an exam, studying like maniacs the night before a test on a subject we’ve half-listened to all year. The content isn’t unfamiliar when you read it; it’s like you’ve read it before. Sam feels like I’ve read him before, but I haven’t. He feels like the kind of memories I wish I had but don’t. He’s like déjà vu. And you know how when that happens, your brain is like, “Wait, we’ve been here before,” and you’re watching everything unfold and you’re waiting for the next thing to happen and you’re like, “I knew that,” and then the next thing happens and you’re like, “I knew that too,” and every time something happens that you’ve been waiting to happen because you feel like it’s already happened even though it hasn’t, you feel this floaty sense of delighted satisfaction—that’s what it feels like to be near Sam Penny.”
― Jessa Hastings, The Conditions of Will