Christine

“I was not taking [my prescription] quite as often as I was technically supposed to. Partly, I kept forgetting, but also there was something else I couldn't quite identify, some way-down fear that taking a pill to become myself was wrong.”
― John Green, Turtles All the Way Down

“And then I was in the prison, arm outstretched, fingers on Akos’s cheek, Vas’s hand strong around my wrist, holding me fast. Akos’s teeth were gritted. And the shadows that were usually confined beneath my skin were all around us, like smoke. So dark I couldn’t see Ryzek or Eijeh or the prison with its glass walls.
Akos’s eyes--full of tears, full of pain--found mine. Pushing the shadow toward him would have been easy. I had done it many times before, each time a mark on my left arm. All I had to do was let the connection form, let the pain pass between us like a breath, like a kiss. Let all of it flow out of me, bringing relief for us both, in death.
But he did not deserve it.
This time, I broke the connection, like slamming a door between us. I pulled the pain back, into myself, willing my body to grow darker and darker, like a bottle of ink. I shuddered with the force of that power, that agony.
I didn’t scream. I wasn’t afraid. I knew I was strong enough to survive it all.”
― Veronica Roth, Carve the Mark

“I don’t know what you want to call it, what we are to each other now,” I said. “But I wanted you to know that your friendship has...quite literally altered me.”
For a few long seconds, he just stared at me. There were new things to discover in his face still, even after so long spent in close company. Faint shadows under his cheekbones. The scar that ran through his eyebrow.
“You don’t know what to call it?” he said, when he finally spoke again.
His armor hit the ground with a clatter, and he reached for me. Wrapped an arm around my waist. Pulled me against him. Whispered against my mouth: “Sivbarat. Zethetet.”
One Shotet word, one Thuvhesit. Sivbarat referred to a person’s dearest friend, someone so close that to lose them would be like losing a limb. And the Thuvhesit word, I had never heard before.
We didn’t quite know how to fit together, lips too wet, teeth where they didn’t belong. But that was all right; we tried again, and this time it was like the spark that came from friction, a jolt of energy through my body.
He clutched at my sides, pulled my shirt into his fists. His hands were deft from handling carving knives and powders, and he smelled like it, too, like herbs and potions and vapor.
I pressed into him, feeling the rough stairwell wall against my hands, and his quick, hot breaths against my neck. I had wondered, I had wondered what it was like to go through life without feeling pain, but this was not the absence of pain I had always craved, it was the opposite, it was pure sensation. Soft, warm, aching, heavy, everything, everything.
I heard, echoing through the safe house, a kind of commotion. But before I let myself pull away so we could see what it was, I asked him quietly, “What does it mean, ‘zethetet’?”
He looked away, like he was embarrassed. I caught sight of that creeping blush around the collar of his shirt.
“Beloved,” he said softly. He kissed me again, then picked up his armor and led the way toward the renegades.
I couldn’t stop smiling.”
― Veronica Roth, Carve the Mark

“The current had not given me a curse. And I had become strong under its teaching. But there was no denying another thing Dr. Fadlan had said--that on some level, I felt like I, and everyone else, deserved pain. One thing I knew, deep in my bones, was that Akos Kereseth did not deserve it. Holding on to that thought, I reached for him, and touched my hand to his chest, feeling fabric.
I opened my eyes. The shadows were still traveling over my body, since I wasn’t touching his skin, but my entire left arm, from shoulder to the fingertips that touched him, was bare. Even if he had been able to feel my currentgift, I still would not have been hurting him.
Akos’s eyes, usually so wary, were wide with wonder.
“When I kill people with a touch, it’s because I decide to give them all the pain and keep none of it for myself. It’s because I get so tired of bearing it that all I want to do is set it down for a while,” I said. “But during the interrogation, it occurred to me that maybe I was strong enough to bear it all myself. That maybe no one else but me could. And I never would have thought of that without you.”
I blinked tears from my eyes.
“You saw me as someone better than I was,” I said. “You told me that I could choose to be different than I had been, that my condition was not permanent. And I began to believe you. Taking in all the pain nearly killed me, but when I woke up again, the gift was different. It doesn’t hurt as much. Sometimes I can control it.”
I took my hand away.
“I don’t know what you want to call it, what we are to each other now,” I said. “But I wanted you to know that your friendship has...quite literally altered me.”
― Veronica Roth, Carve the Mark