It's not fair. It's not fair that I can't give those things to you. It's not fair that you won't ask for them.
( it isn't fair that alia would offer so much and yet demand so little. maybe it should be liberating — love cut loose of its strings, of its expectations. instead, it's terrifying to consider, like — staring into the eyes of a myth she's convinced herself wasn't true. unconditional love, the ultimate fiction. as if alina could not disappoint her, could not fail her, the way she has so many others. as if there is nothing alia needs from her in exchange to be convinced to stay, to be convinced to see her as worthy.
it's not true, she wants to say, compelled to rip open the seams of a lie. look inside to prove it's an empty, hollow thing, before she dares to hope it's possible. they're too alike for alia to mean it — greedy girls who know what it means to be hungry, who know what it means to fear yourself, who know what it means to be loved for all the wrong reasons. the proof of that greed: alina's selfish refusal to tell alia that she deserves more than what she's asking for, bartering her loyalty just to be fed a crumb.
alina's throat cinches, a swallow bobbing around a wet lump in her throat. her fingers fall, return to scour the tears from her briny cheeks. )
You can't tell anyone. ( a quick, cracking burst. she doesn't have to say it, she thinks, for alia to know who she means. that's rawboned selfishness, too — like asking a heart not to communicate with the blood it pumps. ) Please. I don't want ...
( to be looked at as moth-eaten and worn. a glass thrown away and broken. alia might have spied the cracks and fissures she had been hiding, but — she can still preserve the image of alina starkov paul has in his mind. can still try her best to be perfect for him. she withers into herself again, without any better use for her arms, cradling her midsection for comfort. her hands fiddle, grasping the frills of her nightclothes between her fingers. )
I like the version of myself I've built here. With him. ( softer: ) With you. Whoever just-Alina is, I'm not ready to say goodbye to her.
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( it isn't fair that alia would offer so much and yet demand so little. maybe it should be liberating — love cut loose of its strings, of its expectations. instead, it's terrifying to consider, like — staring into the eyes of a myth she's convinced herself wasn't true. unconditional love, the ultimate fiction. as if alina could not disappoint her, could not fail her, the way she has so many others. as if there is nothing alia needs from her in exchange to be convinced to stay, to be convinced to see her as worthy.
it's not true, she wants to say, compelled to rip open the seams of a lie. look inside to prove it's an empty, hollow thing, before she dares to hope it's possible. they're too alike for alia to mean it — greedy girls who know what it means to be hungry, who know what it means to fear yourself, who know what it means to be loved for all the wrong reasons. the proof of that greed: alina's selfish refusal to tell alia that she deserves more than what she's asking for, bartering her loyalty just to be fed a crumb.
alina's throat cinches, a swallow bobbing around a wet lump in her throat. her fingers fall, return to scour the tears from her briny cheeks. )
You can't tell anyone. ( a quick, cracking burst. she doesn't have to say it, she thinks, for alia to know who she means. that's rawboned selfishness, too — like asking a heart not to communicate with the blood it pumps. ) Please. I don't want ...
( to be looked at as moth-eaten and worn. a glass thrown away and broken. alia might have spied the cracks and fissures she had been hiding, but — she can still preserve the image of alina starkov paul has in his mind. can still try her best to be perfect for him. she withers into herself again, without any better use for her arms, cradling her midsection for comfort. her hands fiddle, grasping the frills of her nightclothes between her fingers. )
I like the version of myself I've built here. With him. ( softer: ) With you. Whoever just-Alina is, I'm not ready to say goodbye to her.