Do you really like studying?" Mattia nodded. "Why?" "It's the only thing I know how to do," he said shortly. He wanted to tell her that he liked studying because you can do it alone, because all the things you study are already dead, cold, and chewed over. He wanted to tell her that the pages of the schoolbooks were all the same temperature, that they left you time to choose, that they never hurt you and you couldn't hurt them either. But he said nothing.

They lived the slow and invisible interpenetration of their universes, like two stars gravitating around a common axis, in ever tighter orbits, whose clear destiny is to coalesce at some point in space and time.

She found herself thinking of how it would feel to be safely trapped in his arms, with no more possibility to choose.

You can fall ill with just a memory.

People took what they wanted, they clutched at coincidences, the few there were, and made a life from them. . . . Choices are made in brief seconds and paid for in the time that remains.

[Their love] had burned itself out, like a forgotten candle in an empty room, leaving behind a ravenous discontent.

She hadn't chosen him over all the others. The truth was that she hadn't even thought about anyone else.