You'll get used to it. In the end you won't even notice it anymore," he said. "How is that possible? It will always be there, right before my eyes." "Exactly," said Mattia. "Which is precisely why you won't see it anymore.

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

but his eyes were too dark for her to make out any spark in them

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.

Twin primes: pairs of prime numbers that are close to each other, almost neighbors, but between them there is always an even number that prevents them from truly touching. If you go on counting, you discover that these pairs gradually become rarer, lost in that silent, measured space made only of ciphers. You develop a distressing presentiment that the pairs encountered up until that point were accidental, that solitude is the true destiny. Then, just when you’re about to surrender, you come across another pair of twins, clutching each other tightly.

...finally her hands, so light, holding his head still and catching all his thoughts and imprisoning them there, in the space that no longer existed between them.

Mattia's voice no longer stirred anything in his stomach, but he was aware of the idea of him and always would be, as the only true benchmark for everything that had come afterward.