These Violent Delights: A Novel

Believe in the things I try to tell you instead of the things you think you deserve to be told.

Once he might have been too humiliated and self-conscious to hold his ground, but he reminded himself that Julian thought he was capable of better.

“Don’t pay attention to them,” said Julian bitterly. “I mean it. You use other people’s useless fucking opinions as an excuse to hate yourself—”

We’ll both be happier if I can find you as fascinating as you ought to be.” Paul was almost relieved to feel the sting. It meant Julian saw every weakness in him and still thought he was worth the effort of hurting.

He could feel every fold of fabric against his skin, every goose bump and fine hair on his forearms. But the details didn’t fight with each other anymore. They didn’t cling to his limbs and pull him downward. They washed through him like a symphony.

When Paul shut his eyes, he could pretend someone else was speaking. Someone he hadn’t become yet; someone who deserved to speak. “I love you,” he said, and once he’d spoken, the words took hold of his tongue like a prayer.

“So are you going to sulk all afternoon?” he asked suddenly as their bus drew near. “It’s so goddamn boring when you wallow in self-pity.”

“There’s this idea in psychoanalysis that I’ve always liked.” Julian pulled himself closer and rested his head in the crook of Paul’s arm. “It’s that what we call ‘love’ is actually letting your identity fill in around the shape of the other person—you love someone by defining yourself against them. It says loss hurts because there’s nothing holdin

All they were—all they had ever been—was a pair of sunflowers who each believed the other was the sun.