'To murder innocent people? It costs everything you are.' -Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins.
think, personally, that it would be worse to have been alone all that time. Sure, maybe I would have
protected my heart from some things, but would that really have been better? To hold myself apart
because I was too scared that something might not be forever?"
"Maybe," I said, picking at the edge of the table. "Because at least then you're safe. The fate of your
heart is your choice, and no one else gets a vote."
She considered this, really thinking about it, then said, "Well, it's true that I have been hurt in my life.
Quite a bit. But it's also true that I have loved, and been loved. And that carries a weight of its own. A
greater weight, in my opinion. It's like that pie chart we talked about earlier. In the end, I'll look back on
my life and see that the greatest piece of it was love. The problems, the divorces,
the sadness ... those
will be there too, but just smaller slivers, tiny pieces."
"I just think that you have to protect yourself," I said. "You can't just give yourself away."
"No," she said solemnly. "You can't. But holding people away from you, and denying yourself love, that
doesn't make you strong. If anything, it makes you weaker. Because you're doing it out of fear."
"Fear of what?" I said.
"Of taking that chance," she said simply. "Of letting go and giving
into it, and that's what makes us what
we are. Risks. That's living, Remy. Being too scared to even try it—that's just a waste. I can say I made
a lot of mistakes, but I don't regret things. Because
at least I didn't spend a life standing outside,
wondering what living would be like."