If only she could come inside his head and see what was there, Strike thought, she'd understand that she occupied a unique place in his thoughts and in his affections. And when it goes wrong, I'll lose you for good, and this thing we've built together, which is literally the only good part of my life, my vocation, my pride, my greatest achievement, will be forever fucked, because I won't find anyone I enjoy running things with, the way I enjoy running them with you, and everything afterward will be tainted by the memory of you. Įxcept, it'll go wrong, of course, because it always goes wrong, because if I were the type for permanence, I'd already be married. I like knowing the possibility's there, for us to, maybe. I don't want some other bastard to persuade you into a second marriage. I want to be alone, and unburdened, and free.īut I don't want you to be with anyone else. I try not to give names to what I feel for you, because I already know it's too much, and I want peace from the shit that love brings in its wake.

“How could he say, look, I've tried not to fancy you since you first took your coat off in this office. Sometimes I think to be Asin would be the saddest thing in the world. She was as free as anyone ever could be and she was trapped. She wanted something but she never knew what it was so she had nothing. You could hear her crying sometimes when the sun went down. She would listen to women talking by the fire or working in the village or gathering berries but if they invited her to join them she ran away. She would grab children who wandered too far alone in the woods but she would return them to the same spot after three days and run away again. She would grab men who were fishing alone and make love to them and then throw them down on the ground and run away weeping. She was never satisfied or content and so she ran and ran and ran. When the wind changed direction suddenly that was Asin.

When you saw dunegrass rippling in a line she was running through it. She had wild long hair and she was very tall and she ran like the wind. If you saw her running you had to run to water as fast as you could and drink or her restlessness would come into you like a thirst that could never be quenched. Asin couldn't bear being married or having children or having friends.

“Did I ever tell you about Asin? She is the wild woman of the woods.

Conflicted lying relationship quotes