La ciudad desolada

A pesar de mi curiosidad, a pesar de mi abuelo, a pesar de todas las deudas que tenía con Miss Peregrine, en el fondo estaba aquí —y ahora— por una sola razón: porque en el instante en que conocí a Emma supe que quería formar parte del mundo al que ella pertenecía.

Pero no podemos sentirnos mal a cada segundo. Deseaba decírselo. Reír no empeora las malas circunstancias del mismo modo que llorar tampoco las mejora. No significa que te hayas olvidado de ellas, o que no te importen. Significa simplemente que somos humanos. Aunque tampoco sabía cómo decirle eso.

And that, at least, gave me some hope: that even under ordinary circumstances, I still might find a way to live an extraordinary life.

I knew then that, from now on, every word that passed between us would hurt, would be wrapped up with and marked by the pain of this moment, and that I needed to pull away now or it would never stop.

[...] and she hugged me last —a long, bittersweet embrace that felt too much like a goodbye.

There was romance in the unknown, but once a place had been discovered and cataloged and mapped, it was diminished, just another dusty fact in a book, sapped of mystery. So maybe it was better to leave a few spots on the map blank. To let the world keep a little of its magic, rather than forcing it to divulge every last secret.
Maybe it was better, now and then, to wonder.

"Maybe when this is all over," she said, "I'll send you a letter, and you'll send one back. And maybe one day you can come see me again."

It hurt her to say this things, just as it hurt me to hear them, but I understood why she was doing it. She was, in her way, trying to save me.

Laughing doesn't make bad things worse any more than crying makes them better. It doesn't mean you don't care, or that you've forgotten. It just means you're human.

I don't know why it was so important for her to prove to a stranger that we were good-hearted, when we knew ourselves to be —but the suggestion that we were anything less than angels walking the earth, that our natures were more complexly shaded, seemed to bother her.