Normal People

They sit in silence now, Marianne moving the brush methodically through her hair, feeling for knots and slowly, patiently untangling them. There’s no point in being impatient anymore. You know I love you, says Connell. I’m never going to feel the same way for someone else. She nods, okay. He’s telling the truth. To be honest, I don’t know what to do, he says. Say you want me to stay and I will. She closes her eyes. He probably won’t come back, she thinks. Or he will, differently. What they have now they can never have back again. But for her the pain of loneliness will be nothing to the pain that she used to feel, of being unworthy. He brought her goodness like a gift and now it belongs to her. Meanwhile his life opens out before him in all directions at once. They’ve done a lot of good for each other. Really, she thinks, really. People can really change one another. You should go, she says. I’ll always be here. You know that.