思念。

是的，我得到了。那麼你想要的是什麼？我想稱自己是為人所愛的，我想要感覺到自己在這世界上是被愛的。

P001

And did you get what you wanted from this life,
even so? I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved
on the earth.





承諾會被打破。心會破碎。

P003

Promises break.

Heart break.





在我聽見妳哭之前，我一直在擔心我不曉得該怎麼愛妳。

P007

Until the moment I heard you cry, I had been worried that I wouldn't know how to love you.






當我努力防止別人受傷時，我是否傷害了妳？

P009

When I kept someone else from getting hurt, did I hurt you?






但萬一我努力了，卻只為妳帶來傷害，那該怎麼辦？

P010

As your mother, I was supposed to protect you. But what I tried and only wound up doing arm?





我知道這麼說會讓人覺得我很自私，但是話說回來，我明知道這樣不對，卻又無法抵擋這種感受。

P022

I know how selfish this makes me sound, but then again, knowing something's true doesn't keep you from feeling it.

直到事情發生在你身上，你才會百分之百確定你對這件事的看法。

P033

how you can be 100 percent sure of your opinion on something until it happens to you.





萬一，這一切都是某人的錯呢？

P066






萬一她唯一不完美的一次就是妳所造成的，那該怎麼辦？

P070






這是我能保護你的最佳方法。

P097

the best I could do to protect you.





那麼我就告訴你：請你自己振作起來，想出一個方法，把你帶離你自己惹上的麻煩。就我看來，惡夢是有所差別的；有一種惡夢是你毫無心理準備就闖進去，另一種惡夢則是你自己造成的，兩者截然不同。

P106

It was this: Pull yourself up by your bootstaps and figure a way out of the mess you've gotten yourself into. There was a big difference, the way I aw it, between a nightmare you woke up in exexpectedly and a nightmare of your own making.




「如果她無法過一般的生活，這樣的生命有什麼好處？」

P120

What good is a life if she doesn't get to live it?





我隨時都有可能被重捶一拳，才發現自己沒有盡到保護妳的本份，那麼我怎能宣稱自己最了解什麼是對妳最好的，什麼是妳應得的？

P125

How could I claim to know what was best for you, what you deserved, when at any moment I might be thrown a curveball--and learn that I hadn't protected you as well as I should have.

其實你想要的只是妳所得不到的。

P127

all you wanted was exactly what you couldn't have.





每次妳哭，我實在無能為力，而我甚至因此更痛恨自己的無能為力。

P133






我聽起來像是世界上最頑劣的傢伙，也許我真的想成為這樣的人物：就像小木偶一樣，如果我表示得像個以自我為中心的青少年，最後我就會真的變成那樣，而每個人都會注意到我，呵護著我。
事實上，我只是希望有人注意到我仍是這個家的一份子。

P134

I sounded like the biggest brat on earth, and maybe I wanted to be: like Pinocchio, if I acted like a self-centered teenager, eventually I'd become one, and everyone would notice me and cater to me instead of hand-feeding you your meat loaf and watching you to make sure you weren't slipping in your chair. Actually, I'd just settle for having someone notice I was een a member of this family.




如果世界一次又一次將妳擊倒，妳要如何屢敗屢戰？

P136

how could anyone ever win when the world beat you down at every turn?

「我是否對某些事情有所堅持，就算事情很困難？或者我都是放棄？」

P146

Did I stick with things, even when they were hard? Or did I just give up?





「也許妳所害怕傷害的人是妳自己。」

P147

Maybe the person you're afraid of hurting is yourself.

就算妳沒機會呼吸或張開眼睛看我，我還是會愛妳。我已經愛妳了。

P164

I would have loved you if you never drew breath or opened your eyes to see me. I already loved you; that didn't stop just beacsue there was soemthing wrong with the way your bones were made.

然而現在連忙把蓋子蓋上也無濟於事；我們不可能忘卻那些我們已經知道會發生的事。

P170

It was like Pandora's box--she had opened it, and what had flown out but a soluionto a problem we never imagined would be soved. Closing the lid now wouldn't change anything; we couldn't unlearn what we now knew to be possible.

I guess, if I was being honest, I wanted to punish her for putting me into this istuation, where there was no black and white but a thousand shades of gray.

話說回來，我有什麼事情是沒做錯的？

P175

Then again, what didn't I do wrong?


 

「請不要把我丟掉，我會變得更好，我會很完美。」
 

P189

Please don't get rid of me, mommy.

I'll be better," you said, "I'll be perfect."

I have to play a game. I have to say things I don't really mean. Thins that might hurt if you heard them and didn't know I was really just acting.

「我可能會欺騙世界上其他所有人，但我不想騙妳。」

P191
 

I might fool everyone else in the world, but I don't want to fool you.

「你不必為了說我愛妳而說我愛妳，妳只需說我的名字，我就知道了。
「妳聽不出來嗎？當妳愛著某人，妳說那個人的名字時會很不一樣，彷彿對方的名字在妳嘴裡是很安全的。」

P192

"You don't have to say I love you to say I love you," 
"All you have to do is say my name and I know." 

"Can't you hear it?"
"When you love someone, you say their name different. Like it's safe inside your mouth."

我輕唱著；像一首搖籃曲，像一個降落傘，彷彿我可以為妳擋掉即將襲來的紛擾與傷害。

P193

I sang; a lullably, a parachute, as if I could cushion you even now from whatever blows were coming.





我學到了一件事：我向來以為是我朋友的那些人，其實是艾碼的朋友，而且他們平常只是容忍我的存在罷了。

P205

And here's what I learned when I kept my distance from Emma: that the people I had always assumed were my frineds actually had been Emma's, and just suffering my presense. I can't say it surprised me to find this out, but that didn't ean I wasn't hurt when I was holding my lunch tray and walked by the table where they were all sitting, without anyone making room.





如果日子變得坎坷，至少我們曾經被愛過，曾經－－這樣就很夠了，我想，我們已經足夠了，我的心與我。

P217

And if before the days grew rough We once were lov'd, us'd--well enough, I think, we've far'd, my heart and I.





為別人而犧牲自己的生命是一回事，把第三者捲進來又是另一回事，尤其是這位第三者是這麼了解我，而且永遠默默支持我。


P225

It was one thing to sacrifice your own life for someone else's. It was another thing entirely to bring into the mix a third party--a third party who knew you, who trusted you implicity.

「我知道，而且大部分時候，說謊是不對的，除非你試著不傷某人的感情。」
「但妳傷了我的感情。」

P229

"I know. And it's wrong, most of the time, unless you're trying not to hurt someone's feelings."

You stared at me. "But you're hurting my feelings."

 

I did, of course. But it was always easier for me to show love than to say it. He'd wait, and even though I knew he did not want to pressure me befoer I was ready to make my confession, I would feel in silence his disappoinment.

When you showed someone how you felt, it was fresh and honest. When you told someone how you felt, there might be nothing behind the words but habit or expectation. Those three words were  what everyone used; simple syllables couldn't contain something as rare as what I felt for Sean. I wanted him to feel what I felt when I was with him: that incredible combination of comfort, decadence, and wonder; the knowledge that, with just a single taste of him, I was addicted.

我向來都很質疑有些女人形容她們婚姻的消逝像是在一夕之間發生似的。妳怎麼可能不曉得？我心想。妳怎麼可能忽視所有的跡象？

P233

I had always been suspicious of women who described the dissolution of their marraiges as soemthing that happened overnight. How could you not know? I'd thought. How could you miss all those signs? Well, let me tell you how: you were so busy putting out a fire directly in front of you that you were completely obivious to hte inferno raging at your back.






也許了解自己，的確需要承擔風險；也許你必須接受嚴苛的生命考驗，才能了解自己想從生命中得到什麼。

P245

Maybe it did take a crisis to get to know yourself; maybe you needed to get whacked hrd by life before you understood what you wanted out of it.

I didn't like being here--it was like having a bad flashbad. What I really wanted to do was admit that this was a mistake and run.

「是啊，妳和這地球上每個人都有事情要煩惱，媽媽，妳猜怎麼著？並不是一切都以妳為中心，或者妳要什麼，也不是要用什麼來讓每個人都為妳悲慘的生活感到遺憾抱歉。」

P266

"Yeah, you and every other human on this planet, Mom," I yelled. "Guess what? It's not all about you and what you want and what makes everyone feel sorry for your miserable life with some miserable--"

說到回憶，好的回憶與不好的回憶永遠無法取得平衡。

P305






我的內心也常常在破裂粉碎。

P324






「沒有人願意聽到自己是不被想要的。」

P328

"No one likes to hear they're not wanted."

我不能想像沒有妳的生活。如果我從來不認識妳，故事會完全不同；它就不會是我和妳的故事。

P377

I couldn't imagine life without you. If I'd never known you, the tale would be different; it would not be the story of you and me.




如果妳選擇停止妳所摯愛的人的痛苦－－不論是受苦發生之前或過程之中－－那究竟是被謀殺，或是慈悲？

P396






我告訴自己，如果當初我沒那麼在乎，那麼這件事就不會讓我受傷這麼重。

P409

But I wasn't mad at Adam; I was angry at myself. It was one thing to make a mistake, it was another thing to keep making it. I knew what happened when you let yourself get close to someone, when you started to believe they loved you: You'd be disappointed. Depend on someone, and you might as well admit you're going to be crushed, becasue when you really needed them, they wouldn't be there. Either that, or you'd confide in them and you added to their problems. All you ever really had was yourself, and that sort of sucked if you were less than reliable.I told myself that if I didn't care, this wouldn't have hurt so much--surely that proved I was alive and human and all those touchy-feely things, for once and for all. But that wasn't a relief, not when I felt lik a skyscraper with dynamite on every floor.

What I wanted to say to you, but didn't, was this: Don't use me as your model. I'm the last person you should look up to.

People always want to know what it feels like, so I'll tell you: there's a sting when you first slice, and then your heart speeds up when you see the blood, because you know you've done something you shouldn't have, and yet you've gotten away with it. Then you sort of go into a trance, becasue it's truly dazzling--that bright red line, like a highway route on a map that you want to follow to see where it leads. And--God--the sweet release, that's the best way I can describe it, kind of like a balloon that's tied to a little kid's hand, which somehow breaks free and floats into the sky. You just know htat balloon is thinking, Ha, I don't belong to you after all; and at the same time, Do they have any idea how beautiful the view is from up here? And then the balloon rememers, after the fact, that it has a wicked fear of heights.

When reality kicks in, you grab some toilet paper or a paper towel(better than a washcloth, becasue the stains don't ever come out 100 percent) and you press hard against the cut. You can feel embarrassment; it's a backseat underneath your pulse. Whatevr relief there was a minute ago congeals, like cold gravy, into a fist in the pit of your stomach. You literally make yourself sick, becasue you promised yourself last time would be the last time, and once again, you've let yourself down. So you hide the evidence of your weakness under layers of clothes long enough to cover the cuts, even if it's summertime and no one is wearing jeans or long sleeves. You throw the bloody tissues into the toilet and watch the water go pink before you flush them into oblivion, and you wish it was really that easy.

I once saw a movie where a girl got her throat slashed, and instead of a scream, there was this low sigh--like it didn't hurt, like it was just a chance to finally let go. I knew that feeling was coming, so I waited a moment between my second and tird cuts. I wathced the blood welling on my thigh and I tried to hold off as long as I could before I drew the razor across the skin again.

I always hated when my scars started to fade, because as long as I could still see them, I knew why I was hurting. I wondered if you felt the same way, once your bones healed.

如果某個人傷害了你及你所愛的人，如果她真的相信她只是想幫忙，你能原諒她嗎？

P415

Could you forgive someone if she hurt you and the people you love, if she truly believed she wass only trying to help?






「尚恩，就因為你不想看見某件事，並不表示它不存在。」

P443

"Just becasue you don't want to see something, Sean, doesn't mean it wasn't there."






我想，的確有「太愛一個人」這種事情。

P451

I think you can love a person too much.




「我這麼愛妳，我都不曉得沒有妳的話，我會是誰。即使要用我的一生來證明，我也要讓妳知道為什麼妳的生命對我意義非凡。」

P452

I love you so much that I don't know who I'd be without you.





「用這種方法來得到快樂，實在很蠢。我之所以這麼做，是因為我沒辦法用正常的方式得到快樂。」

P455

It's a stupid way to be happy. It's what I did because I couldn't be happy the normal way.





「我不想傷害她。我只想傷害自己。」
「為什麼？」
「我不知道。因為這是我唯一能做對的事情。」

P465

"I never meant to hurt her. I just wanted to hurt myself."

"Why"

"I don't know. Because it's the only thing I can manage to do right."






你看到我了。

P466

he more he yelled, the more tightly he held on to me. And here's the weirdest thing of all: now that the worst had happened--now I'd been found out--it wasn't disastrous. I tfelt, well, inevitable. My father was furious, but me, I couldn't stop smiling. You see me, I thought, my eyes closing. You see me.





我故意吸了一下吸管，試著不眨眼，因為這樣一來，眼淚也許可以重新被吸回去。

P483






每個人都會犯錯……包括我。我們會說一些話，做一些事，是我們希望當初沒這麼說、沒那麼做的。但是妳，妳從來就不是錯誤。再過一千年，或者再過一百萬年，我都不會後悔擁有妳。

P496

Everyone makes mistakes...including me, We say and we do things we wish we hadn't. But you, you were never a mistake. I would not, in a thousand years--in a million years--have missed out on having you.






我們每個人真正想要的，是知道自己具有重要性。我們想知道，如果沒有我們的存在，某人的生命就不會如此豐富。

P497

All any of us wanted, really, was to know that we counted. That someone else's life would not have been as rich without us here.






「那麼妳在做什麼？」
「我正在盡力，我只是在盡力做到最好。」

P498

"Then what were you doing?"

"My best," I whispered, "I was only doing my best."




我是被愛的。
這一次，破裂的不是我。

P513






這些是我確知的一些事情：
當妳以為自己是對的時候，妳很有可能是錯的。
會破碎的事情－－不論是骨頭、心、或是承諾－－雖然可以拼湊回去，但再也無法真正完整。
還有，不管我說過什麼，妳還是會想念一個妳從來不認識的人。
我從和妳在一起的每一個日子裡，反覆學習到這件事情。

P515

“What we all want, really, is to be loved. That craving drives our worst behavior.”

I was careful not to cry around you, but this time I could not help it.