she had asked for nothing

And her? She had asked for nothing. Nothing.

She was there, alive, busy living her life, and I had made her — without her consent — the center of my personal mythology.

I had turned a woman into a symbol. A human being into a metaphor.

And I hated myself the day I understood that this might be the most subtle form of disrespect: loving someone not for who they are, but for the role you assign them in the drama you are staging for yourself.

You don't forgive someone for not loving you. You don't forgive the rain for falling elsewhere.