What we call love is actually letting your identity fill in around the shape of the other person. You love someone by defining yourself against them. Loss hurts because there's nothing holding that part of you in place anymore. But your outline still holds and it keeps holding. The thing you shaped yourself into by loving them, you never stop being that. The marks are permanent so the idea of the person you love is permanent too."
"Only as permanent as I am." Paul wanted to say.
He tried to pour his consciousness only into the parts of his body that Julian touched. He wanted forget everything but the way Julian's blood ran a little hotter than his own. How the warmth of him pulled just below his ribcage and at the hollow of his throat.
I've actually been thinking this whole time that I can't really make sense of you. You're nothing like anyone else and I know it's not because of where you come from. Nothing made you, you just are.