quote · Words worth keeping
This was the bad version. This version was what later events told her had happened. It was as real as the other. They played simultaneously in a loop, yet Mathilde could never quite believe it. That twitch of a leg, a later insertion, surely. She could not believe, and yet something in her did believe, and this contradiction that she held within her became the source of everything. All that remained were the facts. Before it all happened she had been so beloved, afterward, love had been withdrawn. And she had pushed or she hadn't, the result had been all the same. There had been no forgiveness for her, but she had been so very young. How could parents do this? How could she not have been forgiven?
This was the bad version. This version was what later events told her had happened. It was as real as the other. They played simultaneously in a loop, yet Mathilde could never quite believe it. That twitch of a leg, a later insertion, surely. She could not believe, and yet something in her did believe, and this contradiction that she held within her became the source of everything. All that remained were the facts. Before it all happened she had been so beloved, afterward, love had been withdrawn. And she had pushed or she hadn't, the result had been all the same. There had been no forgiveness for her, but she had been so very young. How could parents do this? How could she not have been forgiven?
Approximate author period: c. 1978 AD · modern
Meaning not yet available
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- Author or tradition
- Lauren Groff
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
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- Approximate author period: c. 1978 AD · modern
Approximate author-period anchor from documented birth year 1978; activity date not established; Wikidata Q6500240, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6500240 (accessed 2026-10-08). Not a quotation composition date.
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Supplied reference C; CSV row 181493; supplied attribution, independently unverified
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