How we cite our quotes: The main text of the story is cited (Chapter.Paragraph). The date headers are not counted as paragraphs. The verses in the chapters with a single passage from the narrator's religious texts are cited (Chapter.Verse.Line#). In chapters with multiple passages, the verses are cited (Chapter.Verse#.Line#). The four section pages with the years and passages are cited (Year.Verse).
Quote #7
I can't tell. Not yet. I'll have to tell soon, I know, but not yet. We're together, the three of us, but we're not a unit yet. Harry and I don't know Zahra very well, nor she us. And none of us know what will happen when we're challenged. A racist challenge might force us apart. I want to trust these people. I like them, and . . . they're all I have left. But I need more time to decide. It's no small thing to commit yourself to other people. (15.108-110)
Opening up to others about our inner worlds can be scary, but it can also lead to greater connection. Lauren is struggling with the desire to protect herself emotionally from being abandoned or hurt by her traveling partners if she is to reveal her hyperempathy syndrome—while at the same time balancing the realities of life on the road. How does this relate to your own experience of struggling with whether to open up to another person?
Quote #8
[Harry] was still raw about what had happened the night before. He had killed a man. That bothered him. I had killed a man in a much more cold-blooded way, according to him, and it didn't bother me. But my "cold-bloodedness" bothered him. He wasn't a sharer. He didn't understand that to me pain was the evil. Death was an end to pain. No Bible verses were going to change that as far as I was concerned. He didn't understand sharing. Why should he? Most people knew little or nothing about it. (17.22)
We often judge the rightness or wrongness of an action based on our own perceptions of the situation and our own value systems. In this passage, Lauren seems to be implying that although she shares Harry's upbringing in Christianity, her hyperempathy syndrome means she can no longer accept the values with which she was raised. How does Lauren's hyperempathy condition change how she views compassion compared to Harry?
Quote #9
It felt natural and easy to lie down with him, and explore the smooth, hard, broad feel of his body. He'd kept himself fit. No doubt walking hundreds of miles in the past few weeks had burned off whatever fat he'd been carrying. He was still big—barrel-chested and tall. Best of all, he took a lot of uncomplicated pleasure in my body, and I got to share it with him. It isn't often that I can enjoy the good side of my hyperempathy. I let the sensation take over, intense and wild. I might be more in danger of having a heart attack than he is. How had I done without this for so long? (21.77)
Fearing the hurt of being vulnerable, we often avoid opening up to others. Yet being open to the pain of others also makes it possible to be open to the pleasure and joy of others. To what extent does Lauren's hyperempathy syndrome force her into achieving greater connection with those around her so that she is open to both pain and joy?