“You make me really happy, he says. His hand moves over her hair and he adds: I love you. I’m not just saying that, I really do. Her eyes fill up with tears again and she closes them. Even in memory she will find this moment unbearably intense, and she’s aware of this now, while it’s happening. She has never believed herself fit to be loved by any person. But now she has a new life, of which this is the first moment, and even after many years have passed she will still think: Yes, that was it, the beginning of my life.”
Marianne going from doing whatever she could to make Connell happy to encouraging Connell to go to New York but refusing to go with him for her own happiness.
Coming-of-age story is never only about from being a kid to an adult. It’s about what we find in ourselves in relation to the external world, and we keep looking for the inner peace at different stages of our life.
I need Normal People fanfics already for self-indulgence but S1 itself is a complete existence for both Connell and Marianne.
Tori