Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -… [2170]

I don’t want my sister’s death to cost you your life or your freedom.” … We fought about it. I was afraid for him; he was afraid for me, and we were both angrier than we had ever been at each other. I was terrified that he would be killed or arrested, and we’d never find out what happened to him. No one should travel alone in this world. — , Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -…, 2170

Note

The chiasmus in the argument’s first clause (“I was afraid for him; he was afraid for me”) compresses a whole relationship into a symmetric sentence, and the flat, aphoristic closer — “No one should travel alone in this world” — lands like something Lauren has learned the hard way rather than a platitude, because it arrives right after the fear of losing the one person she has.