A good story

I just finished reading Helen Oyeyemi's Mr. Fox, and all I can think about is the last part. A strange tale about a woman who saves a fox she was originally sent to kill.
The fox learns to read to thank her, and finally, when he finds her, he lays words he has chewed out of newspapers at her feet.
Change me
he asks.
Change you to what?
she replies.
Not want to be fox anymore.
I haven't the skill,
she answers.

Love between men and women is as such.
A man sees his salvation in the capacity of a woman to spare him the consequences he earns with his wicked deeds.
He sees her as his savior and safety, and she becomes intoxicated on this elevation of stature.
She leaves him after the introduction, and it is he who follows her and makes the grand gesture.
Make me not wicked anymore.
For you I want to be redeemed.
In you I see my own redemption.
And the woman cannot help herself.
She is so enamored of her idealization as saint and savior, she agrees.
And the transformation breaks them both.
She must give up all that makes her worthy of his redemption.
And he must give up everything about himself that is worth destroying.

They meet in the middle at death.

Their deconstruction
and complete acceptance that love is what has become of their initial agreement.

That love is never what you envisioned, and you hardly recognize the creature it makes you before it is done.

He may become less the savage, but she becomes less the saint.
And in the end, they are neither the things they began as nor the desires they'd designed.

And their dignified imaginations
corrupt and bloom with disappointment and acceptance and a depth of love never before experienced until you break your own heart to see someone else happy and they tell you it's not enough, but take it anyway.

And love reminds you life will always be a tragedy worth telling.