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How come all the harmless people were so lame? Maybe that was the definition of safe.
Color and light and music and life and joy and love . . . so many wonderful things, all the lovely things that make up the world and make it worth living in.
You don’t hold back your feelings, your passion, your anger. It makes you remarkable. It makes you dangerous.”
I felt like someone had ripped my heart out and tossed it across the other side of the room. There was a burning, agonizing pain in my chest, and I had no idea how it could ever be filled.
I was nothing if not a multitasker.
You can’t force love, I realized. It’s there or it isn’t. If it’s not there, you’ve got to be able to admit it. If it is there, you’ve got to do whatever it takes to protect the ones you love.
HORROR AND SHOCK CONSUMED ME, so much so that I thought my soul would shrivel, that the world would end right then and there—because surely, surely it couldn’t keep going on after this.
I crossed my arms over my chest. “I thought you’d be giving me some kind of awesome advice or telling me what to do. But you just kept making me talk.” She laughed softly. “Therapy isn’t so much about what I think as you do.” “Then why do it at all?” “Because we don’t always know what it is we’re thinking or feeling. When you have a guide, it’s easier to figure things out. You’ll often discover that you already know what to do. I can help you ask questions and go places you might not have on your own.”
You aren’t afraid of throwing yourself in the path of danger, but you’re terrified of letting anyone in.”
My mother was right. With their speed, even our fifteen-minute lead might not be enough. And yet, I still couldn’t take a step. I couldn’t stop staring at the cave, back where Dimitri was, back where half of my soul was. He couldn’t be dead. If he was, then surely I would be dead too.
“Haven’t seen much of you.” I leaned back. “I haven’t wanted to be seen,” I admitted.
“Life’s like that,” he said. “As we grow and change, sometimes things we’ve experienced before take on new meaning. It’ll happen for the rest of your life.”
“Oh, Rose.” He didn’t laugh, but I could tell he was smiling again. “I don’t think you’d ever be happy someplace quiet. You always need something to do.” “Are you saying I have a short attention span?” “Not at all. I’m saying there’s a fire in you that drives everything you do, that makes you need to better the world and those you love. To stand up for those you can’t. It’s one of the wonderful things about you.”
“We can retreat and retreat and let ourselves get backed into corners forever,” she’d said once. “Or we can go out and meet the enemy at the time and place we choose. Not them.”
This Dimitri, the one who was none of those things, took two careful steps forward, then stopped again. “We need to be together.” “Why?” I asked softly. The word was carried away on the wind, but he heard. “Because I want you.” I gave him a sad smile, wondering if we’d meet again in the land of the dead. “Wrong answer,” I told him. I let go.
I didn’t know how I would go on living, but I knew that I wanted to.
Worry about staying alive first. Then worry about how you’re going to live.
The situation was reversed, though, and I didn’t actually have compulsion powers. All I had was legendary wit and powers of persuasion.
But it wasn’t real. It was too easy, and if I was learning anything, it was that life wasn’t easy.
“Christian! She loves you. You know that what happened wasn’t her fault—” “I know that,” he interrupted. “But it doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt.
Staring into the mirror, I was surprised to see a haunted look in my brown eyes. There was pain there, pain and loss that even the nicest dress and makeup couldn’t hide.
“The fact that we’re alive means we should live,”
saying one thing before it happens and then actually having that thing happen are two different things.”
“You can’t help the way you feel.”
"Sometimes the greatest tests of our strength are situations that don't seem so obviously dangerous. Sometimes surviving is the hardest thing of all."
"One step at a time," murmured Abe. "No point in letting the larger picture overwhelm us. We'll just start at the beginning."