Stalked by Seduction and Shadows (Eternal Obsession, #1)

by Maggie Sunseri

Wounded women tended to believe that men noticed but willfully ignored their mental states, desires, and needs in favor of their own selfish aims. And that was sometimes true. But most of the time, the truth was far sadder. Most men and boys did not have even the slightest capacity to ascertain the complex emotional landscape of another person’s mind, least of all one belonging to someone they wanted to fuck.

Live, Little Flame. If you can survive what you have and still burn this blindingly, I have no doubt you will lead a life worthy of immortalization. Not the kind that has killed and buried my soul—but the kind that lives on with your children and ancestors in spoken word, or ink on pages that make it to strangers across the realm. Live. Burn. And never, ever, let them dim your fucking light.

I didn’t know how to receive the love I needed. Maybe that was why it always existed out on the horizon—in other lands, in people I hadn’t met, in a future that was always one step out of reach. Because great love was this thing that existed only conceptually, only in the abstract. It wasn’t something I ever truly thought I’d have, deep down.

You clip your own wings. You push yourself back down. You reach to cover yourself, to hold back your true thoughts and feelings. No one is ever born with that instinct; that’s something we’re taught. Abusers don’t just drain us of our light. They also condition us to dim it for them, even when they’re not in our lives anymore.”

“There are many people in this world who would love nothing more than to clip your wings. Stop doing it for them. Soar instead.”