“Lydia: Strange how you always remember the pain someone gave you, but seldom the hurt you caused them.”
“Safe. No one ever is. No matter how hard we try. No matter how much we plan and prepare. There will always be an enemy at the door and a storm trying to knock us down. Life's not about security. It's about picking up the peices after it's all over and carrying on.”
“We’re always alone. You can be in a crowded room and still feel the bite of loneliness. Personally, I find that it bites deepest whenever others are around.”
“Verbal blows cut to the soul and ate at the heart for eternity.”
“Kindness is a rotten fruit that poisons anyone who partakes of it. Throw it in the face of your enemies and let it ruin them instead.”
“The personality is defined by its inconsistencies, not its consistencies. It's what makes us unique and who we are.”
“Why lily?”
“It’s the most sacred and beautiful of all flowers in Egypt. They bloom in mud and shine in the darkness like a gift from the gods to remind you that no matter how bad something is, it will get better. That no matter how dark the night, the light will come for you. If you partake of them, they have the power to calm and soothe you, and to heal your wounds.” When he spoke his next words, they were laced with emotion and sincerity. “You are, and will always be, my sšn.”
“Hey now,” Maahes said. “Don’t be making that face. Okay? You start crying, I start crying, and I look like a total freak when I cry. Nothing worse than a big-ass man blubbering like a baby. Totally kills my chances with the women. You know?”
“Life's not about security. It's about picking up the pieces after it's all over and carrying on. We can choose to be cowards who fear letting someone inside us, and do that alone. Or we can choose to be brave and let someone stand by our side and help us.”
“A TV can insult your intelligence, but nothing rubs it in like a computer.”
“... he broke her heart and made her crave his touch even while she was trying to figure out where to hide his body.”
“When they know what makes you cry, they know what hurts you most. Don't give your enemies that.”
“When they know what makes you cry, they know what hurts you most. Don't give your enemies that." Solin, character in The Guardian by Sherrilyn Kenyon”
“Then I want you to run all of your words backward in your head and listen to them. Then put on my ears and listen to them again, and then tell me what you hear.
-Lydia to Seth”
“One person could make such a difference in someone’s life. Either good or bad. With their actions and words, a single individual had the power to save or destroy another.”
“Lydia arched a chiding brow at him. “My father didn’t tell me anything and I’m still angry at him for that. But I remembered you. Even though I didn’t understand it, I felt you with me constantly. And if that wasn’t enough…” She took his hand and placed it on her stomach so he could feel the slight swelling there. “You left me with a very special gift.”
The news slammed into him harder than one of Noir’s blows. She was pregnant?
With his child.
Unimaginable joy ripped through him as he felt the slightest fluttering of his son or daughter moving inside her.
But that only solidified his resolve. “You won’t be safe if I leave.”
She cupped his now healed face in her hands. “No one ever is, Seth. No matter how hard we try. No matter how much we plan and prepare. There will always be an enemy at the door and a storm trying to knock us down. Life’s not about security. It’s about picking up the pieces after it’s all over and carrying on. We can choose to be cowards who fear letting someone inside us, and do that alone. Or we can choose to be brave and let someone stand by our side and help us. I’m not a coward. I never have been. And there is nowhere else I plan to be, except beside you. Forever. Be it on earth, or here in this hellhole if that’s what it takes. I will always be with you.”
In that moment, he realized he didn’t need his swallow to fly him away from pain.
All he needed was her.
And she was right. It took much more courage to lay his heart open to someone else than it did to keep it guarded. To let someone else in to that place deep inside where only they could do you harm.
Only Lydia could destroy him.
And yet only she gave him life … at least one worth living.”
“En la vida no todo es seguridad. Es ser capaces de recoger los pedazos después de que todo haya pasado y continuar adelante. Podemos elegir el ser unos cobardes que temer dejar a alguien entrar en nuestro interior y hacerlo todo solos o podemos elegir el ser valientes y dejar que alguien esté a nuestro lado y nos ayude. Yo no soy una cobarde. Nunca lo he sido. Y no tengo ninguna intención de irme a otro lugar que no sea el que está a tu lado. Para siempre. Ya sea en la Tierra o en este infierno si es lo que se necesita. Yo siempre estaré contigo.
En ese momento, Seth se dio cuenta de que no necesitaba la golondrina para evadirse del dolor. Todo lo que necesitaba era a ella.
Y además tenía razón. Se necesitaba mucho más valor para dejar el corazón abierto a otra persona que el mantenerlo cerrado. Dejar que alguien se metiera muy dentro de ti donde sólo ellos pudieran herirte.
Sólo Lydia podría destruirle.
Y, sin embargo, sólo le había dado una vida... al menos una que merecía la pena vivir.”
“I wouldn’t hurt you for anything. Not now. In the beginning, yes. But…” She braced herself for whatever off-the-wall reaction he might have. “I love you, Seth. I just wanted you to know that.”
Seth froze as he heard the last thing he’d ever expected someone else to say to him. The one thing no one ever had. “What?”
“I love you. And only you.”
“The Guardian loved her. There was no other reason for it. None. He’d given his own freedom, his life, for Lydia.”
“Seth looked back at Lydia. “I have to stay … please.”
Lydia couldn’t believe that he was still willing to stay here for her safety. If she’d had any doubt before about how much he loved her, that cleared it. “All right, fine. If you stay. I stay.”
“I couldn’t bear living if I knew I’d caused you pain. I’d rather you not know me at all, than to think of me and cry.”
“For this life, he would gladly sell his soul. And honestly he had.
Lydia owned it and he was ever, eternally, hers.”
“My name is Seth,” he whispered in her ear, knowing she couldn’t hear him. Even so, he wanted her to know.”
“The moment he finally succeeded in putting her out of his thoughts was the one when she opened the door.
He glanced up, then dropped his book straight to the floor.”
“Your eyes drooled. I saw them.”
He was totally perplexed by this argument. Was he not allowed to speak to anyone? “I’m wearing dark sunglasses. How can you see my eyes?”
“She’s jealous, Seth.”
He looked at Maahes for an explanation. “Why?”
Lydia broke off into her hand gestures.
“Are you yelling at me, now?”
Maahes laughed. “Oh yeah, kid. She’s calling you a lot of names.”
That surprised him. “You understand her?”
Maahes gestured back at Lydia in the same language.
For some reason, it angered and hurt him that they’d cut him out of the conversation. “Are you mocking me?”
Lydia flicked her nails at him, then turned and stormed off.
Seth had no idea what he should do. He didn’t understand human emotions or relations. Not really. It’d been too long since he had any.
Maahes let out a heavy sigh. “You hurt her feelings, boy. You need to go apologize.”
“How did I hurt them?”
“Think about it, Seth. She risked her life to bring you here, to save you from hell, and what do you do the first minute she leaves you alone? You let another woman flirt with you.”
“Her topaz eyes filled with sadness, she shook her head. "Exchanging names is what people do when they meet."
"Yes, but I'm not a..." he stopped just short of saying "person." They had long ago stripped that last bit of dignity out of him. He didn't know what he was anymore. Not really. But she didn't need to know that either.
"You're not what?" she asked after a minute.
"Human."
Lydia sensed that that wasn't what he'd started to say. "But you do have a name, don't you?"
He nodded. "You may call me Master."
Fire burned bright in her eyes as she curled her lip derisively. "I call no man Master. Ever. And that includes you, for the record, buster. So get over yourself. Gah! I can't believe the nerve of you."
Those words angered him. "Are you mocking me?"
Lydia seethed at his ridiculous question. "Aren't you mocking me?"
He actually managed to appear stunned by that. Several other emotions she couldn't identify flickered over his features as more blood trickled from his nose. Absently, he wiped it away before he spoke again. "How so?"
She closed the distance between them, wanting to strangle him for it. Was he really that dense? "Telling me to call you Master? What kind of bullshit is that? No one owns me and they damn sure don't control me.”
“Fuck you and your little dog, too.”
“They reminded Kyle of a Greek god and goddess straight out of the Percy Jackson books. “Wow,” said Miguel. “Do you think Rick Riordan’s going to be here? That would be so awesome!”
“That was the first important discovery I made about Betty: she was desperately isolated, and she survived this isolation only by virtue of the sustaining myth that her intimate life was being lived elsewhere. Her friends, her circle of acquaintances, were not here, but elsewhere, in New York, in Texas, in the past. In fact, everything of importance was elsewhere. It was at this time that I first began to suspect that for Betty there was no “here” there.”
“You’re beautiful. I love you. I support you. I’ll always be your biggest fan, and I’ll always cheer for you on the sidelines no matter what play you make.”
“At times I wonder if the reason I have lost track of time is that I will know when to return not by a date, but when an emptiness is filled.”
“Look not for too long into the doughnut, lest the doughnut look into you.”
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