emotional

So just over a year ago, there was this guy. I really liked him. I mean really _ since I was a kid._ __id Frankie know him?_ __he three of us were best friends. We basically grew up together._ __omplicated._ __ery. So anyway, last year on my birthday, he finally kissed me._ Sam stays quiet, focused on his feet taking off and landing against the sand. It feels strange to tell him about this for so many reasons, but the words are coming too fast for me to stop, even if I want to. __e started hanging out all the time _ even more than before. Every night. Only we didn__ know how to tell Frankie, because we didn__ want her to freak or feel left out or whatever._ __akes sense,_ Sam says. __e thought it would be better if he told her himself, so I promised him that I wouldn__ say anything. But before he could talk to her about it, he__ I almost choke on the word, holding my hand against Sam__ arm to stop our forward motion along the shore. __hat did he do?_ Sam asks. __e just _ he _ I__ sorry. Wait._ The words of this story have passed a thousand times from my hand to the pages of my journal, but never from my lips to the ears of another living soul. I take a few deep breaths before I__ able to meet Sam__ eyes and say it. __e died, Sam.

You can never see my tears behind my anger and smile. The only thing you can see is my respect for you, because you deserve for it....

Sometime later, I stood watching the cold rain fall, when suddenly I felt Daemon's arms around me and his lips on my neck. He loved my pregnant body and his hands roamed over it under the warm terrycloth of my bathrobe. I was lost in the moment, content to stay here forever...lost in the cold rain and welcoming warmth of Dublin, and lost in the arms of my husband. Since we arrived early this morning we were in our room, making love and sleeping, lost in a fairy tale moment, savoring every caress.

He had placed the life of every one of his men before his own, and if that wasn__ the sign of a truly great leader, then he didn__ know what was.

I've been waiting for you," he murmured.Aphrodite slowly walked across the balcony, as her mind raced, trying to think of the perfect thing to say in return. All of a sudden a thought came to her that she didn't quite understand, but she knew it was right. It was also important, and would immortalize her and her actions for thousands of years to come."Happy Valentine's Day," she purred, as she fell into his arms, still holding the box of chocolates and a single red rose.

His eyes danced like a teenager. "Eat anyone alive today?" her father joked.Ruby returned his wicked grin and sauntered into the living room. "Not today, but tomorrow's another day.

I remembered Daemon's feather soft kisses on my cheek, and I remembered the clouds parting and the sun shining on a cold February day in Ireland. And as my baby girl was laid on my chest and my husband held my hand, I saw my best friend Kat walk into the sun kissed part in the clouds, hand in hand, along with the last regrets of my past.

It was about time she woke up to reality and realized that there was more to being a vampire than just feeding from blood.

As much as he cared for Kaitlin, he knew that the clan__ survival was much more important that his own heart. Without her, he would be heartbroken all over again. He would lose her just as he had lost Angela with no hope of ever seeing her again, but he could run the clan with a broken heart. He would be a stronger, more feared leader without her, but he was sure that if Kaitlin had known his reasoning, she would have understood. She was the only one to understand him.

I was only trying to survive,_ she mumbled, as if it made any difference. It was no excuse to use against someone who had truly been trying to survive, and Damian had done so quite successfully since 1450. What right had she to say that it was hard?

Fearful that they would be caught, the young lovers cast themselves into the sea with their stone, saying these words, "May we ever be united in love and hidden as long as this stone hides in deep waters.

Everything was Amelia__ fault. He hadn__ done anything wrong and neither had Kaitlin, but they were the ones paying the price and for what? To bring back a girl that he hated and wished he could kill but couldn__? To bring back a girl who had broken her mother__ heart to such an extent that it killed her? As far as Damian was concerned, it wasn__ worth it. She didn__ deserve to come back; she didn__ deserve to live. No, Amelia deserved nothing, and especially not his love.

Man wanted a home, a place for warmth, or comfort, first of physical warmth, then the warmth of the affections.

I can__ pinpoint the moment this all happened. The moment we broke. But we did.And it feels like acid in my throat.

It took me a long time to realise that mothers are women who carry youAnd not necessarily in their womb.

I think you feel like, unless you're damagedyou're not deep enough or mysterious enoughor complicated enough to ever be appreciated by another.And that is deeply untrue.

...But the Mahommedan religion increases, instead of lessening, the fury of intolerance. It was originally propagated by the sword, and ever since, its votaries have been subject, above the people of all other creeds, to this form of madness. In a moment the fruits of patient toil, the prospects of material prosperity, the fear of death itself, are flung aside. The more emotional Pathans are powerless to resist. All rational considerations are forgotten. Seizing their weapons, they become Ghazis__s dangerous and as sensible as mad dogs: fit only to be treated as such. While the more generous spirits among the tribesmen become convulsed in an ecstasy of religious bloodthirstiness, poorer and more material souls derive additional impulses from the influence of others, the hopes of plunder and the joy of fighting. Thus whole nations are roused to arms. Thus the Turks repel their enemies, the Arabs of the Soudan break the British squares, and the rising on the Indian frontier spreads far and wide. In each case civilisation is confronted with militant Mahommedanism. The forces of progress clash with those of reaction. The religion of blood and war is face to face with that of peace.

Real optimism is not the pep talk you give yourself. It is earned through the labor involved in emotional housekeeping.