The wound you refuse to dress is one that will never heal. You gush lifeblood and never even know why. It will make you weak at a critical moment when you need to be strong.

And now she was just Gabby, currently staying in a dreamy, magnificent castle in Scotland with a Fae prince who did all kinds of non-nasty, non-inhuman things like tearing up lists of names, and returning tadpoles to lakes, and saving people's lives. Not to mention kissing with all the otherwordly splendor of a horny angel.

Liminal sucks. You can't grasp it with your hands and shape it. You can't make midnight come faster, or grow up sooner, or avoid the in-betweens. You can only hang in there, and get through them.

In that you're wrong. I choose, I adhere, I pursue, I commit, I attain. That - that, my errant friend - is an absolute." - Hawk

He looked as if he'd stepped straight off the cover of one of those romance novels she ordered from Amazon.com so she didn't have to be embarassed by some supercilious male clerk in the bookstore.

Daddy looked at her hard, and right before my eyes, he changed. I watched him inflate again, shake off his own emotions and puff himself up for her. Become her man. Her rock. I smiled. I loved him so much. He'd dragged mom kicking and screaming from grief once before and I knew I could rest easy that he would never let grief steal her from him again. No matter what happened to me.

But then we so rarely understand the value of what we possess until it's gone.