Just because I’m resisting the wine doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the bouquet.

You could run from someone you feared, you could try to fight someone you hated. All my reactions were geared toward those kinds of killers – the monsters, the enemies. When you loved the one who was killing you, it left you no options. How could you run, how could you fight, when doing so would hurt that beloved one? If your life was all you had to give your beloved, how could you not give it? If it was someone you truly loved?

It was sort of the pattern to my life - I'd never been strong enough to deal with the things outside my control, to attack the enemies or outrun them. To avoid the pain. Always human and weak, the only thing I'd ever been able to do was keep going. Endure. Survive.

And so the lion fell in love with the lamb.

After all, how many ways can one heart be mangled and still be expected to keep beating?

Unca Jay!" "How's it going Claire?" She giggled. "Qwil aaaaawl wet now." "I can see that. Where's your mama?" "Gone, gone, gone," Claire sang. "Cwaire pway wid Qwil aaaawl day. Cwaire nebber gowin home." Jacob and Claire, Breaking Dawn, page 152.

For one half second, I wondered what it would feel like to put my hand in the fire. What it would feel like when I burned.