Damon Love Quotes

Abuse can feel like love.” “Abuse can feel like love…Why?” Damon remained so still it didn’t look like he was breathing. He looked at the teacher, unwavering. “Starving people will eat anything.

Because people should not be punished for loving and hoping and holding their hearts open.

I mean, it's not like he's Damon Salvatore hot

You want a love that consumes you. You want passion and adventure, and even a little danger... I want you to get everything you're looking for. But for right now, I want you to forget that this happened. Can't have people knowing I'm in town yet. Goodnight, Elena.

You always were selfish. Your one fault. Not willing to share anything, are you?" Suddenly, Damon's lips curved up in a singularly beautiful smile. But fortunately the lovely Elena is more generous. Didn't she tell you about our little liaisons? Why? The first time we met she almost gave herself to me on the spot." "That's a lie!" "Oh, no, dear brother, I never lie about anything important. Or do I mean unimportant? Anyway, your beauteous damsel nearly swooned into my arms. I think she likes men in black." As Stefan stared at him, trying to control his breathing, Damon added, almost gently, "You're wrong about her, you know, You think she's sweet and docile like Katherine. She isn't. She's not your type at all, my saintly brother. She has a spirit and a fire in her that you wouldn't know what to do with." "And you would, I suppose." Damon uncrossed his arms and slowly smiled again. "Oh, yes.

It's not wrong to hustle hustlers. It's like killing murderers, a public service. -Damon Salvatore

Abuse can feel like love. Why?' Starving people will eat anything.

There’s nothing to read into. I’m here to collect my beloved Damon and Stefan is just helping me.” Bonnie looked at her with her brows knitted and her mouth pursed, but didn’t venture a word. “Bonnie?” “Um-hm?” “Did I just say what I thought I said?” “Um-hm.” Elena, with one motion, gathered an armful of pillows and deposited them on her face.

Men love a submissive woman, Damon said simply. Even when they say the don't. There's just something about a beautiful, soft woman looking to them to protect and take care of them that inspires a man to greatness.

Damon, leather and silk and fine chiseled features. Mercurial and devastating.

I've been in love. It's painful, pointless and overrated. - Damon Salvatore

You don't know about real loss, 'cause it only occurs when you've loved something more than you love yourself. And I doubt you've ever dared to love anybody that much.

For the first time in his life he understood why the Bible called sex "knowing". Everything was different. Now he knew Dante. He'd known Dante. And wonder of wonders, Dante had known him right back.

People need space; families need air; love needs light. Like Mrs. Anastagio always said, ―You need enough rooms to love someone properly.

Elena smiled and he had to smile back, at first just a quirk of the lip, and then a full smile. She was…Damn it, she was everything. Witty, enchanting, brave, smart…and beautiful. And he knew that his eyes were saying all that and that she wasn’t turning away.

Damon: I wanted to apologize. Elena: Good. Damon: Let me finish. I said I wanted to. And then I realized, I’m not sorry. Elena: You would rather die than be human, and you expect me to be okay with that? Damon: I didn’t say you were supposed to be okay with it, I just said I’m not sorry. But you know what I really am? Selfish, because I make bad choices that hurt you. Yes, I would rather have died than be human. I’d rather die right now than spend a handful of years with you, only to lose you when I’m too old and sick and miserable and you’re still you. I’d rather die right now than spend my last final years remembering how good I had it and how happy I was, because that’s who I am, Elena, and I’m not gonna change. And there’s no apology in the world that encompasses all the reasons that I’m wrong for you. Elena: Fine, then I’m not sorry either. I’m not sorry that I met you. I’m not sorry that knowing you has made me question everything, that in death you’re the one that made me feel most alive. You’ve been a terrible person, you’ve made all the wrong choices, and of all the choices that I’ve made this will prove to be the worst one. But I am not sorry that I’m in love with you. I love you, Damon. I love you.

You‘re my best friend. You‘re the only somebody I got.

I've discovered that in life, it doesn't matter how good of a person you are; it's human nature to be judged and to judge others by the blood they carry and the company they keep.

Still, there was no point in hurting Damon. She loved Damon, too. “I’ll try,” she promised. “We’ll take you home,” he said. “But not yet,” she told him gently. “Let’s wait just a little while.” Something happened in the fathomless black eyes, and the burning spark went out. Then she saw that Damon knew, too. “I’m not afraid,” she said. “Well—only a little.

Damon: I'm mad at you because I love you!

She heard Stefan’s voice. “Elena! Let go! Fall and I’ll catch you!” How strange, Elena thought, as if in a dream. His love and panic had distorted his voice somehow - making him sound different. Making him sound almost like- “Elena! I’m with you!” -like Damon. Shaken out of her dream, Elena looked below her. And there was Damon, standing protectively in front of Meredith, looking up at her, with his arms held out. He was with her.

She bit delicately down on a breadstick, holding it between her teeth.. "Mind if I have a Bite" Shock snapped her eyes wide open and froze her breath..dark eyes dominating her field of vision, a whiff of some kind of calogne in her nostrils, two long fingers tilting her chin up. Damon leaned in, and neatly and precisely, bit off the other end of the bread stick.

Enjoy your freedom while it lasts, Winter Ashby, because we’re not done,” Damon warned in a low voice that snaked through my ear, taunting me. “Grow up, learn things, and have fun in high school, but don’t change the little girl who loves it ‘in the black’, because I like you there, too. And I will be back for what’s mine when you’re old enough for bigger things.

In his clearest moments he thinks he has lost the ability to love, people or places or things, most of all the person and place and thing that he is. Without love nothing has value, nothing can be made to matter very much.

All I know is that right now I wanna rip your clothes off right here in the middle of this hall and throw you in one of these classrooms and kiss every square inch of your body, while a bunch of people who drive minivans listen wishing they were us.

He needed me to make it okay.

Trust this: drinking until you go away from the world only wastes moments of your life. All that time is lost. And time and love are incredibly precious. Yes? Don't waste either.

And who am i? Do you know who i am?" She smiled up at him, showing him her pointed teeth. "Of course i do. You're Damon and I love you.

I love you, Elena. And it's because I love you that I can't be selfish with you. I don't deserve you, but my brother does.-Damon Salvatore, S2

Honestly? I’m waiting for the memory of you kissing me to go away so I’m not tempted to do it again.

That’s the good thing about time travel. It may confuse your life completely but at least you don’t have to rush anything,” Rael murmured as he walked along, looking sideways at me as if trying to work out what he thought of me. “I’m not in any rush to get back home to my wife, as much as I love her. Knowing that you deserve the scorn of your loved one does not make it any easier to bear.

Alex was like Damon. They loved me. They indulged my dark side. They were too forgiving and too enabling. They kept me from being lonely, but Emory taught me that not everything I wanted was going to come easy. That there were things I was going to have to fight for and there was pain in the world that my shallow lifestyle in high school kept me ignorant of. She made me feel like a man.

Kitten?

Stefan was the one who ... the one she loved. But he'd never understood that love was not singular. He'd never understood that she could be in love with Damon and that it would never change an atom's worth of her love for him. Or that his lack of understanding had been so wrenching and painful that she had felt torn in two different people at times.

The funny thing is, I don't care too much. You think you love something so badly, but when it's gone you find out you don't care so much.

The smile on her face was almost Dante's. Tears pricked his eyes, then hers, while all those impossible things passed between them. While the truth was sending down roots and throwing out branches until it filled the silent room with impossible blossoms. I love him.

Because I love you!" There it was, out in the air. Griff's eyes got wide. The words had come out angry, but Dante had meant them. He couldn't open his perfect mouth and swallow them back. His face softened. "In love, I mean. With you. For so long.

See? This was how he’d gotten me to fall in love with him. At times like this he made me feel like the most treasured woman in the world. “So you don’t remember doing this to me? Naked? In the shower? On the bed? On the floor?” With Matt Damon? Okay, how had the Sarah Silverman video gotten in my head, now of all times?

I left for home later dispirited by the thought that my life was infinitely preferable to almost every other human who had ever lived on this planet. I lived in a country where most individuals were free to shape any life for themselves without state intimidation or improper imprisonment; in a time when most of the travesties of human interaction caused by ignorance had been removed. I had adequate money and my health was generally good. I worked at something I loved and if the working conditions ever became unbearable I was able to move without fear of destitution. I had enough or even an excess of food from all continents, all climates. And I was still a miserable bastard.

tell me to stop and i will

Damon opened his mouth to snarl, “And now you’re going to judge how much I love Elena?”  when suddenly he stopped, frozen.   He saw quite clearly the picture that Stefan was projecting of wide brown eyes in a heart-shaped face and tumbled strawberry curls, and he felt all the defensive fury of being trapped in the wrong.

Because if there's one thing they know about revenge, Damon, it's that it won't feel nearly as good as her love will.

I would love to say that I wrote (Good Will Hunting). Here is the truth. In my obit it will say that I wrote it. People don't want to think those two cute guys wrote it. What happened was, they had the script. It was their script. They gave it to Rob [Reiner] to read, and there was a great deal of stuff in the script dealing with the F.B.I. trying to use Matt Damon for spy work because he was so brilliant in math. Rob said, "Get rid of it." They then sent them in to see me for a day - I met with them in New York - and all I said to them was, "Rob's right. Get rid of the F.B.I. stuff. Go with the family, go with Boston, go with all that wonderful stuff." And they did. I think people refuse to admit it because their careers have been so far from writing, and I think it's too bad. I'll tell you who wrote a marvelous script once, Sylvester Stallone. Rocky's a marvelous script. God, read it, it's wonderful. It's just got marvelous stuff. And then he stopped suddenly because it's easier being a movie star and making all that money than going in your pit and writing a script. But I did not write [Good Will Hunting], alas. I would not have written the "It's not your fault" scene. I'm going to assume that 148 percent of the people in this room have seen a therapist. I certainly have, for a long time. Hollywood always has this idea that it's this shrink with only one patient. I mean, that scene with Robin Williams gushing and Matt Damon and they're hugging, "It's not your fault, it's not your fault." I thought, Oh God, Freud is so agonized over this scene. But Hollywood tends to do that with therapists. (from 2003 WGA seminar)

Each of them had done their best. Matt was still his friend. For Meredith, maybe the day would come when she could look at him and not think “inhuman” — or at least not think it immediately and constantly. Maybe Bonnie, the moth, would be able to stay away from the unholy flame. Now, there was something to worry about. He could all too easily see Bonnie taking a walk on the very wild side with Damon. His brother had a soft spot for her already, she knew. But if either of them had a problem, he already knew what he had to do to find a plan for a solution. Just look up.

Will, Kai, Damon, and Michael. The Four Horseman. I just loved these nicknames little wannabe gangsters gave themselves in high school, but someone should really tell them it wasn't scary when youhad to tell everyone how scary you were.

Elena: I love you. Damon: 'til death do us part.

Her touch removed the presiding air, landed on the quiescent surface of his skin, warm touch diffused, and suffused in lakes of his morosity; dyed his every molecule, placing her in his empty spaces, declaring 'meaning' against the very existence.

Your life needs an airbag. I swear, Anastagio, you should have come equipped when you were born.” Just then Dante leaned against him, brow between his shoulder blades for a moment, so tentatively Griff held his breath. His voice was almost sheepish. “Nah. Everyone knows I was born defective. They didn’t instal you until later.

Under the purple sky, fulgent stars, in subdued moonlight, surrounded by blinding darkness, on dewed grass, bare feet, I'll kiss you, I'll kiss you, to the testimony of stars and skies. I'll kiss you as such that love will erect from the soil, and coil around us, and our clays would become one.

Sean: …………And I'd ask you about war, you'd probably throw Shakespeare at me, right, "once more unto the breach dear friends." But you've never been near one. You've never held your best friend's head in your lap, watch him gasp his last breath looking to you for help. I'd ask you about love, you'd probably quote me a sonnet. But you've never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone that could level you with her eyes, feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you. Who could rescue you from the depths of hell. And you wouldn't know what it's like to be her angel, to have that love for her, be there forever, through anything, through cancer. And you wouldn't know about sleeping sitting up in the hospital room for two months, holding her hand, because the doctors could see in your eyes, that the terms "visiting hours" don't apply to you. You don't know about real loss, 'cause it only occurs when you've loved something more than you love yourself. And I doubt you've ever dared to love anybody that much. And look at you... I don't see an intelligent, confident man... I see a scared shitless kid. But you're a genius Will. No one denies that. No one could possibly understand the depths of you. But you presume to know everything about me because you saw a painting of mine, and you ripped my life apart. You're an orphan right? [Will nods] Sean: You think I know the first thing about how hard your life has been, how you feel, who you are, because I read Oliver Twist? Does that encapsulate you? Personally... I don't give a shit about all that, because you know what, I can't learn anything from you, I can't read in some book. Unless you want to talk about you, who you are. Then I'm fascinated. I'm in. But you don't want to do that do you sport? You're terrified of what you might say. Your move, chief.

And Lord knows there are more than enough rooms to love someone properly, even if they don't all have floors or ceilings.

Even in one’s most physical moments, the real craving was for love.

I love you, Elena. And I will love you until I take my last breath on this earth.

He missed her like an asphyxiating man misses breath involuntarily, yet inevitably

His moans are intoxicating, and I’m lost in everything Maddox.

I lean in and kiss him softly. His mouth moves lazily against mine, and I have to force myself to pull away.

When his lips find mine, they’re soft and tentative, so I force my tongue into his mouth to harden the kiss, but he groans and pulls away.

Love hurts. Think back over romance novels you’ve loved or the genre-defining books that drive our industry. The most unforgettable stories and characters spring from crushing opposition. What we remember about romance novels is the darkness that drives them. Three hundred pages of folks being happy together makes for a hefty sleeping pill, but three hundred pages of a couple finding a way to be happy in the face of impossible odds makes our hearts soar. In darkness, we are all alone. So don’t just make love, make anguish for your characters. As you structure a story, don’t satisfy your hero’s desires, thwart them. Make sure your solutions create new problems. Nurture your characters doubts and despair. Make them earn the happy ending they want, even better…make them deserve it. Delay and disappointment charge situations and validate character growth. Misery accompanies love. It’s no accident that many of the stories we think of as timeless romances in Western Literature are fiercely tragic: Romeo and Juliet, Tristan and Isolde, Cupid and Psyche… the pain in them drags us back again and again, hoping that this time we’ll find a way out of the dark. Only if you let your characters get lost will we get lost in them. And that, more than anything else, is what romance can and should do for its protagonists and its readers: lead us through the labyrinth, skirt the monstrous despair roaming its halls, and find our way into daylight.

Abuse can feel like love." I blinked, the voice so close that my ears tingled. Slowly, I raised my eyes to look at the side of Damon Torrance's face, his shirt wrinkled, and his tie draped around his neck. The whole class fell silent, and I glanced at Will next to me, seeing his eyebrows pinched together as he looked at the back of his friend's head. Mr. Townsend approached. "Abuse can feel like love..." he repeated. "Why?" Damon remained so still it didn't look like he was breathing. He looked at the teacher, unwavering. "Starving people will eat anything.

I really do love them,” he breathed out. “But I never have a moment alone. If I want my wife, I have to ambush her in the fucking shower.” “Maybe you should stay away from her,” I pointed out. “She gets pregnant every time you breathe on her.

Maddy.” My hand goes over his head, pushing the door closed so he can’t escape, and he turns to face me. This close, we share the same breath, and we’re both breathing hard. His eyes are either hooded or narrowed; I can’t tell if he’s angry or turned on, but I don’t give him a chance to let me know which, because I move in and fuse my mouth to his. He accepts it willingly—eagerly.

Resisting him has made the buildup to this more explosive. His tongue, his lips, his mouth seeking mine, it’s as natural and inevitable as magnets finding each other. I tried to be strong, I tried to hold back, but I know now it would’ve been impossible to keep up forever. His back hits the door. Our tongues tangle, and there’s no hesitance on his part. He dives in fully, and he tastes the same as I remember but better.

...if you are names without a nature, it's not because I don't remember, no, the opposite is true, you are remembered in me as an endless stirring and turning. But it's for this precisely that you must forgive me, because in every story of obsession there's only one character, only one plot. I am writing about myself alone, it's all I know, and for this reason I have always failed in every love, which is to say at the very heart of life.

One of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned is that no one will protect my time or prioritize my needs as vigilantly as me. That’s understandable. Most people act out of self-interest; they naturally put their own priorities ahead of others’ priorities. But it means each of us is responsible for making sure our personal needs are met. No one is going to do it for us. Moreover, it’s important that we attend to our own needs before attending to the needs of others. This assertion may make you feel uncomfortable, particularly if you strive to be loving and giving in all that you do. But allowing your needs to remain unaddressed while you continuously cater to others is the path toward resentment and bitterness. It can even become a health issue if you run yourself ragged (I speak from experience).

I'll forget everything. I'll forget the last hundred years I spent missing you. We can start over.-Damon The truth is...I never loved you.-Katherine

Damon needed to be healed. Not from his physical ailments, but from the wounds that came from the ones he loved always leaving him.

What did love mean if it was doled out so carelessly, with no thought of consequence?

LOVE IT! :) Yeah. They've been doing BIG billboards of this in the gayborhoods in NYC, LA and SanFran. Although I wouldn't fuck a Scientologist on a dare. 8|

Absuse can feel like love. Starving people will eat anything.

No love left, only kindness,

It's OK to be loving and compassionate... and still know how to tear someone's throat out.

She paused and then said, “I love you.” A pang hit my heart like it always did when she said that. Like I was falling for her all over again.

I’d loved how he didn’t get mad at my mistakes and waited for me to do things at my pace. Just like now. He wasn’t mad I cut him.

Damon turned to me. “Who do you belong to? Who do you love?

Parenting is the privilege of constant failure... and being loved anyway.

Abuse can feel like love…” he repeated. “Why?” Damon remained so still it didn’t look like he was breathing. He looked at the teacher, unwavering. “Starving people will eat anything.

Okay, wow. I…um…I’d love to watch this, actually,” Damon called out, “but Winter will consider it cheating if she’s not here, too. I’ll go ahead and walk home, and you fucking owe me, Will.

Abuse can feel like love.” “Abuse can feel like love…Why?” Damon remained so still it didn’t look like he was breathing. He looked at the teacher, unwavering. “Starving people will eat anything.

Penny had read Damon’s very thorough file on the Taggarts. If they could be together and in love, then anyone could. “Then how did you get him back?” “Sex, of course. It’s really the only language men understand.

He pressed his lips against hers and closing his own eyes, ignoring the pain in his side, and the uncertainty in his chest he mouthed, ‘I love my Princess. I love my Jocelyn. Love you and only you from now until forever.

What?” Damon shouted from inside the room. We all stopped, looking at each other. “It’s a boy?” he blurted out. “Are you sure?” We leaned in, and I folded my lips between my teeth to contain the laughter. A baby cried, there was some shuffling, and then we heard Damon’s playful little growl. “Ugh, what am I going to do with you?” “Damon!” Winter growled. “I’m going to kill you. You better love him. You do, right?” There was a pause, and I met Alex’s wide eyes with my own. Drama… Damon and I ran the construction business together now, him building and me designing, so I’d gotten used to his…brand of humor. Finally, he answered. “Y–yeah,” he stuttered, not sounding convincing. “Yeah, of course, baby. But like, are you sure there aren’t any more in there or something?” “Damon!” Will collapsed against the wall, shaking with laughter, and I shook my head, reaching over and taking the squirming Ivar out of Rika’s arms.

Will, Kai, Damon, and Michael. The Four Horsemen. I just loved the nicknames the little wannabe gangsters gave themselves in high school, but someone should really tell them it wasn’t scary when you had to tell everyone how scary you were.

Um…” someone said, and I blinked, noticing the car had stopped. “Okay, wow. I…um…I’d love to watch this, actually,” Damon called out, “but Winter will consider it cheating if she’s not here, too. I’ll go ahead and walk home, and you fucking owe me, Will.

I'm inspired by love, by the moments that we commit to something with all our heart - be it a person, a project, an animal, anything really. It's undeniably inspiring, that acknowledgment of existence, that I love, that I care. That fills me with purpose.

But fuck, I was going to love them. I didn’t care about being perfect. I just wanted to be everything my father wasn’t. I wanted this with her a million more times, and no matter all the shit that still lived inside me, I already knew I was better than him.

She had caught him like a visceral disease which grew and spread inside him. Her presence was the remedy, her absence filled the air. He had grown used to her like a queasy, a sick man to his medicine; just like it happens then, the more of her was the less of her.

DISTRACTED with care For Phillis the fair, Since nothing could move her, Poor Damon, her lover, Resolves in despair No longer to languish Nor bear so much anguish; But, mad with his love, To a precipice goes, Where a leap from above Would soon finish his woes. When in rage he came there, Beholding how steep The sides did appear, And the bottom how deep; His torments projecting, And sadly reflecting That a lover forsaken A new love may get, But a neck when once broken can never be set: And that he could die Whenever he would, But that he could live But as long as he could: How grievous soever The torment might grow, He scorned to endeavour To finish it so; And bold, unconcerned At thoughts of the pain, He calmly returned To his cottage again.

There was no reason why he should not lift the veil aside. Well, there was Lily. He could imagine his mother’s face if he told her he was giving up meat and alcohol and going to live off the land and make sandals. Not to mention homogenic love. The veil might be thin, but in some cases it was insurmountable.

It’s a boy?” he blurted out. “Are you sure?” We leaned in, and I folded my lips between my teeth to contain the laughter. A baby cried, there was some shuffling, and then we heard Damon’s playful little growl. “Ugh, what am I going to do with you?” “Damon!” Winter growled. “I’m going to kill you. You better love him. You do, right?

Southern is a design element these days. A large craft market exists for this Decorative Southernness. Framed art and throw pillows saying – "I Love You Like Biscuits and Gravy" and "Bless Your Heart!" But I've yet to see a "You Don't Look Like You're From Around Here" dish towel. This was the phrase I heard most growing up in small town Florida.

You're just a boy. You don't have the faintest idea what you're talking about. You've never been out of Boston. So if I asked you about art you could give me the skinny on every art book ever written...Michelangelo? You know a lot about him I bet. Life's work, criticisms, political aspirations. But you couldn't tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You've never stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling. And if I asked you about women I'm sure you could give me a syllabus of your personal favorites, and maybe you've been laid a few times too. But you couldn't tell me how it feels to wake up next to a woman and be truly happy. If I asked you about war you could refer me to a bevy of fictional and non-fictional material, but you've never been in one. You've never held your best friend's head in your lap and watched him draw his last breath, looking to you for help. And if I asked you about love I'd get a sonnet, but you've never looked at a woman and been truly vulnerable. Known that someone could kill you with a look. That someone could rescue you from grief. That God had put an angel on Earth just for you. And you wouldn't know how it felt to be her angel. To have the love be there for her forever. Through anything, through cancer. You wouldn't know about sleeping sitting up in a hospital room for two months holding her hand and not leaving because the doctors could see in your eyes that the term "visiting hours" didn't apply to you. And you wouldn't know about real loss, because that only occurs when you lose something you love more than yourself, and you've never dared to love anything that much. I look at you and I don't see an intelligent confident man, I don't see a peer, and I don't see my equal. I see a boy.

True. I love you, Maddy.” No matter how many times he says it, I can’t hear it enough. It doesn’t freak me out, and the idea of being with him forever doesn’t make me antsy. I crave him, more than I’ve ever craved anyone or anything in my life. I always used to think relationships meant compromising what you want for something somebody else wants, but I never realized that when you meet that one person who becomes your priority it’s not compromising because you’d willingly do anything to make them happy. Just like I know Damon would do the same for me. I kiss him again. “You remember when we first met and I told you I felt like I don’t belong?” Damon nods. “I found it—where I’m supposed to be. It’s with you.

Something in him has changed, he can't seem to connect properly with the world. He feels this not as a failure of the world but as a massive failing in himself, he would like to change it but doesn't know how. In his clearest moments he thinks that he has lost the ability to love, people or places or things, most of all the person and place and thing that he is. Without love nothing has value, nothing can be made to matter very much.

Abuse can feel like love.” I blinked, the voice so close that my ears tingled. Slowly, I raised my eyes to look at the side of Damon Torrance’s face, his shirt wrinkled, and his tie draped around his neck. The whole class fell silent, and I glanced at Will next to me, seeing his eyebrows pinched together as he looked at the back of his friend’s head. Mr. Townsend approached. “‘Abuse can feel like love . . .’” he repeated. “Why?” Damon remained so still it didn’t look like he was breathing. He looked at the teacher, unwavering. “Starving people will eat anything.

And then I felt him next to me, his warm breath just above my ear. “Enjoy your freedom while it lasts, Winter Ashby, because we’re not done,” Damon warned in a low voice that snaked through my ear, taunting me. “Grow up, learn things, and have fun in high school, but don’t change the little girl who loves it ‘in the black’, because I like you there, too. And I will be back for what’s mine when you’re old enough for bigger things.” I turned my face away, breathing harder. “And be good,” he told me. “If I hear anyone touched you, I will crack his fucking skull.

I rush over to him and practically knock him down as I kiss him hard. He stumbles back, but his hands go to my waist, and his mouth takes everything I give. I try to express everything I feel for him, everything I want to say, because I’m not sure if I can admit it aloud yet. I love him. This is true, but the thought of saying it out loud makes the walls close in—just like they’ve always done. Only difference is, this time, when I remind myself that it’s Damon, all that doubt, the claustrophobia, the itchy feeling of wanting to escape disappears completely. If I focus on the Damon part and not words like love and forever, I don’t freak out. I want it. Everything.

Because every time I closed my eyes, I saw the girl who made me want to be better. More. I saw Emmy Scott. Alex was like Damon. They loved me. They indulged my dark side. They were too forgiving and too enabling. They kept me from being lonely, but Emory taught me that not everything I wanted was going to come easy. That there were things I was going to have to fight for and there was pain in the world that my shallow lifestyle in high school kept me ignorant of. She made me feel like a man. Even though her words were sharp and the battle she constantly fought in her heart felt like a knife in my own, her eyes on me made me feel strong. Her arms around me made me want to take on anything.

She held up three hangers inside a vinyl garment bag and hooked them sideways on the coatrack to unzip. "Raw silk. Vintage. Sort of a purple-black." "Aubergine," he declared and cracked the opening wider. "I love a man who can make colors sound dirty." She grinned. "Cross-dyed." He wondered if Trip had helped pick this out, if he'd seen her model it and convinced her to splurge. "Great suit." "I gotta stand next to J.R. Ward. Feel me?" She fluttered her short nails at him. "Baby, I went and bought a pair of Givenchy boots I cannot even afford because the Warden is gonna be there in full effect, and you know what that means!" He didn't really, but he got the gist. "So you want nighttime for daytime." "Extra vampy, hold the trampy. Like, more Lust For Dracula than Breaking Dawn." Rina squeezed her shoulders together to amp her cleavage. "If I'm hauling the girls out, no way can I do sparkly anorexia.

He leaned in, held his breath so as not to make a noise, went close to her, inhaled the scent that emanated from the pores of her forehead; inhaled the air that bounced back from her head. He stopped there, listening intently to the blood flowing, heart beating, pulse pulsating, her hair drifting slowly below her ear resting where the carotid artery was. He closed his eyes as if picturing everything. Like a dexterous doctor discerning the malfunction in a patient or an adroit maestro listening to every note to discern where the one note is missing. He stacked everything neatly in his head, still the intent hearing continued. Finally, a smile came to his face just as easily as breath came to him. A ecstatic smoke rose in his head, he had heard the murmur of her thoughts, she was in a peaceful world now. She had drifted into slumber, through the doors to the dream worlds, nothing was troubling her now. He was filled with an air of comfort and triumph, he was there when she needed it. He was happy that nothing bothered her anymore, how he wanted to ostracize the world just a few moments before!? He wanted to drag this drab world out of her dreamy gleaming eyes, petal covered, almond eyes. She was stumbling in her own world now, as he sat beside her bed. He kissed her forehead, whisked the world with those thin lips of his; he whisked that pile of rubble. He leaned to the side and below, not knowing which side; right or left, it didn't matter; whispered in her ear: "I love you". A smile played on her lips as if she heard that. Again he kissed her forehead, had a good look at her closed eyes. His taverns, he thought; where he got drunk, placed so adjacent to each other. He was happy, that she was happy, she was happy so he was happy. The rest of the world didn't matter; No! No! There was no "Rest" she was his world the whole and entire of it, there was no "Rest of the world". He got up collected his phone, which played slow Beethoven, turned it off, switched the lamp off, pulled the blanket over her, got up, patted the dog along, made out of her room; into her balcony. He didn't want to go yet, he stood there as many thoughts danced in front of him, slow in the moonlight.

GIVE ME THE SONGS OF A NATION” Sing for joy to God our strength; shout aloud to the God of Jacob! Begin the music, strike the timbrel, play the melodious harp and lyre. Psalm 81:1–2 Let these two quotations wash over you:           “I am the art in your arthouses, the ideas in your institutions, the laws in your land, the message in your movies, the thoughts of your teachers, the values your kids value. I affect you. Do you affect me?”—Culture And also this one, from the fifth-century BC Greek musician Damon of Athens:           Give me the songs of a nation, and it matters not who writes its laws. I wish more of us—especially our politicians—realized that ideas have consequences in the real world. When we embrace certain ideals in our movies and songs (sex without restraint, for example, which happened during the “free love” 1970s), it affects our culture in ways that rules and regulations can’t undo. SWEET FREEDOM IN Action Today, don’t let movies, songs, and the arts be dominated by liberals. Instead, arm your Christian children and grandkids with a solid worldview and encourage them to enter these areas boldly and with excellence.