Breeana Puttroff

Fear is like a weed in a garden. Once you allow it to take root, it spreads, replicating itself, until, eventually, it chokes out all the other life there. Trust, love, kindness _ none of those things can ever really bloom in a garden of fear.

Dandelions represent the easy way. You pick up a dandelion and it's so soft, and it's so easy and even fun sometimes to blow the seeds everywhere. And you don't even realize what you're doing. Nothing happens right then, except you get a pretty little show in the breeze. It's not until later, sometimes, a long time later, that you look out in your garden and realize what you did.It's easy, love, to pull back, to hide in yourself, to run and say you're just taking some time, to keep all of your emotions inside, maybe even to think you're protecting me from something. It would be easier still for me to let you do that. To watch you blow those dandelion seeds everywhere, and pretend it won't damage anything. To pretend we won't wake up one summer morning to discover we've allowed a huge patch of weeds to grow between us, opening up cracks in the foundation of our marriage.Thorns, on the other hand... they're not easy. They hurt. They make you want to give up on the whole plant sometimes. But if you don't give up, love, if you fight through it, allow yourself to be hurt - the result is beautiful and strong. And it will last forever if you care for it.

He shook his head, trying to shake the convoluted thoughts loose. He couldn't worry about it right now. Not about how Thomas felt, or how Quinn did, or even how he, himself did. They were where they were, and there were things to do. First and foremost, there was a baby to deliver.