Backpacking Backpacker Quotes

Nothing was ever in tune. People just blindly grabbed at whatever there was: communism, health foods, zen, surfing, ballet, hypnotism, group encounters, orgies, biking, herbs, Catholicism, weight-lifting, travel, withdrawal, vegetarianism, India, painting, writing, sculpting, composing, conducting, backpacking, yoga, copulating, gambling, drinking, hanging around, frozen yogurt, Beethoven, Back, Buddha, Christ, TM, H, carrot juice, suicide, handmade suits, jet travel, New York City, and then it all evaporated and fell apart. People had to find things to do while waiting to die. I guess it was nice to have a choice.

My dream is to walk around the world. A smallish backpack, all essentials neatly in place. A camera. A notebook. A traveling paint set. A hat. Good shoes. A nice pleated (green?) skirt for the occasional seaside hotel afternoon dance.

It had nothing to do with gear or footwear or the backpacking fads or philosophies of any particular era or even with getting from point A to point B. It had to do with how it felt to be in the wild. With what it was like to walk for miles with no reason other than to witness the accumulation of trees and meadows, mountains and deserts, streams and rocks, rivers and grasses, sunrises and sunsets. The experience was powerful and fundamental. It seemed to me that it had always felt like this to be a human in the wild, and as long as the wild existed it would always feel this way.

don't do things that kill you.

Grover wore his fake feet and his pants to pass as human. He wore a green rasta-style cap, because when it rained his curly hair flattened and you could just see the tips of his horns. His bright orange backpack was full of scrap metal and apples to snack on. In his pocket was a set of reed pipes his daddy goat had carved for him, even though he only knew two songs: Mozart's Piano Concerto no. 12 and Hilary Duff's "So Yesterday," both of which sounded pretty bad on reed pipes.

No homework. I got suspended,” Blue replied. “Get the fuck out,” Ronan said, but with admiration. “Sargent, you asshole.” Blue reluctantly allowed him to bump fists with her as Gansey eyed her meaningfully in the rearview mirror. Adam swivelled the other way in his seat – to the right, instead of to the left, so that he was peering around the far side of the headrest. It made him look as if he were hiding, but Blue knew it was just because it turned his hearing ear instead of his deaf ear towards them. “For what?” “Emptying another student’s backpack over his car. I don’t really want to talk about it.” “I do,” Ronan said. “Well, I don’t. I’m not proud of it.” Ronan patted her leg. “I’ll be proud for you.

Hey!" Claire called after him, as she leaned her backpack against the wall. "No onions!" "Your loss!" "I meant for YOU! Not if you want to get kissed tonight!" "Damn, girl. Harsh.

He gave me the brochure. It was about the Hunters of Artemis. The front read, A WISE CHOICE FOR YOUR FUTURE! Inside were pictures of young maidens doing hunter stuff, chasing monsters, shooting bows. There were captions like: HEALTH BENEFITS: IMMORTALITY AND WHAT IT MEANS FOR YOU! and A BOY-FREE TOMORROW! "I found that in Annabeth's backpack," Grover said. I stared at him. "I don't understand." "Well, it seems to me… maybe Annabeth was thinking about joining." I'd like to say I took the news well. The truth was, I wanted to strangle the Hunters of Artemis one eternal maiden at a time.

What exactly did you find in Atlanta?” Frank unzipped his backpack and started bringing out souvenirs. “Some peach preserves. A couple of T-shirts. A snow globe. And, um, these not-really-Chinese handcuffs.” Annabeth forced herself to stay calm. “How about you start from the top—of the story, not the backpack.

Are you armed?" Oliver asked her. She glanced down at her backpack and instantly, instinctively held back. "No." "Lie to me again and I'll put you out on the street and do this myself." Claire swallowed. "Uh, yeah." "With what?" "Silver-coated stakes, wooden stakes, a crossbow, about ten bolts . . . oh, and a squirt gun with some silver-nitrate solution." He smiled grimly at the dark windshield. "What, no grenade launchers?" "Would they work?" "I choose not to comment.

Look at that! The entire Australian kit dates from the 1940s and the uniforms are falling apart at the seams, the fucking boots you have issued to us are the same and everything is rotten. As for bloody weapons, we are issued with the Owen sub-machine gun. While the gun is still a very good weapon, the 9mm ammunition it uses is old WW2 stock and its propellants have deteriorated to the point where I doubt if the round will penetrate the back-pack of a fleeing Noggie!

I felt like a secret agent, relying on my wits and charm to keep me alive amidst an epidemic of violent death

I look at the blanked-out faces of the other passengers--hoisting their briefcases, their backpacks, shuffling to disembark--and I think of what Hobie said: beauty alters the grain of reality. And I keep thinking too of the more conventional wisdom: namely, that the pursuit of pure beauty is a trap, a fast track to bitterness and sorrow, that beauty has to be wedded to something more meaningful. Only what is that thing? Why am I made the way I am? Why do I care about all the wrong things, and nothing at all for the right ones? Or, to tip it another way: how can I see so clearly that everything I love or care about is illusion, and yet--for me, anyway--all that's worth living for lies in that charm? A great sorrow, and one that I am only beginning to understand: we don't get to choose our own hearts. We can't make ourselves want what's good for us or what's good for other people. We don't get to choose the people we are. Because--isn't it drilled into us constantly, from childhood on, an unquestioned platitude in the culture--? From William Blake to Lady Gaga, from Rousseau to Rumi to Tosca to Mister Rogers, it's a curiously uniform message, accepted from high to low: when in doubt, what to do? How do we know what's right for us? Every shrink, every career counselor, every Disney princess knows the answer: "Be yourself." "Follow your heart." Only here's what I really, really want someone to explain to me. What if one happens to be possessed of a heart that can't be trusted--? What if the heart, for its own unfathomable reasons, leads one willfully and in a cloud of unspeakable radiance away from health, domesticity, civic responsibility and strong social connections and all the blandly-held common virtues and instead straight toward a beautiful flare of ruin, self-immolation, disaster?...If your deepest self is singing and coaxing you straight toward the bonfire, is it better to turn away? Stop your ears with wax? Ignore all the perverse glory your heart is screaming at you? Set yourself on the course that will lead you dutifully towards the norm, reasonable hours and regular medical check-ups, stable relationships and steady career advancement the New York Times and brunch on Sunday, all with the promise of being somehow a better person? Or...is it better to throw yourself head first and laughing into the holy rage calling your name?

He slung off his backpack. He'd managed to grab a lot of supplies at the Napa Bargain Mart: a portable GPS, duct tape, lighter, superglue, water bottle, camping roll, a Comfy Panda Pillow Pet (as seen on TV), and a Swiss army knife—pretty much every tool a modern demigod could want.

What’s in that backpack, by the way? You’re always guarding it like it holds national security secrets or something. (Tory) Dirty underwear. (Acheron)

I can never be who I was. I can simply watch her with sympathy, understanding, and some measure of awe. There she goes, backpack on, headed for the subway or the airport. She did her best with her eyeliner. She learned a new word she wants to try out on you. She is ambling along. She is looking for it.

Frank couldn't breathe underwater. But where was he? Percy turned in a full circle. Nothing. Then he glanced up. Hovering above him was a giant goldfish. Frank had turned -clothes, backpack, and all- into a koi the size of a teen-aged boy. "dude." Percy sent his thoughts through the water, the way he spoke to other sea creatures. "A goldfish?" Frank's voice came back to him: "I freaked. We were talking about goldfish, so it was on my mind. Sue me.

I liked, I admit, that we didn’t pretend there hadn’t been other girls. There was always a girl on you in the halls at school, like they came free with a backpack.

I beg young people to travel. If you don’t have a passport, get one. Take a summer, get a backpack and go to Delhi, go to Saigon, go to Bangkok, go to Kenya. Have your mind blown. Eat interesting food. Dig some interesting people. Have an adventure. Be careful. Come back and you’re going to see your country differently, you’re going to see your president differently, no matter who it is. Music, culture, food, water. Your showers will become shorter. You’re going to get a sense of what globalization looks like. It’s not what Tom Friedman writes about; I’m sorry. You’re going to see that global climate change is very real. And that for some people, their day consists of walking 12 miles for four buckets of water. And so there are lessons that you can’t get out of a book that are waiting for you at the other end of that flight. A lot of people—Americans and Europeans—come back and go, ohhhhh. And the light bulb goes on.

Rule #1: You may bring only what fits in your backpack. Don’t try to fake it with a purse or a carry-on. Rule #2: You may not bring guidebooks, phrase books, or any kind of foreign language aid. And no journals. Rule #3: You cannot bring extra money or credit/debit cards, travelers’ checks, etc. I’ll take care of all that. Rule #4: No electronic crutches. This means no laptop, no cell phone, no music, and no camera. You can’t call home or communicate with people in the U.S. by Internet or telephone. Postcards and letters are acceptable and encouraged. That’s all you need to know for now.

She stared at Peter, and she realized that in that one moment, when she hadn't been thinking, she knew exactly what he'd felt as he moved through the school with his backpack and his guns. Every kid in this school played a role: jock, brain, beauty, freak. All Peter had done was what they all secretly dreamed of: be someone, even for just nineteen minutes, who nobody else was allowed to judge.

You don’t know about the other travellers you meet and they in turn have no idea who you are, and that is truly special, for there isn’t any detrimental preconceived notions about the other, and in this space there is room for understanding and healing. When you backpack, for the first time in a long time, you feel like you belong and are connected to not only with the world, but also with your inner self.

I grabbed Liam's arm as he passed me on his way to the tunnel door, kissing his cheek. "See you later tonight." He stepped down into the tunnel, shouldering a backpack Cole had left for him there. When I turned to say good-bye to the other Stewart, he'd stooped, turned his cheek toward me, and was waiting. I flicked it with my finger, making him laugh again. "You're impossible," I informed him. "It's all part of my charm," he said, shifting the heavy bag on his shoulder. "Take care of things, Boss." "Take care of him." I said, pointedly. He gave one last mock salute before shutting the door to the tunnel. I waited until the sound of his and the others' steps faded completely before locking the door after him.

Looks like we have quite the predicament here, boys.” I smile at both of them, then eye the coffee in Breckin’s hands. “I see the Mormon brought the queen her offering of coffee. Very impressive.” I look at Holder and cock my eyebrow. “Do you wish to reveal your offering, hopeless boy, so that I may decide who shall accompany me at the classroom throne today?” Breckin looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. Holder laughs and picks his backpack up off the desk. “Looks like someone’s in need of an ego-shattering text today.

No, but it was a close call. Brought you something.” “Turtle pee?” Cam laughed and shook his head as he reached into his backpack. “Sorry to let you down, but no.” He pulled out papers stapled together. “It’s a syllabus. I know. Thrilling shit right here.

My dear children!" Nellie whopped him upside the head with her backpack. "Ow!" Uncle Alistair curled over, cupping his hand over his good eye. "Nellie!" Amy said. "Sorry," Nellie muttered. "I thought he was one of the bad guys.

I didn’t know. I feel sometimes like…there are all these rules. Just to be a person. You know? You’re supposed to carry a shoulder bag, not a backpack. You’re supposed to wear headbands, or you’re not supposed to wear headbands. It’s okay to describe yourself as likeable, but it’s not okay to describe yourself as eloquent. You can sit in the front of the school bus, but you can’t sit in the middle. You’re not supposed to be with a boy, even when he wants you to. I didn’t know that. There are so many rules, and they don’t make any sense, and I just can’t learn them all

...and now I just keep running. Maybe not physically anymore, but my mind and heart are backpacking through the darkest corners of the world trying to get farther and farther away.

Where's your boyfriend, District 12? Still hanging on?" She asks. Well, as long as we're talking I'm alive. "He's out there now. Hunting Cato," I snarl at her. Then I scream at the top of my lungs. "Peeta!" Clove jams her fist into my windpipe, very effectively cutting off my voice. But her head's whipping from side to side, and I know for a moment she's at least considering I'm telling the truth. Since no Peeta appears to save me, she turns back to me. "Liar," she says with a grin. "He's nearly dead. Cato knows where he cut him. You've probably got him strapped up in some tree while you try to keep his heart going. What's in the pretty little backpack? That medicine for Lover Boy? Too bad he'll never get it.

When Alex leaves a little later, Carlos steps forward. “Need help?” I shake my head. “Are you ever gonna talk to me again? Dammit, Kiara, enough with the silent treatment. I’d rather have you say your little two-word sentences than stop talkin’ altogether. Hell, just flip me off again.” I toss my backpack in the backseat and start the engine. “Where are you goin’?” Carlos asks, stepping in front of my car. I beep. “I’m not movin’,” he says. My response is another beep. It’s not an intimidating, deep beep like most cars, but it’s the best my car can give. He places both hands on the hood. “Move,” I say. He moves all right. With pantherlike quickness, Carlos jumps through the open passenger window, feet first. “You should get the door fixed,” he says.

I'm so glad you're okay." "So, how do we celebrate my okayness? It's my day off. Let's go crazy. Glow-in-the-dark bowling?" "No" "I'll let you use the kiddie ball." "Shut up. I do NOT need the kiddie ball." "The way you bowl, I think you might." He grabbed her in an exaggerated formal dance pose and whirled her around, backpack and all, which didn't make her any more graceful. "Ballroom dancing?" "Are you INSANE?" "Hey, girls who tango are hot." "You think I'm not hot because I don't tango?" He dropped the act. Shane was a smart boy. "I think you are too hot for ballroom or bowling. So you tell me. What do you want to do? And don't say study.

Cerise ran through the course in her mind. “Three miles, stream on the right, Mozer Lake, Tinybear, Bigbear, Miller’s Path.” She paused, not sure if she’d said it correctly. “Three miles, stream on the right, Mozer Lake, Tinybear, Bigbear, Miller’s Path.” “Thank you, Dora. Put the sword back into Backpack and we’ll go.” He nodded at the river. “Who is Dora?” “You are. Dora the Explorer. Vamanos. Put the sword away or I will take it from you.

I always hoped that after the prince found Cinderella and they rode away in thier magnificent carriage, after a few miles she turned to him and said "could you drop me off down the road, please? Now that I've finally escaped my life of horrific abuse, I'd like to see something of the world, you know? Maybe backpack across Europe or Asia? I'll catch back up with you later, Prince, once I've found my own way.

At least, the moment Lu Feng put his gun into An Zhe's backpack, within the eons, there was once such second—in that second, the Arbiter left his pistol to a xenogenic, forsaking his lifelong beliefs to love him.

Ah." He set down his backpack and pulled out their notebook. "You're working on your final project?" "Indirectly," Cath said. "What does that mean?" "Have you ever heard sculptors say that they don't actually sculpt an object; they sculpt away everything that isn't the object?" "No." He sat down. "Well, I'm writing everything that isn't my final project, so that when I actually sit down to write it, that's all that will be left in my mind.

I'm sorry, but you just can't fit fabulous into a backpack.

There's a girl with brown eyes who reminds me of the first book I ever loved. When I look at her, I feel like there might be another universe in her. I imagine her on a shelf too high for me to reach, or peeking out of someone else's backpack, or at the end of a long wait at the library. I know there are other books that are easier to get my hands on, but none are half as good as her. Every part of her seems to have a purpose, a specific meaning, an exact reason for being how and what and where it is.

A Styrofoam egg carton caught his eye. He opened it and found a single silver orb with little blinking red lights. "This is cool, too!" He dropped it into his backpack. "Dan, no!" "What? They've got plenty of other stuff, and we need all the help we can get!" "It could be dangerous." "I hope so.

(Just so you know, I practice Spanish watching Dora the Explorer and playing GTA, so I know how to say backpack, whore, and weed. I hope you’re impressed.)

Hiking is not escapism; it's realism. The people who choose to spend time outdoors are not running away from anything; we are returning to where we belong.

When you’re in The System, like after being arrested, you’re no longer a participant. You’re being processed. Instead of an easy to ignore, well-greased cog, you become a sharp edge that needs to be ground down.

The world isn't built with a ramp.

So, what you're saying is that I bring out your book - wielding, short tempered side?" He hooked his foot through the straps of my backpack and brought in front of him. "Removing temptation." I gave him a look that communicated he should wither and die.

Clove!" Cato's voice is much nearer now. I can tell by the pain in it that he sees her on the ground. "You better run now, Fire Girl," says Thresh. I don't need to be told twice. I flip over and my feet dig into the hard-packed earth as I run away from Thresh and Clove and the sound of Cato's voice. Only when I reach the woods do I turn back for an instant. Thresh and both large backpacks are vanishing over the edge of the plain into the area I've never seen. Cato kneels beside Clove, spear in hand, begging her to stay with him. In a moment, he will realize it's futile, she can't be saved.

Travel is little beds and cramped bathrooms. It’s old television sets and slow Internet connections. Travel is extraordinary conversations with ordinary people. It’s waiters, gas station attendants, and housekeepers becoming the most interesting people in the world. It’s churches that are compelling enough to enter. It’s McDonald’s being a luxury. It’s the realization that you may have been born in the wrong country. Travel is a smile that leads to a conversation in broken English. It’s the epiphany that pretty girls smile the same way all over the world. Travel is tipping 10% and being embraced for it. Travel is the same white T-shirt again tomorrow. Travel is accented sex after good wine and too many unfiltered cigarettes. Travel is flowing in the back of a bus with giggly strangers. It’s a street full of bearded backpackers looking down at maps. Travel is wishing for one more bite of whatever that just was. It’s the rediscovery of walking somewhere. It’s sharing a bottle of liquor on an overnight train with a new friend. Travel is “Maybe I don’t have to do it that way when I get back home.” It’s nostalgia for studying abroad that one semester. Travel is realizing that “age thirty” should be shed of its goddamn stigma.

Shepley walked out of his bedroom pulling a T-shirt over his head. His eyebrows pushed together. “Did they just leave?” “Yeah,” I said absently, rinsing my cereal bowl and dumping Abby’s leftover oatmeal in the sink. She’d barely touched it. “Well, what the hell? Mare didn’t even say goodbye.” “You knew she was going to class. Quit being a cry baby.” Shepley pointed to his chest. “I’m the cry baby? Do you remember last night?” “Shut up.” “That’s what I thought.” He sat on the couch and slipped on his sneakers. “Did you ask Abby about her birthday?” “She didn’t say much, except that she’s not into birthdays.” “So what are we doing?” “Throwing her a party.” Shepley nodded, waiting for me to explain. “I thought we’d surprise her. Invite some of our friends over and have America take her out for a while.” Shepley put on his white ball cap, pulling it down so low over his brows I couldn’t see his eyes. “She can manage that. Anything else?” “How do you feel about a puppy?” Shepley laughed once. “It’s not my birthday, bro.” I walked around the breakfast bar and leaned my hip against the stool. “I know, but she lives in the dorms. She can’t have a puppy.” “Keep it here? Seriously? What are we going to do with a dog?” “I found a Cairn Terrier online. It’s perfect.” “A what?” “Pidge is from Kansas. It’s the same kind of dog Dorothy had in the Wizard of Oz.” Shepley’s face was blank. “The Wizard of Oz.” “What? I liked the scarecrow when I was a little kid, shut the fuck up.” “It’s going to crap every where, Travis. It’ll bark and whine and … I don’t know.” “So does America … minus the crapping.” Shepley wasn’t amused. “I’ll take it out and clean up after it. I’ll keep it in my room. You won’t even know it’s here.” “You can’t keep it from barking.” “Think about it. You gotta admit it’ll win her over.” Shepley smiled. “Is that what this is all about? You’re trying to win over Abby?” My brows pulled together. “Quit it.” His smile widened. “You can get the damn dog…” I grinned with victory. “…if you admit you have feelings for Abby.” I frowned in defeat. “C’mon, man!” “Admit it,” Shepley said, crossing his arms. What a tool. He was actually going to make me say it. I looked to the floor, and everywhere else except Shepley’s smug ass smile. I fought it for a while, but the puppy was fucking brilliant. Abby would flip out (in a good way for once), and I could keep it at the apartment. She’d want to be there every day. “I like her,” I said through my teeth. Shepley held his hand to his ear. “What? I couldn’t quite hear you.” “You’re an asshole! Did you hear that?” Shepley crossed his arms. “Say it.” “I like her, okay?” “Not good enough.” “I have feelings for her. I care about her. A lot. I can’t stand it when she’s not around. Happy?” “For now,” he said, grabbing his backpack off the floor.

I nodded, disappointed, but then I got an idea. "Hey, Grover. You want a magic item?" His eyes lit up. "Me?" Pretty soon we'd laced the sneakers over his fake feet, and the world's first flying goat boy was ready for launch. "Maia!" he shouted. He got off the ground okay, but then fell over sideways so his backpack dragged through the grass. The winged shoes kept bucking up and down like tiny broncos. "Practice," Chiron called after him. "You just need practice!" "Aaaaa!" Grover went flying sideways down the hill like a possessed lawn mower, heading toward the van.

Those East Coast rich kids are a different breed, on a fast track to nowhere. Your friends in Seattle are downright Canadian in their niceness. None of you has a cell phone. The girls wear hoodies and big cotton underpants and walk around with tangled hair and smiling, adorned backpacks. Do you know how absolutely exotic it is that you haven’t been corrupted by fashion and pop culture? A month ago I mentioned Ben Stiller, and do you remember how you responded? ‘Who’s that?’ I loved you all over again.

Do you want to live, Sander?

She dug in her backpack, found her cell phone, and checked for coverage. It was kind of lame in Morganville, truthfully, out in the middle of the prarie, in the middle of Texas, which was about as middle of nowhere as it was possible to get unless you wanted to go to Mongolia or something.... Claire started dialing numbers. The first person told her that they'd already found somebody.... The second one sounded like a weird old guy. The third one was a weird old lady. The fourth one... well, the fourth one was just plain weird.

My problems aren't invalid. Not to me. Just because they aren't life altering, life-threatening, doesn't mean they don't make me feel bad. I wake up with them every morning, carry them around all day like a lead backpack, and I fall asleep with them at night. They're real, and they're mine. I know I'm lucky. I know that. But it doesn't change how I feel.

I opened my backpack and checked my supplies: some enchanted rope, my curved ivory wand, a lump of wax for making a magical shabti figurine, my calligraphy set, and a healing potion my friend Jaz had brewed for me a while back. (She knew that I got hurt a lot.)

When I travel, people say ‘Yet another place in this world’. But I see ‘Another world inside every place I go

Books? They're heavy and take up room in my already bulging backpack. But I have a thing about books.

Despite different cultures, middle-class youth all over the world seem to live their lives as if in a parallel universe. They get up in the morning, put on their Levi's and Nikes, grab their caps and backpacks, and Sony personal CD players and head for school.

He glances down at his arms. “I didn’t even realize—am I expos-ing too much skin? I don’t want to be parading myself in front of you, taunting you with what you can’t have. I have a hoodie in my backpack. I can put it on if you’re—” “You’re definitely better. We’re leaving.

I didn’t feel anything but a bone-deep weariness. Like I was suddenly a hundred years old, and I knew at that moment I would have to live a hundred more years, carrying my grief around like a backpack full of stones.

What is letting go? Imagine yourself taking off your heavy backpack after a long day. That's what letting go is about.

GGRRROOCCCCK... Ian's knees buckled. The rock outcropping shook the ground, sending a spew of grayish dust that quickly billowed around them. Shielding his eyes, he spotted Amy standing by the figurine, which was now moving toward her. She was in shock, her backpack on the ground by her feet. "Get back!" he shouted. Ian pulled Amy away and threw her to the ground, landing on top of her. Gravel showered over his back, embedding into his hair and landing on the ground like a burst of applause. His second though was that the shirt would be ruined. And this was the shock of it-that his first thought had not been about the shirt. Or the coin. Or himself. It had been about her. But that was not part of the plan. She existed for a purpose. She was a tactic, a stepping stone. She was... "Lovely," he said. Amy was staring up at him, petrified, her eyelashes flecked with dust. Ian took her hand, which was knotted into a fist. "Y-y-you don't have to do that," she whispered. "Do what?" Ian asked. "Be sarcastic. Say things like 'lovely.' You saved my life. Th-thank you." "My duty," he replied. He lowered his head and allowed his lips to brush hers. Just a bit.

Tink was there … Slung over his shoulder was a…Wonder Woman backpack. I parted from Ren, walking up to him. “Where did you get that?” “I stole it from a little fae girl.” He paused. “Hashtag thug life.

Kids didn't have huge backpacks when I was their age. We didn't have backpacks at all. Now it seemed all the kids had them. You saw little second-graders bent over like sherpas, dragging themselves through the school doors under the weight of their packs. Some of the kids had their packs on rollers, hauling them like luggage at the airport. I didn't understand any of this. The world was becoming digital; everything was smaller and lighter. But kids at school lugged more weight than ever.

The old school of thought would have you believe that you'd be a fool to take on nature without arming yourself with every conceivable measure of safety and comfort under the sun. But that isn't what being in nature is all about. Rather, it's about feeling free, unbounded, shedding the distractions and barriers of our civilization—not bringing them with us.

Holly, I understand that you are upset because Gemma pulled down your ants, but why did you think pouring motor oil inside her backpack is the way to solve the problem?

...books possess an ounce-of-weight to minute-of-entertainment ratio that compares quite favorably to intoxicants.

My mother, who would always buy her books new, hated it the vintage hardcovers with their cracked spines and threadbare cloth covers. True you couldn't go in there and buy the latest best seller, but when you held one of those volumes in your hands, you were leafing through another person'a life. Someone else had once loved that story, too. Someone else had carried that book in a backpack, devoured it over breakfast, mopped up that coffee stain at a Paris café, cried herself to sleep after that last chapter. The scent was distinctive: a slight damp mildew, a punch of dust. To me, it was the smell of history.

Wilderness areas are first of all a series of sanctuaries for the primitive arts of wilderness travel, especially canoeing and packing. I suppose some will wish to debate whether it is important to keep these primitive arts alive. I shall not debate it. Either you know it in your bones, or you are very, very old.

Worldly possessions didn't matter much to him, but his freedom did. He could come and go as he pleased, with nothing more than the backpack underneath his seat. It was a simple existence for a simple man.

WHO’S GOT A TAMPON? I JUST GOT MY PERIOD, I will announce loudly to nobody in particular in a women’s bathroom in a San Francisco restaurant, or to a co-ed dressing room of a music festival in Prague, or to the unsuspecting gatherers in a kitchen at a party in Sydney, Munich, or Cincinnati. Invariably, across the world, I have seen and heard the rustling of female hands through backpacks and purses, until the triumphant moment when a stranger fishes one out with a kind smile. No money is ever exchanged. The unspoken universal understanding is: Today, it is my turn to take the tampon. Tomorrow, it shall be yours. There is a constant, karmic tampon circle. It also exists, I’ve found, with Kleenex, cigarettes, and ballpoint pens.

Walking to class, Cath couldn't shake the feeling that she was pretending to be a college student in a coming-of-age movie. The setting was perfect--rolling green lawns, brick buildings, kids everywhere with backpacks. Catch shifted her bag uncomfortably on her back. Look at me--I'm a stock photo of a college student.

Sunrise over the mountain-forest was gorgeous - Aurora brushing out her golden tresses with a comb of dark-needled pine and bare-limbed oak.

Tiny Cooper is splayed out across the thin carpet, using his backpack as a pillow. He’s wearing skinny jeans, which look very much like denim sausage casings.

Tory frowned at his backpack on the floor and the way he kept it within easy reach. "What's in that backpack, by the way? You're always guarding it like it holds national security secrets or something." "Dirty underwear." She rolled her eyes. "Thanks so much for that image." "You asked.

Where's your car? Miles asks, glancing at him as he slams his door shut and slings his backpack over his shoulder. "And whats up with your hand?" "I got rid of it," Damen says, gaze fixed on mine. Then glancing at Miles and seeing his expression he adds, "The car, not the hand." "Did you trade it in?" I ask, but only because Miles is listening. [...] He shakes his head and walks me to the gate, smiling as he says, "No, I just dropped off on the side of the road, key in the ignition, engine running." "Excuse me?!" Miles yelps. "You mean to tell me that you left your shiny, black, BMW M6 Coupe—by the side of the road?" Damen nods. But thats a hundred-thousand-dollar car!" Miles gasps as his face turns bright red. "A hundreds and ten." Damen laughs. "Don't forget, it was fully customized and loaded with options." Miles stares at him, eyes practically bugging out of his head, unable to comprehend how anyone could do such a thing—why anyone would do such a thing. "Um, okay, so let me get this straight—you just woke up and decided—Hey, what the hell? I think I'll just dump my ridiculously expensive luxury car by the side of the road—WHERE JUST ANYONE CAN TAKE IT?" Damen shrugs. "Pretty much." "Because in case you haven't noticed," Miles says, practically hyperventilating now. "Some of us are a little car deprived. Some of us were born with parents so cruel and unusual they're forced to rely on the kindness of friends for the rest of their lives!" "Sorry." Damen shrugs. "Guess I hadn't thought about that. Though if it makes you feel any better, it was all for a very good cause.

I didn’t realize I was frozen in place until a classmate shouldered into me, knocking my heavy backpack from my shoulder. “’Scuse me,” he grumbled, his tone more Get out of the way than Sorry I ran into you. As I bent to retrieve my backpack, praying Kennedy and his fangirl hadn’t seen me, a hand grasped the strap and swung the pack up from the floor. I straightened and looked into clear gray-blue eyes. “Chivalry isn’t really dead, you know.

I pull my iPod out of my backpack and plug it in. It's the first thing I do every time I get in it, like a ritual. Music soothes the soul; at least it helps soothe mine.

I’d say I needed to find myself, if that didn’t sound like I was heading into the Himalayas, taking only a backpack stuffed with angst and clean underwear.

Oh. Come on! I left my backpack on the bus.” According to Darwin, you’re a prime candidate for extinction. Too stupid to live!

But the truly brilliant geocachers?" "Yeah?" he says. "What about us?" "They know it by its real name. Terra Firma." "Terra Firma," he repeats. At last, he slips his backpack off his shoulder. I know what he's looking for. I take a breath. "You don't need your GPS for this cache." His eyes don't move off mine; he's watching me so carefully. "You don't, huh?" "Nope," I say. Some things are meant to be kept - what you learn from experiences good or bad, smiles from an orphaned girl, a boy who is your compass pointing to your True North. So I look at Jacob full in the face with nothing obscuring him. Or me. And then I step closer to him. And closer. And closer yet. "Here I am," I tell him. "Here I am.

There’s no such thing as a young refugee; every migrant has a past they’ve fled from, and how can you be young when you already have one life behind you?

jangan Engkau cegah nikmat karunia-Mu padaku, sebab syukurku yang teramat lemah. Jangan Engkau hinakan aku sebab kesabaranku yang terlalu sedikit

If we wear our worst reviews like a backpack, they travel with us.

But the crowds are surging around them and her backpack is heavy on her shoulders and the boy's eyes are searching hers with something like loneliness , like the very last thing he wants is to be left behind right now. And that's something Hadley can understand, too, and so after a moment she nods in agreement, and he tips the suitcase forward onto it's wheels, and they begin to walk.

Go to other countries. Not a typical backpacking tour. Planned tour means you will hang with Americans on bikes and flirt with drunk Germans and someone will steal your Levi’s in the hostel and a guy from Poland will sock you in the face while bad techno plays everywhere and you will learn nothing except that your face hurts and not everyone showers. Get into other cultures and talk politics and love. Meeting other people is the only way to know if you believe what you believe cause it’s been handed to you, or if it really rings true in your heart. Getting lost should be seen as a sweet chance to be found. Remember, you belong everywhere.

As for Sadie, she didn’t appear interested in strategy. She leaped from puddle to puddle in her combat boots. She hummed to herself, twirled like a little kid and occasionally pulled random things out of her backpack: wax animal figurines, some string, a piece of chalk, a bright yellow bag of candy. She reminded me of someone … Then it occurred to me. She looked like a younger version of Annabeth, but her fidgeting and hyperness reminded me of … well, me. If Annabeth and I ever had a daughter, she might be a lot like Sadie. Whoa. It’s not like I’d never dreamed about kids before. I mean, you date someone for over a year, the idea is going to be in the back of your mind somewhere, right? But still – I’m barely seventeen. I’m not ready to think too seriously about stuff like that. Also, I’m a demigod. On a day-to-day basis, I’m busy just trying to stay alive. Yet, looking at Sadie, I could imagine that someday maybe I’d have a little girl who looked like Annabeth and acted like me – a cute little hellion of a demigod, stomping through puddles and flattening monsters with magic camels.

Driving down deserted early morning roads. Round and round. Round downtown. Through naked streets. Lips pursed on two litre bottles of beer, but pursuing the lips of freedom's night. Swapping cars. Winding up at karaoke bars or Bolsi- the best place in town. For the food. For the folk. For the service. For the crema de papaya. And for that late night dawn's whiskey coffee.

ANDRÉ: . . . And when I was at Findhorn I met this extraordinary English tree expert who had devoted himself to saving trees, and he’d just got back from Washington lobbying to save the Redwoods. And he was eighty-four years old, and he always travels with a backpack because he never knows where he’s going to be tomorrow. And when I met him at Findhorn he said to me, “Where are you from?” And I said, “New York.” And he said, “Ah, New York, yes, that’s a very interesting place. Do you know a lot of New Yorkers who keep talking about the fact that they want to leave, but never do?” And I said, “Oh, yes.” And he said, “Why do you think they don’t leave?” And I gave him different banal theories. And he said, “Oh, I don’t think it’s that way at all.” He said, “I think that New York is the new model for the new concentration camp, where the camp has been built by the inmates themselves, and the inmates are the guards, and they have this pride in this thing that they’ve built—they’ve built their own prison—and so they exist in a state of schizophrenia where they are both guards and prisoners. And as a result they no longer have—having been lobotomized—the capacity to leave the prison they’ve made or even to see it as a prison.” And then he went into his pocket, and he took out a seed for a tree, and he said, “This is a pine tree.” And he put it in my hand. And he said, “Escape before it’s too late.

I truly believe that Henry would bring her everywhere we go in one of those cat backpacks if I let him.

Betapa kehidupan ini beraneka warna. Semua orang diuji. Berbeda–beda ujiannya.

...That's the difference between backpackers and holiday makers. The former can't help but invite hassle whilst the latter pay to escape it.

- L, did you know we’re reenacting the Salem witch trials in English tomorrow? - Haven’t been memorizing your case file? Do you even look in your backpack anymore? - Did you know my dad is videotaping it? I do. Because I walked in on his lunch date with Mrs. English. - Ewww. - What should we do? - I guess we should start calling her Ms. English? - Not funny, L.

We’re trapped in the mountains with no camping supplies—” Aiden reached into his backpack and pulled out a coin. He flipped it onto the ground, and three tents sprouted up immediately. Brynne scowled. “Okay, well, definitely no food—” Aiden dug out five protein bars and tossed them in front of the tents. Rudy stared at him. “Dude, what is in that bag?” “Precautionary stuff,” said Aiden simply.

After walking for a long time, he finally pulled me near a copse of bamboo that was growing near a large teak tree. He stuck his nose up in the air, smelling for who-knows-what and then wandered over to a grassy area and lay down. “Well, I guess that means this is where we sleep for the night.” I shrugged out of my backpack while grousing. “Great. No, really. It’s a lovely choice. I’d give it four stars if it included a mint.

You're an escort?" Her already large eyes widened further. I reached for one strap of her backpack and snapped it against her shoulder, careful not to touch her, then smirked. "I prefer the term sexual plumber." She snorted "Oh, God." "Yeah, They sometimes call me that, too.

He set the backpack down on the floor. "It's easy to look at people and make quick judgments about them, their present and their pasts, but you'd be amazed at the pain and tears a single smile hides. What a person shows to the world is only one tiny facet of the iceberg hidden from sight. And more often than not, it's lined with cracks and scars that go all the way to the foundation of their soul." - Ash

there she is, and I am watching her through Plexiglas, and she looks like Margo Roth Spiegelman, this girl I have known since I was two–this girl who was an idea that I loved. And it is only now, when she closes her notebook and places it inside a backpack next to her and then stands up and walks toward us, that I realize that the idea is not only wrong by dangerous. What a treacherous thing it is to believe that a person is more than a person.

I know now with blind certainty that no matter what, eventually marriage is just two financially interdependent strangers staring across the kitchen table at each other. They have backpacks slung across their bodies, containing their sexual and romantic history and unresolved issues and family memories. And there´s nothing but cold cereal, because the days of flaky croissants and foamy cappuccino are over. Reality reclines on top of the refrigerator, leering down with a wry yet tender expression. And one day it all just collapses and the backpacks are hauled away to another kitchen table.

Exactly one month after he was convicted, when the lights were dimmed and the detention officers made a final sweep of the catwalk, Peter reached down and tugged off his right sock. He turned on his side in the lower bunk, so that he was facing the wall. He fed the sock into his mouth, stuffing it as far back as it would go. When it got hard to breathe, he fell into a dream. He was still eighteen, but it was the first day of kindergarten. He was carrying his backpack and his Superman lunch box. The orange school bus pulled up and, with a sigh, split open its gaping jaws. Peter climbed the steps and faced the back of the bus, but this time, he was the only student on it. He walked down the aisle to the very end, near the emergency exit. He put his lunch box down beside him and glanced out the rear window. It was so bright he thought the sun itself must be chasing them down the highway. 'Almost there,' a voice said, and Peter turned around to look at the driver. But just as there had been no passengers, there was no one at the wheel. Here was the amazing thing: in his dream, Peter wasn't scared. He knew, somehow, that he was headed exactly where he'd wanted to go.

Double with me and Gabriel next Friday!” Isabel announced suddenly. “I’ll find you a date.” “Pass.” “Come on. It’s been a while since you’ve been on a date.” “That’s because I’m awkward and weird and it’s not fun at all for me or the poor soul who agrees to go out with me.” “That’s not true.” I crossed my arms. “You just need to go out more than once … or twice … with someone so they see how fun you are,” Isabel argued, adjusting her backpack straps. “You’re not awkward withme.” “I’m totally awkward with you but you’re not under pressure to eventually kiss me, so you put up with it.

He looked me directly in the eye. 'So you live in America?' 'We do.' I smiled. He stopped, opened his backpack, pulled out an empty tear gas grenade and handed it to me. 'I believe it was a present from your country.' Majid smiled. 'Tell your friends thanks. We got their grenade.

The fact that he had failed meant he had to continue to walk forward with his life history—his mistakes—slung over his shoulders like a heavy backpack. This fact exhausted him, but he was too tired to reject it.

Peter shifted his backpack and crutches. He took a step toward the bus. Then he turned back. "I'm family?" "That's as true a thing as I've ever known. Now get on that bus.

It would’ve been hilarious if it didn’t hurt so much.

To pursue the thing she needed to do, Virginia Woolf wrote, “a woman must have money and a room of her own. ....” I needed money and a backpack.

Knight would carry my backpack and open my beers and light all my cigarettes, like a gentleman.

She cast her gaze over him, pausing on the pink, sparkly backpack slung over his shoulder. The sexy, adorable man. “I don’t think you bat for my team, sheriff.

Backup backpacks.

I was grown-up. I’d packed my own backpack and had left Bloodletter, my stuffed bear, at home. Stuffed bears were for babies, even if you’d fashioned your own mock power armor for yours out of string and broken ceramics.

Tragedy seems to bring out all varieties of unexpected qualities in people. It was as if some folks got dunked in plastic, vacuum-sealed like backpacking dinners, and could do nothing but sweat in their private hell. And others seemed to have just the opposite problem, as if disaster had dipped them in acid instead, stripping off the outside layer of skin that once protected them from the slings and arrows of other people’s outrageous fortunes. For these sorts, just walking down the street in the wake of every stranger’s ill wind became an agony, an aching slog through this man’s fresh divorce and this woman’s throat cancer. They were in hell, too, but it was everybody’s hell, this big, shoreless, sloshing sea of toxic waste.

I held my hand out. “Give me a grenade.” Andrea pulled open her backpack and slid a grenade into my palm. “Wait until they start shooting the Jeep. Boom comes first, shrapnel flies second. Count to ten before you run in there. And don’t blow the device up.” “Yes, Mother. It’s not my first time.” “That’s the thanks I get for trying to keep you alive, Your Highness.

We all stood and gathered our backpacks and I looked at the floor around my chair to make sure I hadn’t dropped anything. I was terrified of unwittingly leaving behind a scrap of paper on which were written all my private desires and humiliations. The fact that no such scrap of paper existed, that I did not even keep a diary or write letters except bland, earnest, falsely cheerful ones to my family (We lost to St. Francis in soccer, but I think we’ll win our game this Saturday; we are working on self-portraits in art class, and the hardest part for me is the nose) never decreased my fear.

All happy mornings resemble one another, as do all unhappy mornings, and that’s at the bottom of what makes them so deeply unhappy: the feeling that this unhappiness has happened before, that efforts to avoid it will at best reinforce it, and probably even exacerbate it, that the universe is, for whatever inconceivable, unnecessary, and unjust reason, conspiring against the innocent sequence of clothes, breakfast, teeth and egregious cowlicks, backpacks, shoes, jackets, goodbye. Jacob

I checked her backpack for her toothbrush and watched her go down the front steps, her shoulders squared confidently. I blew her a kiss and sat down to wait. Presently, she was back. Although wishing to run to the woods and live on our own seems to be an inherited characteristic in our family, we are not unique. Almost everyone I know has dreamed at some time of running away

Sometimes I wonder if we have misunderstood the notion of freedom. We prize freedom to more than freedom from . People must be free to own guns, so the only solution is to teach children to hide in closets and wear ballistic backpacks. People must be free to post and say what they like, so the only solution is to tell their targets to put on armour.

Chris hops out of the vehicle, wearing a tight black tee. He pulls his hair back and throws his backpack over his shoulder, looking read to punch somebody out. Or maybe that's his happy face. I don't know.

That backpack's like your symbol of freedom," he comments. "Guess so," I say. "Having an object that symbolizes freedom might make a person happier than actually getting the freedom it represents." "Sometimes," I say. "Sometimes," he repeats. "You know, if they had a contest for the world's shortest replies, you'd win hands down." "Perhaps." "Perhaps," Oshima says, as if fed up. "Perhaps most people in the world aren't trying to be free, Kafka. They just think they are. It's all an illusion. If they really were set free, most people would be in a real bind. You'd better remember that. People actually prefer not being free.

There is a reason Mary is everywhere. I've seen her image all over the world, in cafés in Istanbul, on students' backpacks in Scotland, in a market stall in Jakarta, but I don't think her image is everywhere because she is a reminder to be obedient, and I don't think it has to do with social revolution. Images of  Mary remind us of  God's favor. Mary is what it looks like to believe that we already are who God says we are.

I remember the first time I saw you,” Allie said. “I thought you smelled me first.” “Right,” said Allie. “The chocolate. But then I saw you as I sat up in the dead forest, thinking I knew you. At the time, I thought I must have seen you through the windshield when our cars crashed…. But that wasn’t it. I think, way back then, I was seeing you as you are now. Isn’t that funny?” “Not as funny as the way I always complained, and the way you always bossed me around!” They embraced and held each other for a long time. “Don’t forget me,” Nick said. “No matter where your life goes, no matter how old you get. And if you ever get the feeling that someone is looking over your shoulder, but there’s nobody there, maybe it’ll be me.” “I’ll write to you,” said Allie, and Nick laughed. “No really. I’ll write the letter then burn it, and if I care just enough it will cross into Everlost.” “And,” added Nick, “it will show up as a dead letter at that the post office Milos made cross into San Antonio!” Allie could have stood there saying good-bye forever, because it was more than Nick she was saying good-bye to. She was leaving behind four years of half-life in a world that was both stunningly beautiful, and hauntingly dark. And she was saying good-bye to Mikey. I’ll be waiting for you, he had said…. Well, if he was, maybe she wasn’t saying good-bye at all. Nick hefted the backpack on his shoulder. “Shouldn’t you be heading off to Memphis?” he said. “You’d better hit the road…. Jack.” Then he chuckled by his own joke, and walked off.

A pen,” he says, his eyes scanning Simon’s brick-red face. “You have a pen?” Simon nods wildly, his hand clawing at his throat. I grab the pen off my desk and try to hand it to Nate, thinking he’s about to do an emergency tracheotomy or something. Nate just stares at me like I have two heads. “An epinephrine pen,” he says, searching for Simon’s backpack. “He’s having an allergic reaction.

I possessed only a book, which I carried in my small backpack. Suddenly, while I was walking, the book began to burn. Dawn was breaking and almost no cars passed. While throwing the charred backpack in an irrigation ditch I felt my back sting as though I had wings.

Of those of us who comprise the real clan of the book, who read not to judge the reading of others but to take the measure of ourselves. Of those of us who read because we love it more than anything, who feel about bookstores the way some people feel about jewelers. The silence about this was odd, both because there are so many of us and because we are what the world of books is really about. We are the people who once waited for the newest installment of Dickens's latest novel and who kept battered copies of Catcher in the Rye in our back pockets and backpacks. We are the ones who saw to it that Pride and Prejudice never went out of print.

Did you know people will underestimate the weight of a heavy backpack before climbing a steep hill if they're standing next to a friend?" "Aww," Neera said. "That's nice." I looked out the window. Every stripped tire looked like roadkill. After a minute, Neera said, "Actually, that really is something." "I thought so," I said.

How about a rain check?' She smiles, but I know it's not real because it doesn't crinkle her eyes. 'Sure. Some other time.' I nod and grab my car keys. Before I flip the light on in the grage, she's behind me, tugging on my backpack. 'You want to go to school? Fine. But you're not driving. Give me the key.' 'I'm okay, Mom, really. I'll see you tonight.' I plant a quick kiss on her cheek and turn to the door again. 'That's nice. Give it to me.' She holds out her hand. I clench the key in my fist. 'You practically shoved that car down my throat Monday, and now youre taking the key. What did I do?' 'What did you do? Well, for starters, you used your face to stop a cafeteria door from swinging open.

Sometimes I get the feeling [my parents have] asked me to hold this big invisible secret for them, like a backpack full of rocks--all these things they don't want to know about themselves. I'm supposed to wear it as I hike up this trail toward my adulthood. They're already at the summit of Full Grown Mountain. They're waiting for me to get there and cheering me on, telling me I can do it, and sometimes scolding and asking why I'm not hiking any faster or why I'm not having more fun along the way. I know I'm not supposed to talk about this backpack full of their crazy, but sometimes I really wish we could all stop for a second. Maybe they could walk down the trail from the top and meet me. We could unzip that backpack, pull out all of those rocks, and leave the ones we no longer need by the side of the trail. It'd make the walk a lot easier. Maybe then my shoulders wouldn't get so tense when Dad lectures me about money or Mom starts a new diet she saw on the cover of a magazine at the grocery store.

Holly was staring at me. "Who were you talking to just then?" "No one! You!" "I don't believe you." "Look, does it really matter right now?" "If we're going to be working together, Lucy...." "Oh, hell! All right! I'll tell you! It's an evil haunted skull that lives in my backpack! Happy, now?

Cath felt like she was swimming in words. Drowning in them sometimes. "Do you ever feel," she asked Nick Tuesday night, "like you're a black hole -- a reverse black hole. . . ." "Something that blows instead of sucks?" "Something that sucks out," she tried to explain. She was sitting at their table in the stacks with her head resting on her backpack. She could feel the indoor wind on her neck. "A reverse black hole of words." "So the world is sucking you dry," he said, "of language." "Not dry. Not yet. But the words are flying out of me so fast, I don't know where they're coming from." "And maybe you've run through your surplus," he said gravely, "and now they're made of bone and blood." "Now they're made of breath," she said.

October air, complete with dancing leaves and sighing winds greeted him as he stepped from the bus onto the dusty highway. Coolness embraced. The scent of burning wood hung crisp in the air from somewhere far in the distance. His backpack dropped in a flutter of dust. He surveyed dying cornfields from the gas station bus stop. Seeing this place, for the first time in over twenty years, brought back a flood of memories, long buried and forgotten.

What I carry in my backpack down to the river, I carry not knowing that in less than an hour Thomas Broughton will be dead. That is not a knowledge I carry yet, but I will carry it soon - the knowledge of my darkest self - and I will carry it forever.

Will you date me when I ask you out? it asked. Yes. Even if I’m ugly and you don’t like my personality? Yes. No, you won’t. I will! You’re just saying that because you’re in a hurry. Well, it won’t be my fault if I miss the bus. Goodbye, sweetness. Bye! Where’s my backpack? It’s on the counter. Oh. Bye!

I love you. I love you for when you buy me chocolate and put it in my backpack as a surprise. For when we're having pizza, and you always get me an extra big glass of soda because you know the pepperoni makes me thirsty. I love you for how you hold my hand so tight when I'm scared. How you laugh at my jokes, and you make me laugh. I love the way you never get mad when I mess up and cut a plank the wrong size. The way you always leave the last cookie for me." Smiling, David shook his head. "But that stuff's nothing." "No." Isaac brushed their lips together tenderly. "That stuff's everything.

If I find out you laid a hand on my daughter--" "What?" said Gabriel. "You'll stand here and bitch about it?" "Stop it!" cried Layne, dragging his coat and backpack from the kitchen. Her dad took a step forward. "I'll have you arrested and charged with trespassing and statutory rape." "Then I'm going to need another fifteen minutes.

Hey Pete. What's up?" "'What's up? You ran away from home!" Dropping my backpack on a bench, I sat down and looked out at the water. "I'll be back next Monday. Is that still considered running away?" I pulled the phone away from my ear as he hollered, "Yes, that's still running away!

A 22-year-old woman who spends six months backpacking across Asia sends a powerful message about her curiosity, open-mindedness, and even courage. Similar (if weaker) signals can be bought for less time and money simply by eating strange foods, watching foreign films, and reading widely.

But I was not especially skilled at minding children for long spells; I grew bored, perhaps like my own mother. After I spent too much time playing their games, my mind grew peckish and longed to lose itself in some book I had in my backpack. I was ever hopeful of early bedtimes and long naps.

You're in trouble. Do you expect me to just walk away?" "I wouldn't hold it against you if you did." "In know you wouldn't. That's only one of the reasons I'm crazy about you. I've got a million more." "Just a million?" "Okay, a million plus one—your cat." She giggled. "You're bonding with Saladin?" "Somebody has to protect that cat from your cousin Ian. And I feed him. The cat. Not Ian. He's on his own. Anyway, if that doesn't get me Perfect Boyfriend status, I don't know what will." "Emptying the litter box?" "Hey. I have my limits." Amy laughed. She had the phone pressed to her ear so tightly it burned. She closed her eyes, picturing his face... Ian's crisp voice broke in. "All right, lovebirds, let's move on. No offense, but I believe Amy and Dan might need a short course in style and class." "Is this the nonoffensive part?" Dan asked. "I can't wait until you really insult us." "Let's deal with reality, shall we? You don't just walk into an auction house in your jeans and backpacks. You have to blend in. And that's going to be hard." Ian sniffed. "Considering that you're Americans." "What are you talking about, dude?" Dan asked. "This is my best SpongeBob T-shirt.

As a rule, I try to avoid popping that dusky cherry. I cannot be the first black girl a white man dates. I cannot endure the nervous renditions of backpacker rap, the conspicuous effort to be colloquial, or the smugness of pink men in kente cloth.

In those years before mobile phones, email and Skype, travelers depended on the rudimentary communications system known as the postcard. Other methods--the long-distance phone call, the telegram--were marked "For Emergency Use Only." So my parents waved me off into the unknown, and their news bulletins about me would have been restricted to "Yes, he's arrived safely,"and "Last time we heard he was in Oregon," and "We expect him back in a few weeks." I'm not saying this was necessarily better, let alone more character-forming; just that in my case it probably helped not to have my parents a button's touch away, spilling out anxieties and long-range weather forecasts, warning me against floods, epidemics and psychos who preyed on backpackers.

I remember the man in the boat. The Guatemalans on the bus. Strangers, but I remember some of their faces. The wrinkles when one of them cried. The people in the boat vomiting on their clothes. Shirts on top of shirts. Sitting on their backpacks like I’m doing now. It’s like they’re still here with us in the back of another pickup. I hope everyone is ok. That they’re in La USA.

The author makes a tacit deal with the reader. You hand them a backpack. You ask them to place certain things in it — to remember, to keep in mind — as they make their way up the hill. If you hand them a yellow Volkswagen and they have to haul this to the top of the mountain — to the end of the story — and they find that this Volkswagen has nothing whatsoever to do with your story, you're going to have a very irritated reader on your hands.

Yeah, well,” Nico said, “not giving people a second thought…that can be dangerous.” “Dude, I’m trying to say thank you.” Nico laughed without humor. “I’m trying to say you don’t need to. Now I need to finish this, if you could give me some space?” “Yeah. Yeah, okay.” Percy stepped back while Nico took up the slack on his ropes. He slipped them over his shoulders as if the Athena Parthenos were a giant backpack. Percy couldn’t help feeling a little hurt, being told to take a hike. Then again, Nico had been through a lot. The guy had survived in Tartarus on his own. Percy understood firsthand just how much strength that must have taken. Annabeth walked up the hill to join them. She took Percy’s hand, which made him feel better. “Good luck,” she told Nico.

My pack rose up like a mantle behind me, towering several inches above my head, and gripped me like a vice all the way down to my tailbone. It felt pretty awful, and yet perhaps this was how it felt to be a backpacker. I didn't know. I only knew that it was time to go, so I opened the door and stepped into the light.

Now, the last one was that the demon king can’t stand either in heaven or on the earth. Urga set the demon on his lap, which means I guess I’ll have to…sit on your back.” Awkward. Even though Ren was a big tiger and it would be like riding a small pony, I was still conscious that he was a man, and I didn’t feel right about turning him into a pack animal. I took off my backpack and set it down wondering what I could do to make this a bit less embarrassing. Mustering the courage to sit on his back, I’d just decided that it wouldn’t be too bad if I sat sidesaddle, when my feet flew out from under me. Ren had changed into a man and swept me up into his arms. I wiggled for a minute, protesting, but he just gave me a look-the don’t-even-bother-coming-up-with-an-argument look.

Work is a four letter word. It conjures up the same image the world over getting up in the morning to do something you don't want to do, day in day out. After a few months work, or years, depending on the person's primeval yearning for freedom, you feel like a robot: alarm clock, get up, wash, catch the train, work, go home, watch TV, go to bed. In that one sentence I've probably just described the daily routine of 95% of the working population of England. It's the same in every other developed country in the world. Routine is the cause of most marriage break ups and social discontent.

I took my bottle and went to my bedroom. I undressed down to my shorts and went to bed. Nothing was ever in tune. People just blindly grabbed at whatever there was: communism, health foods, zen, surfing, ballet, hypnotism, group encounters, orgies, biking, herbs, Catholicism, weight-lifting, travel, withdrawal, vegetarianism, India, painting, writing, sculpting, composing, conducting, backpacking, yoga, copulating, gambling, drinking, hanging around, frozen yogurt, Beethoven, Bach, Buddha, Christ, TM, H, carrot juice, suicide, handmade suits, jet travel, New York City, and then it all evaporated and fell apart. People had to find things to do while waiting to die. I guess it was nice to have a choice. I took my choice. I raised the fifth of vodka and drank it straight. The Russians knew something.

[W]hen it comes to goal pursuit, it really is the journey that counts, not the destination. Set for yourself any goal you want. Most of the pleasure will be had along the way, with every step that takes you closer. The final moment of success is often no more thrilling than the relief of taking off a heavy backpack at the end of a long hike. If you went on the hike only to feel that pleasure, you are a fool.

Drop by drop rain slaps the banana leaves, Praise whoever sketched this desolate scene: the lush, dark canopies of the gnarled trees, the long river, sliding smooth and white. I lift my wine flask, drunk with rivers and hills. My backpack, breathing moonlight, sags with poems. Look, and love everyone. Whoever sees this landscape is stunned.

So if the gods fight,” I said, “will things line up the way they did with the Trojan War? Will it be Athena versus Poseidon?” She put her head against the backpack Ares had given us, and closed her eyes. “I don’t know what my mom will do. I just know I’ll fight next to you.” “Why?” “Because you’re my friend, Seaweed Brain. Any more stupid questions?

I did not know people your age still read books,' Penumbra says. He raises an eyebrow. 'I was under the impression they read everything on their mobile phones.' 'Not everyone. There are plenty of people who, you know--people who still like the smell of books.' 'The smell!' Penumbra repeats. 'You know you are finished when people start talking about the smell.' He smiles at that--then something occurs to him, and he narrows his eyes. 'I do not suppose you have a...Kindle?' Uh-oh. It feels like it's the principal asking me if I have weed in my backpack. But in a friendly way, like maybe he wants to share it. As it happens, I do have my Kindle. I pull it out of my messenger bag. It's a bit battered with wide scratches across the back and stray pen marks near the bottom of the screen. Penumbra holds it aloft and frowns. It's blank. I reach up and pinch the corner and it comes to life. He sucks in a sharp breath, and the pale gray rectangle reflects in his bright blue eyes.

My conflicts of conscience are about the only battles I’m fighting these days, and I’m willing to fight until the end. There is something freeing about this life, about living out of a single backpack and disappearing into the night. About smelling terrible and never remembering people’s names. About never having to say you’re sorry. We exist outside of society. We stay up late and sleep even later. We are bandits, pirates, serial killers. The dregs. Someone should lock us up and never let us out again. But instead, they give us their money, they offer us their beds. We are not going to pay for the beer. We are not going to be back here for a good, long while. We have prior engagements. We have the money in a duffel bag. We have no shame. Fuck guilt. Back to life.

Life is long, people change, I would never be foolish enough to think otherwise. But no matter what, nothing can ever be as it was. Everything has changed in a way that sounds trite and borderline offensive when recounted over coffee. I can never be who I was. I can simply watch her with sympathy, understanding, and some measure of awe. There she goes, backpack on, headed for the subway or the airport. She did her best with her eyeliner. She learned a new word she wants to try out on you. She is ambling along. She is looking for it.

After the cafes of Paris with their exquisite wines and creamy fromages, crepes and steak tartare-- screaming Adore me!-- Madrid was these store-bought hunks of unyielding cheese and brick-hard baguettes, consumed in leafless Buen Retiro Park.ll Madrid, dressed as it was, tasting as it did, prideful as hell, didn't care what you thought about it on your junior-year backpacking trip. That was your problem.

He watches me eat for a moment. “Let me see it again.” “No.” “Okay.” He pulls a can of carbonated water out of his backpack and pops the lid. Sometimes I want to punch him. I find the letter and slide it across the table. He reads it again. It makes me feel all jittery inside. His eyes flick up. “She likes you.” I shrug and steal his drink. It tastes like someone drowned an orange in a bottle of Perrier, and I cough. Rev smiles. “You like her.” “How can you drink this crap?” His smile widens. “Is it making you crazy that she won’t reveal herself?” “Seriously, Rev, do you have any regular water?” He’s no fool. “What do you want to do?” I take a long breath and blow it out. I run a hand through my hair. “I don’t know.” “You know.” “I want to stake out the grave. This waiting between letters is killing me.” “Suggest email.” “She doesn’t want to tell me anything more than her age. She’s not going to give me her email address.” “Maybe not her real email. But you could set up a private account and give her the address. See if she writes you.” It’s so simple it’s brilliant. I hate that I didn’t think of it. “Rev, I could kiss you.” “Brush your teeth first.” He reclaims his bizarre can of water.

Here.' Miles unzipped the backpack and pulled out the container of IcyHot. 'Go to the dresser. Should be one of the top drawers--smear this in the crotch of every pair of underwear you find.' 'I--what?' I took the container. 'That's disgusting.' 'I'm paying you fifty dollars for this,' Miles hissed, turning toward the bed. I went to the dresser and yanked open the top drawer on the left. Empty. Crisp white underwear and boxers filled the one on the right. Well... at least they were clean.

Addicts are good at lying, but never as good as their children. It's their sons and daughters who have to come up with excuses, never too outlandish or incredible, always mundane enough for no one to want to check them. An addict's child's homework never gets eaten by the dog, they just forgot their backpack at home. Their mom didn't miss parents' evening because she was kidnapped by ninjas, but because she had to work overtime. The child doesn't remember the name of the place she's working, it's only a temporary job. She does her best, Mom does, to support us now that Dad's gone, you know. You soon learn how to phrase things in such a way as to preclude any follow-up questions. You learn that the women in the welfare office can take you away from her if they find out she managed to set fire to your last apartment when she fell asleep with a cigarette in her hand, or if they find out she stole the Christmas ham from the supermarket. So you lie when the security guard comes, you take the ham off her, and confess: 'It was me who took it.' No one calls the police for a child, not when it's Christmas. So they let you go home with your mom, hungry but not alone.

He set the RAM on the desk, then reached into his back pocket to pull out his grimoire. The size of a small paperback novel, it'd been a gift from Ambrose to help him understand some of the madness that surrounded him, and to answer some of the "other" questions that came up. "All right, Nashira," Nick said in a low tone. "Talk to me. What the heck is watching me?" He slid his knife out of his pocket, opened the book, and pricked his finger, allowing three drops of blood to touch a blank page. "Dredanya eire coulet" he whispered, waking the female spirit who lived inside the enchanted pages. The moment he finished speaking, his blood began swirling until it formed words: Do not fear that which cannot be seen. For they are lost in between. 'Tis the ones who come alive That your blood will allow to thrive. Nick snorted at the cryptic stanzas. "Not really useful, Nashira. Doesn't answer my question." His blood crawled over to the next page. Answer, answer, you always say, But it doesn't work that way. In time, the truth you shall find. And then you will understand my rhyme. "I'm such a masochist to even try talking to you" Underneath the words, a picture of an obscene gesture formed. "Oh very nice, Nashira. Very nice. Wherever did you learn that?" In your pocket I reside. Ever privy to your deride. But more than that, I can see. And that includes bathroom stall graffiti Nick screwed his face up in distaste. "Oh my God, no. Tell me you haven't been spying on me in the rest room. You perv!" Calm yourself, you evil troll. My job is not to console. But if it is privacy you seek, Leave me in your backpack so I can't peek. Now he understood why other people got so aggravated with his attitude disorder. He wanted to strangle his book.

Now, your skill as a speaker can manifest itself in a variety of ways. You might simply have encyclopedic knowledge about many topics. Or you might be intelligent, able to deduce new facts and explanations on the fly. Or you might have sharp eyes and ears, able to notice things that other people miss. Or you might be plugged into valuable sources of information, always on top of the latest news, gossip, and trends. But listeners may not particularly care how you’re able to impress, as long as you’re consistently able to do so. If you’re a reliable source of new information, you’re likely to make a good teammate, especially as the team faces unforeseeable situations in the future. In other words, listeners care less about the tools you share with them; they’re really salivating over your backpack.

It's a physical sickness. Etienne. How much I love him. I love Etienne. I love it when he cocks an eyebrow whenever I say something he finds clever or amusing. I love listening to his boots clomp across my bedroom ceiling. I love that the accent over his first name is called an acute accent, and that he has a cute accent. I love that. I love sitting beside him in physics. Brushing against him during lands. His messy handwriting on our worksheets. I love handing him his backpack when class is over,because then my fingers smell like him for the next ten minutes. And when Amanda says something lame, and he seeks me out to exchange an eye roll-I love that,too. I love his boyish laugh and his wrinkled shirts and his ridiculous knitted hat. I love his large brown eyes,and the way he bites his nails,and I love his hair so much I could die. There's only one thing I don't love about him. Her. If I didn't like Ellie before,it's nothing compared to how I feel now. It doesn't matter that I can count how many times we've met on one hand. It's that first image, that's what I can't shake. Under the streeplamp. Her fingers in his hair. Anytime I'm alone, my mind wanders back to that night. I take it further. She touches his chest. I take it further.His bedroom.He slips off her dress,their lips lock, their bodies press,and-oh my God-my temperature rises,and my stomach is sick. I fantasize about their breakup. How he could hurt her,and she could hurt him,and of all the ways I could hurt her back. I want to grab her Parisian-styled hair and yank it so hard it rips from her skull. I want to sink my claws into her eyeballs and scrape. It turns out I am not a nice person. Etienne and I rarely discussed her before, but she's completely taboo now. Which tortures me, because since we've gotten back from winter break, they seem to be having problems again. Like an obsessed stalker,I tally the evenings he spend with me versus the evening he spends with her. I'm winning.

Sometimes a figure carves itself out of the crowd, and then I deviate from my itinerary to follow it for a moment, start on its story. It’s a good method; I excel at it. With the years, time has become my ally, as it does for every woman—I’ve become invisible, see-through. I am able to move around like a ghost, look over people’s shoulders, listen in on their arguments and watch them sleep with their heads on their backpacks or talking to themselves, unaware of my presence, moving just their lips, forming words that I will soon pronounce for them.

If ever I was distraught or heartbroken, my mom would always say, Go read history. Her solution for everything. For so long I believed history was a thick book you carried around in your backpack, not something you could create. It was one hour in an air-conditioned portable classroom after lunch, watching Civil War reenactments.... It'd take me a long time to realize history is happening now, and we are a part of it. ...History shows you what people have endured before you...History shows that if you were in the minority, if no one believed you, it didn't mean you were wrong. Rather, it meant society was slow to catch up to you. And if those in the minority did not buckle, did not give up their truths, the world would shift below their feet.

Hi there, cutie." Ash turned his head to find an extremely attractive college student by his side. With black curly hair, she was dressed in jeans and a tight green top that displayed her curves to perfection. "Hi." "You want to go inside for a drink? It's on me." Ash paused as he saw her past, present, and future simultaneously in his mind. Her name was Tracy Phillips. A political science major, she was going to end up at Harvard Med School and then be one of the leading researchers to help isolate a mutated genome that the human race didn't even know existed yet. The discovery of that genome would save the life of her youngest daughter and cause her daughter to go on to medical school herself. That daughter, with the help and guidance of her mother, would one day lobby for medical reforms that would change the way the medical world and governments treated health care. The two of them would shape generations of doctors and save thousands of lives by allowing people to have groundbreaking medical treatments that they wouldn't have otherwise been able to afford. And right now, all Tracy could think about was how cute his ass was in leather pants, and how much she'd like to peel them off him. In a few seconds, she'd head into the coffee shop and meet a waitress named Gina Torres. Gina's dream was to go to college herself to be a doctor and save the lives of the working poor who couldn't afford health care, but because of family problems she wasn't able to take classes this year. Still Gina would tell Tracy how she planned to go next year on a scholarship. Late tonight, after most of the college students were headed off, the two of them would be chatting about Gina's plans and dreams. And a month from now, Gina would be dead from a freak car accident that Tracy would see on the news. That one tragic event combined with the happenstance meeting tonight would lead Tracy to her destiny. In one instant, she'd realize how shallow her life had been, and she'd seek to change that and be more aware of the people around her and of their needs. Her youngest daughter would be named Gina Tory in honor of the Gina who was currently busy wiping down tables while she imagined a better life for everyone. So in effect, Gina would achieve her dream. By dying she'd save thousands of lives and she'd bring health care to those who couldn't afford it... The human race was an amazing thing. So few people ever realized just how many lives they inadvertently touched. How the right or wrong word spoken casually could empower or destroy another's life. If Ash were to accept Tracy's invitation for coffee, her destiny would be changed and she would end up working as a well-paid bank officer. She'd decide that marriage wasn't for her and go on to live her life with a partner and never have children. Everything would change. All the lives that would have been saved would be lost. And knowing the nuance of every word spoken and every gesture made was the heaviest of all the burdens Ash carried. Smiling gently, he shook his head. "Thanks for asking, but I have to head off. You have a good night." She gave him a hot once-over. "Okay, but if you change your mind, I'll be in here studying for the next few hours." Ash watched as she left him and entered the shop. She set her backpack down at a table and started unpacking her books. Sighing from exhaustion, Gina grabbed a glass of water and made her way over to her... And as he observed them through the painted glass, the two women struck up a conversation and set their destined futures into motion. His heart heavy, he glanced in the direction Cael had vanished and hated the future that awaited his friend. But it was Cael's destiny. His fate... "Imora thea mi savur," Ash whispered under his breath in Atlantean. God save me from love.

Perfect! Now we’re being chased by hoards of monkeys! Perhaps you would care to name their species as we’re attacked, just so I can appreciate the special traits of said monkey as it kills me!” He ran along beside me. “At least when the monkeys are harassing you, you don’t have time to harass me!” The monkeys were getting close. I almost tripped over one as it darted in front of my legs. Ren leapt over a fountain with his tiger power. Show-off. “Ren, you’re holding back. Just get out of here! Take the backpack and go.” He laughed acerbically as he ran ahead of me; then, he turned to look at me while jogging backward. “Ha! You wish you could get rid of me that easily!” He ran a bit farther ahead of me and switched to the tiger. Then he barreled back toward me and actually leapt over my running body into the throng of monkeys to slow them down. I shouted back at him while still running, “Hey! Careful where you jump, Mister! You almost took my head off!

You must have carried that in your mouth the entire way. Thank you.” He grinned. “You are entirely welcome, my lovely.” I laughed. “Better to carry a backpack in your teeth over several miles than to have Ren sink his into your hide for letting me starve, eh?” Kishan frowned. “I did it for you, Kelsey. Not him.” I put my hand on his arm. “Well, thank you.” He pressed his hand on top of mine. “Aap ke liye. For your sake, anything.” “Did you tell Mr. Kadam that we would be a bit longer? “Yes, I explained the situation to him. Don’t worry about him. He’s comfortably camped near the road and will wait as long as necessary. Now, I want you to pack up some water bottles and food. I’m taking you with me. I would leave you here, but Ren insists that you get into trouble if left alone.” He touched my nose. “Is that true, bilauta? I can’t imagine an endearing young woman such as you getting into trouble.” “I don’t get into trouble. Trouble finds me.” He laughed. “That much is obvious.” “Despite what you tigers think, I can take care of myself, you know,” I said in a slightly sulky tone. Kishan squeezed my arm. “Perhaps we tigers enjoy taking care of you.

I can text in complete sentences. Oh, yeah, it’s a skill.” He smiled, proud of his accomplishments. “And, thanks to my mom being a competitive dancer as a teen, I know how to do the Lindy hop and the jitterbug.” I sat bolt upright, and Akinli rolled his eyes. “I swear, if you tell me you can jitterbug, I’m going to . . . I don’t even know. Set something on fire. No one can dance like that.” I pursed my lips and dusted off my shoulder, a thing I’d seen Elizabeth do when she was bragging. As if he was accepting a challenge, he shrugged off his backpack and stood, holding out a hand for me. I took it and positioned myself in front of him as he shook his head, grinning. “All right, we’ll take this slow. Five, six, seven, eight.” In unison, we rock stepped and triple stepped, falling into the rhythm in our head. After a minute, he got brave and swung me around, lining me up for those peppy kicks I loved so much. People walked by, pointing and laughing, but it was one of those moments when I knew we weren’t being mocked; we were being envied. We stepped on each other’s toes more than once, and after he accidentally knocked his head into my shoulder, he threw his hands up. “Unbelievable,” he said, almost as if he was complaining. “I can’t wait to tell my mom this. She’s gonna think I’m lying. All those years dancing in the kitchen thinking I was special, and then I run across a master.

When pressed, hunters who claim that they just want “to be out in the wilderness,” will admit that the kill is essential—or at least the hope of a kill. As it turns out, there is no correlation between hunting and hiking, climbing, backpacking, kayaking, or any other outdoor activity. Hunters do not purposefully linger in the woods after a kill, but quickly begin the process of preparing to head home with the corpse. For hunters, the kill is the climax—the most important moment. They are not driving into the woods (or sometimes actually walking) for the sake of beauty, but in the hope of a kill.

The world is full of books, movies and stories about how the loss of a loved one, or a change in fortune, or a severe illness or another tragedy of such magnitude catapulted someone to reset their lives and chase long-forgotten dreams. I’m thinking of Cheryl Strayed, who hiked the Pacific Crest Trail solo after the unexpected and heartbreaking death of her mother, and Elizabeth Gilbert, who embarked on a year-long journey around the world after a painful divorce and depression. I admire their grit to pick themselves up and do something extraordinary in the face of tragedy. But what about the tragedy of a mundane, average, unfulfilling life?

So good to see you again, little luv. How I've missed you." Gasping, I fall to my knees. The Caterpillar and the moth and the winged guy. They are all one and the same. They have been all along... "I've seen that bug," Jeb says. "In your car. On the mirror." He drops the backpack and grips my shoulders, trying to drag me to my feet. My legs won't cooperate. "Tut-tut. You are never to bow to me, lovely Alyssa." The voice drifts from the moth's proboscis on gray puffs of smoke. His attention shifts to Jeb. "You, on the other hand, will bow to her.

Millennials: We lost the genetic lottery. We graduated high school into terrorist attacks and wars. We graduated college into a recession and mounds of debt. We will never acquire the financial cushion, employment stability, and material possessions of our parents. We are often more educated, experienced, informed, and digitally fluent than prior generations, yet are constantly haunted by the trauma of coming of age during the detonation of the societal structure we were born into. But perhaps we are overlooking the silver lining. We will have less money to buy the material possessions that entrap us. We will have more compassion and empathy because our struggles have taught us that even the most privileged can fall from grace. We will have the courage to pursue our dreams because we have absolutely nothing to lose. We will experience the world through backpacking, couch surfing, and carrying on interesting conversations with adventurers in hostels because our bank accounts can't supply the Americanized resorts. Our hardships will obligate us to develop spiritual and intellectual substance. Maybe having roommates and buying our clothes at thrift stores isn't so horrible as long as we are making a point to pursue genuine happiness.

What am I going to do? I wish I knew the answer, Sienna. The man your going to marry is walking this earth. He's alive right now, somewhere. He could be in Australia, backpacking with friends; he could be working in a bar in China; he could be a hotshot American lawyer; he could be a musician; he could be going about his life in London at this very moment... Any day now, your paths could cross. She smiled when I said this, like it brought her comfort.

He pulled me toward him so that I was resting on my side. I coughed up some more water. He took off his wet shirt and folded it. Then he gently lifted me and placed it under my sore head, which hurt too much to appreciate his…bronzed…sculpted…muscular…bare chest. Well I guess I must be okay if I can appreciate the view, I thought. Sheesh, I’d have to be dead not to appreciate it. I winced as Ren’s hand brushed against my head, shaking me from my reverie. “You’ve got a major bump here.” I reached up to feel the giant lump on the back of my skull. I gingerly touched it and recalled the source of my headache. I must have lost consciousness when the rock hit me. Ren saved my life. Again. I looked up at him. He was kneeling next to me with a look of desperation on his face, and his body was shaking. I realized that he must have changed to a man, dragged me out of the pool, and then remained by my side until I woke up. Who knows how long I’ve been laying here unconscious. “Ren, you’re in pain. You’ve been in this form too long today.” He shook his head in denial, but I saw him grit his teeth. I pressed my hand on his arm. “I’ll be okay. It’s just a bump on the head. Don’t worry about me. I’m sure Mr. Kadam has some aspirin tucked away in the backpack. I’ll just take that and lie down to rest for a while. I’ll be alright.” He trailed his finger slowly from my temple to my cheek and smiled softly. When he pulled back, his whole arm shook and tremors rippled under the surface of his skin. “Kells, I-“ His face tightened. He threw his head to the side, snarled angrily, and morphed to a tiger again. He softly growled, then quieted, and drew close beside me. He lay down next to me and watched me carefully with his alert blue eyes. I stroked his back, partly to reassure him and partly because it soothed me too.

The Dora bag has straps, it’s like Backpack but with Dora on it instead of Backpack’s face. It has a handle too, when I try it pulls up, I think I broke it, but then it rolls, it’s a wheelie bag and a backpack at the same time, that’s magic. “You like it?” It’s Deana talking to me. “Would you like to keep your things in it?” “Maybe one that’s not pink,” says Paul to her. “What about this one, Jack, pretty cool or what?” He’s holding up a bag of Spider-Man. I give Dora a big hug. I think she whispers, Hola, Jack. Deana tries to take the Dora bag but I won’t let her. “It’s OK, I just have to pay the lady, you’ll get it back in two seconds…” It’s not two seconds, it’s thirty-seven.

I hazarded to your mother that tragedy seems to bring out all varieties of unexpected qualities in people. I said it was as if some folks (I was thinking of Mary) got dunked in plastic, vacuum-sealed like backpacking dinners, and could do nothing but sweat in their private hell. And others seemed to have just the opposite problem, as if disaster had dipped them in acid instead, stripping off the outside layer of skin that once protected them from the slings and arrows of other people's outrageous fortunes. For these sorts, just walking down the street in the wake of every stranger's ill wind became an agony, an aching slog through the man's fresh divorce and that woman's terminal throat cancer. They were in hell, too, but it was everybody's hell, this big, shoreless, sloshing sea of toxic waste.

Falling for him would be like cliff diving. It would be either the most exhilarating thing that ever happened to me or the stupidest mistake I’d ever make. It would make my life worth living or it would crush me against stony rocks and break me utterly. Perhaps the wise thing to do would be to slow things down. Being friends would be so much simpler. Ren came back, picked up my empty dinner packet, and stowed it in the backpack. Sitting down across from me, he asked, “What are you thinking about?” I kept staring glassily at the fire. “Nothing much.” He tilted his head and considered me for a moment. He didn’t press me, for which I was grateful-another characteristic I could add to the pro relationship side of my mental list. Pressing his hands together palm to palm, he rubbed them slowly, mechanically, as if cleaning them of dust. I watched them move, mesmerized. “I’ll take the first watch, even though I really don’t think it’ll be necessary. I still have my tiger senses, you know. I’ll be able to hear or smell the Kappa if they decide to emerge from the water. “Fine.” “Are you alright?” I mentally shook myself. Sheesh! I needed a cold shower! He was like a drug, and what did you do with drugs? You pushed them as far away as possible. “I’m fine,” I said brusquely, then got up to dig through the backpack. “You let me know when your spidey-senses start to tingle.” “What?” I put my hand on my hip. “Can you also leap tall buildings in a single bound?” “Well, I still have my tiger strength, if that’s what you mean.” I grunted, “Fabulous. I’ll add superhero to your list of pros.” He frowned. “I’m no superhero, Kells. The most important consideration right now is that you get some rest. I’ll keep an eye out for a few hours. Then, if nothing happens,” he said with a grin, “I’ll join you.” I froze and suddenly became very nervous. Surely, he didn’t mean what that sounded like. I searched his face for a clue, but he didn’t seem to have any hidden agenda or be planning anything.

The year was 1987, but it might as well have been the Summer of Love: I was twenty, had hair down to my shoulders, and was dressed like an Indian rickshaw driver. For those charged with enforcing our nation’s drug laws, it would have been only prudent to subject my luggage to special scrutiny. Happily, I had nothing to hide. “Where are you coming from?” the officer asked, glancing skeptically at my backpack. “India, Nepal, Thailand…” I said. “Did you take any drugs while you were over there?” As it happens, I had. The temptation to lie was obvious—why speak to a customs officer about my recent drug use? But there was no real reason not to tell the truth, apart from the risk that it would lead to an even more thorough search of my luggage (and perhaps of my person) than had already commenced. “Yes,” I said. The officer stopped searching my bag and looked up. “Which drugs did you take? “I smoked pot a few times… And I tried opium in India.” “Opium?” “Yes.” “Opium or heroin? “It was opium.” “You don’t hear much about opium these days.” “I know. It was the first time I’d ever tried it.” “Are you carrying any drugs with you now?” “No.” The officer eyed me warily for a moment and then returned to searching my bag. Given the nature of our conversation, I reconciled myself to being there for a very long time. I was, therefore, as patient as a tree. Which was a good thing, because the officer was now examining my belongings as though any one item—a toothbrush, a book, a flashlight, a bit of nylon cord—might reveal the deepest secrets of the universe. “What is opium like?” he asked after a time. And I told him. In fact, over the next ten minutes, I told this lawman almost everything I knew about the use of mind-altering substances. Eventually he completed his search and closed my luggage. One thing was perfectly obvious at the end of our encounter: We both felt very good about it.

Richards remembered the day - that glorious and terrible day - watching the planes slam into the towers, the image repeated in endless loops. The fireballs, the bodies falling, the liquefaction of a billion tons of steel and concrete, the pillowing clouds of dust. The money shot of the new millennium, the ultimate reality show broadcast 24-7. Richards had been in Jakarta when it happened, he couldn't even remember why. He'd thought it right then; no, he'd felt it, right down to his bones. A pure, unflinching rightness. You had to give the military something to do of course, or they'd all just fucking shoot each other. But from that day forward, the old way of doing things was over. The war - the real war, the one that had been going on for a thousand years and would go on for a thousand thousand more - the war between Us and Them, between the Haves and the Have-Nots, between my gods and your gods, whoever you are - would be fought by men like Richards: men with faces you didn't notice and couldn't remember, dressed as busboys or cab drivers or mailmen, with silencers tucked up their sleeves. It would be fought by young mothers pushing ten pounds of C-4 in baby strollers and schoolgirls boarding subways with vials of sarin hidden in their Hello Kitty backpacks. It would be fought out of the beds of pickup trucks and blandly anonymous hotel rooms near airports and mountain caves near nothing at all; it would be waged on train platforms and cruise ships, in malls and movie theaters and mosques, in country and in city, in darkness and by day. It would be fought in the name of Allah or Kurdish nationalism or Jews for Jesus or the New York Yankees - the subjects hadn't changed, they never would, all coming down, after you'd boiled away the bullshit, to somebody's quarterly earnings report and who got to sit where - but now the war was everywhere, metastasizing like a million maniac cells run amok across the planet, and everyone was in it.

I came to another passageway and paused to examine the scene. I saw myself dead and lying on the ground with Ren kneeling beside me. He leaned over my inert body investigating. I heard him whisper, “Kelsey? Is it you? Kelsey, please. Talk to me. I need to know if it’s really you.” He picked my body up and cradled it lovingly in his arms. I checked to make sure he had the gada and the backpack, which he did, but I’d been fooled before. Then he said, “Don’t leave me, Kells.” I closed my eyes and listened to his voice begging me to live. My heart started thumping wildly, a different reaction than I’d had in the past visions. I took a step closer and hit a barrier again. I spoke to him softly, “Ren? I’m here. Don’t give up.” He raised his head as if he’d heard me. “Kelsey? I can hear you, but I can’t see you. Where are you?” He lowered me, or the body that looked like me, to the ground, and it disappeared. I told him, “Close your eyes and feel your way to me.” He stood slowly and closed his eyes. I closed my eyes too, and tried to focus not on his voice but on his heart. I imagined my hand on his chest, feeling the strong thump of his heart beneath my fingers. My body seemed to move of its own volition, and I took several steps forward. I concentrated on Ren, his laugh, his smile, how I felt being near him, then, suddenly, my hand touched his chest, and I could feel his heart beating. He was there. I opened my eyes slowly and looked at him. He reached out a hand to touch my hair, but then he pulled it back. “Is it really you this time, Kells?” “Well, I’m no maggoty corpse, if that’s what you mean.” He grinned. “That’s a relief. No maggoty corpse would be that sarcastic.” I countered, “Well, how do I know it’s really you?” He considered my question for a moment and then ducked his head to kiss me. He tugged me flush up against his chest, pulling me closer than I even thought possible, and then his lips touched mine. His kiss started out warm and soft, but quickly turned hungry and demanding. His hands ran up my arms, to my shoulders, and then cupped my neck. I wrapped my arms around his waist and luxuriated in the kiss. When he finally pulled back, my heart was pounding in response. When the power of speech returned, I quipped, “Well, even if it isn’t really you, I’ll take this version.” He laughed and relief flooded both of us. “Kells, I think you’d better hold my hand the rest of the way.” I smiled gaily back at him. “No problem.

You’re with a girl. She’s brown-haired and side-swept. I imagine that she’s the kind of girl who can easily shop for jean shorts, and speaks kindly more often than not. She seems like the kind of girl who hates New York City because it wreaks havoc on her shoes (really she just thinks it’s a big and scary place), but once had the time of her life in Spain on a backpacking trip when she was 23. Her gaze is focused on the embracing couple as near strangers capable of judgement. She stands bolted next to you like you’re her anchor in the social storm. You two seem finely matched… but what do I know? (Nothing at all.) I accidentally saw a picture of you and it reminded me that I was dating a man rightfully shaking his fist at God, while trying to hold my hand with the other. I was reminded of how fiercely we tried to hold our relationship together, and how devastated and relieved we were in its destruction. There’s water under that bridge. I accidentally saw a picture of you. No big deal. I wrote about it.

Dead Butterfly By Ellen Bass For months my daughter carried a dead monarch in a quart mason jar. To and from school in her backpack, to her only friend’s house. At the dinner table it sat like a guest alongside the pot roast. She took it to bed, propped by her pillow. Was it the year her brother was born? Was this her own too-fragile baby that had lived—so briefly—in its glassed world? Or the year she refused to go to her father’s house? Was this the holding-her-breath girl she became there? This plump child in her rolled-down socks I sometimes wanted to haul back inside me and carry safe again. What was her fierce commitment? I never understood. We just lived with the dead winged thing as part of her, as part of us, weightless in its heavy jar.

Jack stepped onstage dressed in jeans, sneakers, and a T-shirt. "I'm the handsome Butterboy," Jack announced. "I'm the queen's soul mate. I just don't know it yet because I'm emotionally immature. Sorry, Conner." Conner was so embarrassed, he sank into his seat and covered his face with his backpack. Trollbella was sporting a wide grin - this was her favorite part of the show. Red struck a theatrical pose with her hands over her heart. "Be still my heart, for I am in love!" Red announced. "Now, Peter!" Trollbella whispered. Peter soared out from backstage and flew in circles over the audience. The children laughed and clapped - they reached up and tried to touch him. Conner was irritated by how much they were enjoying the show. "Hello, Butterboy!" Red said to Jack. "Would you like to be my king and rule the trolls and goblins with me? Oh, how happy we will be together!" "Oh boy, that sounds wonderful!" Jack said. "How lucky I am to be loved by such a beautiful and brilliant troll queen. I will never find someone like her ever again - nope, not once, no how, no way, not going to happen! I want to be with Trollbella for all eternity!" "I never said that!" Conner shouted from his seat. "She's making this up!

The first sixth-grade assembly.” I look up at him. “Huh?” “That’s the first time I saw you. You were sitting in the row in the front of me. I thought you were cute.” I laugh. “Nice try.” It’s so endearingly Peter to make up stuff to try and sound romantic. He keeps going. “Your hair was really long and you had a headband with a bow. I always liked your hair, even back then.” “Okay, Peter,” I say, reaching up and patting him on his cheek. He ignores me. “Your backpack had your name written on it in glitter letters. I’d never heard of the name Lara Jean before.” My mouth falls open. I hot-glued those glitter letters to my backpack myself! It took me forever trying to get them straight enough. I’d forgotten all about that backpack. It was my prized possession. “The principal started picking random people to come on stage and play a game for prizes. Everybody was raising their hands, but your hair got caught in your chair and you were trying to untangle it, so you didn’t get picked. I remember thinking maybe I should help you, but then I thought that would be weird.” “How do you remember all that?” I ask in amazement. Smiling, he shrugs. “I don’t know. I just do.” Kitty’s always saying how origin stories are important. At college, when people ask us how we met, how will we answer them? The shorty story is, we grew up together. But that’s more Josh’s and my story. High school sweethearts? That’s Peter and Gen’s story. So what’s ours, then? I suppose I’ll say it all started with a love letter.

Do not make your child your only hobby or you will end up waiting by the telephone in a cheery room covered in brittle, yellowed crayon drawings, regaling those few friends that are left with stale anecdotes about your youngster's accomplishments. Your little baby will be off in college, or backpacking in the Amazon, or on the other side of the country trying to get as far away from home as possible, and you will begin collecting porcelain frogs and feeding stray cats. So now is the time to start getting that life to fall back on. You know what you must do. Do it for your child. Do it for me, and for everyone out there who has to deal with your child for the rest of your child's life. And do it for yourself.

You know, Junie, you're fourteen now. I think you can certainly manage to put together a sandwich. ... The thing is, if my mother had any idea what I had in my backpack, she would have made me that sandwich. If she knew that I'd searched and searched the house until I finally found the little key to the fireproof box buried in the bottom of her underwear drawer, if she knew that I'd unlocked the box and taken my passport out, that I had it with me right that very second in a Ziploc bag in the bottom of my backpack, if she knew why I had it there, if she knew even a bit of all that, she might have made me that PBJ. She wouldn't have said, "You're fourteen now," like she thought I was some kind of responsible adult. No. If she knew about my plan, she would have said, "you're only fourteen." She would have told me that I was crazy to think about going to England with I was only fourteen.

You will encounter resentful, sneering non-readers who will look at you from their beery, leery eyes, as they might some form of sub-hominid anomaly, bookimus maximus. You will encounter redditters, youtubers, blogspotters, wordpressers, twitterers, and facebookers with wired-open eyes who will shout at from you from their crazy hectoring mouths about the liberal poison of literature. You will encounter the gamers with their twitching fingers who will look upon you as a character to lock crosshairs on and blow to smithereens. You will encounter the stoners and pill-poppers who will ignore you, and ask you if you have read Jack Keroauc’s On the Road, and if you haven’t, will lecture you for two hours on that novel and refuse to acknowledge any other books written by anyone ever. You will encounter the provincial retirees, who have spent a year reading War & Peace, who strike the attitude that completing that novel is a greater achievement than the thousands of books you have read, even though they lost themselves constantly throughout the book and hated the whole experience. You will encounter the self-obsessed students whose radical interpretations of Agnes Grey and The Idiot are the most important utterance anyone anywhere has ever made with their mouths, while ignoring the thousands of novels you have read. You will encounter the parents and siblings who take every literary reference you make back to the several books they enjoyed reading as a child, and then redirect the conversation to what TV shows they have been watching. You will encounter the teachers and lecturers, for whom any text not on their syllabus is a waste of time, and look upon you as a wayward student in need of their salvation. You will encounter the travellers and backpackers who will take pity on you for wasting your life, then tell you about the Paulo Coelho they read while hostelling across Europe en route to their spiritual pilgrimage to New Delhi. You will encounter the hard-working moaners who will tell you they are too busy working for a living to sit and read all day, and when they come home from a hard day’s toil, they don’t want to sit and read pretentious rubbish. You will encounter the voracious readers who loathe competition, and who will challenge you to a literary duel, rather than engage you in friendly conversation about your latest reading. You will encounter the slack intellectuals who will immediately ask you if you have read Finnegans Wake, and when you say you have, will ask if you if you understood every line, and when you say of course not, will make some point that generally alludes to you being a halfwit. Fuck those fuckers.

So,Batman,eh?" Effing St. Clair. I cross my arms and slouch into one of the plastic seats. I am so not in the mood for this.He takes the chair next to me and drapes a relaxed arm over the back of the empty seat on his other side. The man across from us is engrossed in his laptop,and I pretend to be engrossed in his laptop,too. Well,the back of it. St. Clair hums under his breath. When I don't respond,he sings quietly. "Jingle bells,Batman smells,Robin flew away..." "Yes,great,I get it.Ha ha. Stupid me." "What? It's just a Christmas song." He grins and continues a bit louder. "Batmobile lost a wheel,on the M1 motorway,hey!" "Wait." I frown. "What?" "What what?" "You're singing it wrong." "No,I'm not." He pauses. "How do you sing it?" I pat my coat,double-checking for my passport. Phew. Still there. "It's 'Jingle bells, Batman smells,Robin laid an egg'-" St. Clair snorts. "Laid an egg? Robin didn't lay an egg-" "'Batmobile lost a wheel,and the Joker got away.'" He stares at me for a moment,and then says with perfect conviction. "No." "Yes.I mean,seriously,what's up with the motorway thing?" "M1 motorway. Connects London to Leeds." I smirk. "Batman is American. He doesn't take the M1 motorway." "When he's on holiday he does." "Who says Batman has time to vacation?" "Why are we arguing about Batman?" He leans forward. "You're derailing us from the real topic.The fact that you, Anna Oliphant,slept in today." "Thanks." "You." He prods my leg with a finger. "Slept in." I focus on the guy's laptop again. "Yeah.You mentioned that." He flashes a crooked smile and shrugs, that full-bodied movement that turns him from English to French. "Hey, we made it,didn't we? No harm done." I yank out a book from my backpack, Your Movie Sucks, a collection of Roger Ebert's favorite reviews of bad movies. A visual cue for him to leave me alone. St. Clair takes the hint. He slumps and taps his feet on the ugly blue carpeting. I feel guilty for being so harsh. If it weren't for him,I would've missed the flight. St. Clair's fingers absentmindedly drum his stomach. His dark hair is extra messy this morning. I'm sure he didn't get up that much earlier than me,but,as usual, the bed-head is more attractive on him. With a painful twinge,I recall those other mornings together. Thanksgiving.Which we still haven't talked about.

The war—the real war, the one that had been going on for a thousand years and would go on for a thousand thousand more—the war between Us and Them, between the Haves and the Have-Nots, between my gods and your gods, whoever you are—would be fought by men like Richards: men with faces you didn’t notice and couldn’t remember, dressed as busboys or cab drivers or mailmen, with silencers tucked up their sleeves. It would be fought by young mothers pushing ten pounds of C-4 in baby strollers and schoolgirls boarding subways with vials of sarin hidden in their Hello Kitty backpacks. It would be fought out of the beds of pickup trucks and blandly anonymous hotel rooms near airports and mountain caves near nothing at all; it would be waged on train platforms and cruise ships, in malls and movie theaters and mosques, in country and in city, in darkness and by day. It would be fought in the name of Allah or Kurdish nationalism or Jews for Jesus or the New York Yankees—the subjects hadn’t changed, they never would, all coming down, after you’d boiled away the bullshit, to somebody’s quarterly earnings report and who got to sit where—but now the war was everywhere, metastasizing like a million maniac cells run amok across the planet, and everyone was in it.

West Broadway. It was all that I’d felt looking at those Parisian doors. And at that moment I realized that those changes, with all their agony, awkwardness, and confusion, were the defining fact of my life, and for the first time I knew not only that I really was alive, that I really was studying and observing, but that I had long been alive—even back in Baltimore. I had always been alive. I was always translating. I arrived in Paris. I checked in to a hotel in the 6th arrondissement. I had no understanding of the local history at all. I did not think much about Baldwin or Wright. I had not read Sartre nor Camus, and if I walked past Café de Flore or Les Deux Magots I did not, then, take any particular note. None of that mattered. It was Friday, and what mattered were the streets thronged with people in amazing configurations. Teenagers together in cafés. Schoolchildren kicking a soccer ball on the street, backpacks to the side. Older couples in long coats, billowing scarves, and blazers.

During those days before the girl from the lake was finally buried in her hometown, Jay had been the one who kept Violet sane. He slipped candy bars into her backpack for her to find and left little notes in her locker just to let her know he was thinking about her. She leaned on him every step of the way, and he never once complained. And afterward, when she felt back to her old self again, at least mostly anyway, he was still there. She wondered what she’d done to deserve a friend like him, someone who never wavered and never questioned. Someone who was always there . . . being supportive, and funny, and thoughtful. Violet stood in the hallway and watched him. He was digging through his locker looking for his math book, and even though she knew it wasn’t there, Violet just let him search, smiling to herself. Crumpled wads of paper fell out onto the floor at his feet. He seemed to sense that she was staring and he looked back at her. “What?” he asked. “Nothing,” she responded, the smile finding her lips. He narrowed his eyes, realizing that he was the butt of some private joke. “What?” She sighed and kicked a toe at his backpack, which was lying crookedly against the wall of lockers. “Your book’s in your bag, dumbass,” she announced as she turned away and started walking toward class. She heard him groan, followed by the sound of his locket slamming, before he finally caught up with her. “Why didn’t you say anything? Sometimes you really piss me off.” It was easy to ignore the harsh words when his tone was anything but scolding. She shrugged. “It’s fun to watch you scramble.” “Yeah, fun. That’s what I was thinking.

Jessica Stone. The Jessica Stone. My costar. As in, indie film poster child, beloved by the internet for being sexy and cute and funny, sure to snag an Oscar one day Jessica Stone. I think I saw her last movie in theaters fifteen times, and not just because it was based on a graphic novel. Don’t fanboy, I order myself. Don’t fanboy. Gail looks at me, surprised. “But Dare, we were—” I cough. Twice. Gail looks between Jessica Stone and me, widens her eyes, and finally gets it. Her ears go even redder. “Oh. Oh.” She grabs her backpack and makes a hasty retreat. “I…um. I’ll be around if you need me, Dare.” After the door closes, Jessica Stone turns her eyes—which are super, freakishly, ice-water blue—to me. “I didn’t mean to intrude.” My tongue ties into ten hundred knots. She can intrude as much as she wants. I mean, not intrude—like, let me politely be in her presence for the rest of my life—but intruding works too. Into my life. As much as she wants. Is that weird? It’s probably weird. But it’s Jessica Stone. Damn it, man, don’t fanboy.

It was odd for her, pulling into Jay’s driveway that morning, the same way she had countless times before. She saw the door open, but instead of Jay, his mom poked her head out the door and waved enthusiastically at Violet. Jay pushed past his mom, who was smiling conspiratorially at Violet and practically ignoring her own son. Violet waved back, feeling sheepish. She knows, Violet thought. Jay’s mom knows. Jay had no intention of letting her keep it a secret. The low hum of butterflies she’d been feeling all morning became a violent flutter. Jay slid in, as casual as ever, and kicked his backpack out of the way at his feet. He stretched back in the seat and grinned at her. “Ready?” he asked, as if sensing her hesitation and teasing her about it. She slumped down a little in defeat and put the car in reverse. “Do I have a choice?” She tried not to, but she knew she was pouting. He chuckled and cupped her chin in his hand affectionately, stroking her jaw with his thumb. And then he flashed his dazzling smile at her. “Not if I have any say about it,” he answered, laughing.

Second hand books had so much life in them. They'd lived, sometimes in many homes, or maybe just one. They'd been on airplanes, traveled to sunny beaches, or crowded into a backpack and taken high up a mountain where the air thinned. "Some had been held aloft tepid rose-scented baths, and thickened and warped with moisture. Others had child-like scrawls on the acknowledgement page, little fingers looking for a blank space to leave their mark. Then there were the pristine novels, ones that had been read carefully, bookmarks used, almost like their owner barely pried the pages open so loathe were they to damage their treasure. I loved them all. And I found it hard to part with them. Though years of book selling had steeled me. I had to let them go, and each time made a fervent wish they'd be read well, and often. Missy, my best friend, said I was completely cuckoo, and that I spent too much time alone in my shadowy shop, because I believed my books communicated with me. A soft sigh here, as they stretched their bindings when dawn broke, or a hum, as they anticipated a customer hovering close who might run a hand along their cover, tempting them to flutter their pages hello. Books were fussy when it came to their owners, and gave off a type of sound, an almost imperceptible whirr, when the right person was near. Most people weren't aware that books chose us, at the time when we needed them.

Ren followed along behind me somewhere quietly. I couldn’t hear him, but I knew he was there. I was acutely aware of his presence. I had an intangible connection with him, the man. It was almost as if he were walking next to me. Almost as if he were touching me. I must have started walking down the wrong path because he trotted ahead, pointedly moving in a different direction. I muttered, “Show-off. I’ll walk the wrong way if I want to.” But, I still followed after him. After a while, I made out the Jeep parked on the hill and saw Mr. Kadam waving at us. I walked up to his camp, and he grabbed me in a brief hug. “Miss Kelsey! You’re back. Tell me what happened.” I sighed, set down my backpack, and sat on the back bumper of the Keep. “Well, I have to tell you, these past few days have been some of the worst of my life. There were monkeys, and Kappa, and rotted kissing corpses, and snakebites, and trees covered with needles, and-“ He held up a hand. “What do you mean a few days? You just left last night.” Confused, I said, “No. We’ve been gone at least,” I counted on my fingers, “at least four or five days.” “I’m sorry, Miss Kelsey, but you and Ren left me last night. In fact, I was going to say you should get some rest and then try again tomorrow night. You were really gone almost a week?” “Well, I was asleep for two of the days. At least that’s what tiger boy over there told me.” I glared at Ren who stared back at me with an innocuous tiger expression while listening to our conversation. Ren appeared to be sweet and attentive, as harmless as a little kitten. He was about as harmless as a Kappa. I, on the other hand, was like a porcupine. I was bristling. All of my quills were standing on end so I could defend my soft belly from being devoured by the predator who had taken an interest. “Two days? My, my. Why don’t we return to the hotel and rest? We can try to get the fruit again tomorrow night.” “But, Mr. Kadam,” I said an unzipped the backpack, “we don’t have to come back. We got Durga’s first gift, the Golden Fruit.” I pulled out my quilt and unfolded it, revealing the Golden Fruit nestled within. He gently picked it up out of its cocoon. “Amazing!” he exclaimed. “It’s a mango.” With a smirk, I added, “It only makes sense. After all, mangoes are very important to Indian culture and trade.” Ren huffed at me and rolled onto his side in the grass.

Mr. Wonderful was probably taking his sweet time, right?” “No, it was actually my fault this morning. I was busy with…paperwork.” “Oh. Well, that’s alright. Don’t worry about it. What kind of paperwork?” He smiled. “Nothing important.” Mr. Kadam held the door for me, and we walked out into an empty hallway. I was just starting to relax at the elevator doors when I heard a hotel room door close. Ren walked down the hall toward us. He’d purchased new clothes. Of course, he looked wonderful. I took a step back from the elevator and tried to avoid eye contact. Ren wore a brand new pair of dark-indigo, purposely faded, urban-destruction designer jeans. His shirt was long-sleeved, buttoned-down, crisp, oxford-style and was obviously of high quality. It was blue with thin white stripes that matched is eyes perfectly. He’d rolled up the sleeves and left his shirt untucked and open at the collar. It was also an athletic cut, so it fit tightly to his muscular torso, which made me suck in an involuntary breath in appreciation of his male splendor. He looks like a runway model. How in the world am I going to be able to reject that? The world is so unfair. Seriously, it’s like turning Brad Pitt down for a date. The girl who could actually do it should win an award for idiot of the century. I again quickly ran through my list of reasons for not being with Ren and said a few “He’s not for me’s.” The good thing about seeing his mouthwatering self and watching him walk around like a regular person was that it tightened my resolve. Yes. It would be hard because he was so unbelievably gorgeous, but it was now even more obvious to me that we didn’t belong together. As he joined us at the elevator, I shook my head and muttered under my breath, “Figures. The guy is a tiger for three hundred and fifty years and emerges from his curse with expensive taste and keen fashion sense too. Incredible!” Mr. Kadam asked, “What was that, Miss Kelsey?” “Nothing.” Ren raised an eyebrow and smirked. He probably heard me. Stupid tiger hearing. The elevator doors opened. I stepped in and moved to the corner hoping to keep Mr. Kadam between the two of us, but unfortunately, Mr. Kadam wasn’t receiving the silent thoughts I was projecting furiously toward him and remained by the elevator buttons. Ren moved next to me and stood too close. He looked me up and down slowly and gave me a knowing smile. We rode down the elevator in silence. When the doors opened, he stopped me, took the backpack off my shoulder, and threw it over his, leaving me with nothing to carry. He walked ahead next to Mr. Kadam while I trialed along slowly behind, keeping distance between us and a wary eye on his tall frame.

Here, Kells. I brought you something,” he said unassumingly and held out three mangos. “Thanks. Um, dare I ask where you got them?” “Monkeys.” I stopped in mid-brush. “Monkeys? What do you mean monkeys?” “Well, monkeys don’t like tigers because tigers eat monkeys. So, when a tiger comes around, they jump up in the trees and pummel the tiger with fruit or feces. Lucky for me today they threw fruit.” I gulped. “Have you ever…eaten a monkey?” Ren grinned at me. “Well, a tiger does have to eat.” I dug a rubber band out of the backpack so I could braid my hair. “Ugh, that’s disgusting.” He laughed. “I didn’t really eat a monkey, Kells. I’m just teasing you. Monkeys are repellant. They taste like meaty tennis balls and they smell like feet.” He paused. “Now a nice juicy deer, that is delectable.” He smacked his lips together in an exaggerated way. “I don’t think I really need to hear about your hunting.” “Really? I quite enjoy hunting.” Ren froze into place. Then, almost imperceptibly, he lowered his body slowly to a crouch and balanced on the balls of his feet. He placed a hand in the grass in front of him and began to creep closer to me. He was tracking me, hunting me. His eyes locked on mine and pinned me to the spot where I was standing. He was preparing to spring. His lips were pulled back in a wide grin, which showed his brilliant white teeth. He looked…feral. He spoke in a silky, mesmerizing voice. “When you’re stalking your prey, you must freeze in place and hide, remaining that way for a long time. If you fail, your prey eludes you.” He closed the distance between us in a heartbeat. Even though I’d been watching him closely, I was startled at how fast he could move. My pulse started thumping wildly at my throat, which was where his lips now hovered as if he were going for my jugular. He brushed my hair back and moved up to my ear, whispering, “And you will go…hungry.” His words were hushed. His warm breath tickled my ear and made goose bumps fan out over my body. I turned my head slightly to look at him. His eyes had changed. They were a brighter blue than normal and were studying my face. His hand was still in my hair, and his eyes drifted down to my mouth. I suddenly had the distinct impression that this was what it felt like to be a deer. Ren was making my nervous. I blinked and swallowed dryly. His eyes darted back up to mine again. He must have sensed my apprehension because his expression changed. He removed his hand from my hair and relaxed his posture. “I’m sorry if I frightened you, Kelsey. It won’t happen again.” When he took a step back, I started breathing again. I said shakily, “Well, I don’t want to hear any more about hunting. It freaks me out. The least you could do is not tell me about it. Especially when I have to spend time with you outdoors, okay?” He laughed. “kells, we all have some animalistic tendencies. I loved hunting, even when I was young.” I shuddered. “Fine. Just keep your animalistic tendencies to yourself.” He leaned toward me again and pulled on a strand of my hair. “Now, Kells, there are some of my animalistic tendencies that you seem to like.” He started making a rumbling sound in his chest, and I realized that he was purring. “Stop that!” I sputtered. He laughed, walked over to the backpack, and picked up the fruit. “So, do you want any of this mango or not? I’ll wash it for you.” “Well, considering you carried it in your mouth all that way just for me. And taking into account the source of said fruit. Not really.” His shoulders fell, and I hurried to add, “But I guess I could eat some of the inside.” He looked up at me and smiled. “It’s not freeze-dried.” “Okay. I’ll try some.

I’d gone to an outdoor store in Minneapolis called REI about a dozen times over the previous months to purchase a good portion of these items. Seldom was this a straightforward affair. To buy even a water bottle without first thoroughly considering the latest water bottle technology was folly, I quickly learned. There were the pros and cons of various materials to take into account, not to mention the research that had been done regarding design. And this was only the smallest, least complex of the purchases I had to make. The rest of the gear I would need was ever more complex, I realized after consulting with the men and women of REI, who inquired hopefully if they could help me whenever they spotted me before displays of ultralight stoves or strolling among the tents. These employees ranged in age and manner and area of wilderness adventure proclivity, but what they had in common was that every last one of them could talk about gear, with interest and nuance, for a length of time that was so dumbfounding that I was ultimately bedazzled by it. They cared if my sleeping bag had snag-free zipper guards and a face muff that allowed the hood to be cinched snug without obstructing my breathing. They took pleasure in the fact that my water purifier had a pleated glass-fiber element for increased surface area. And their knowledge had a way of rubbing off on me. By the time I made the decision about which backpack to purchase—a top-of-the-line Gregory hybrid external frame that claimed to have the balance and agility of an internal—I felt as if I’d become a backpacking expert.

White noise, impersonal roar. Deadening incandescence of the boarding terminals. But even these soul-free, sealed-off places are drenched with meaning, spangled and thundering with it. Sky Mall. Portable stereo systems. Mirrored isles of Drambuie and Tanqueray and Chanel No. 5. I look at the blanked-out faces of the other passengers—hoisting their briefcases, their backpacks, shuffling to disembark—and I think of what Hobie said: beauty alters the grain of reality. And I keep thinking too of the more conventional wisdom: namely, that the pursuit of pure beauty is a trap, a fast track to bitterness and sorrow, that beauty has to be wedded to something more meaningful. Only what is that thing? Why am I made the way I am? Why do I care about all the wrong things, and nothing at all for the right ones? Or, to tip it another way: how can I see so clearly that everything I love or care about is illusion, and yet—for me, anyway—all that’s worth living for lies in that charm? A great sorrow, and one that I am only beginning to understand: we don’t get to choose our own hearts. We can’t make ourselves want what’s good for us or what’s good for other people. We don’t get to choose the people we are. Because—isn’t it drilled into us constantly, from childhood on, an unquestioned platitude in the culture—? From William Blake to Lady Gaga, from Rousseau to Rumi to Tosca to Mister Rogers, it’s a curiously uniform message, accepted from high to low: when in doubt, what to do? How do we know what’s right for us? Every shrink, every career counselor, every Disney princess knows the answer: “Be yourself.” “Follow your heart.

Miss me?" she asks with her usual wryness, tossing her backpack on the floor and dropping down on the bed beside me like she comes over all the time. "I feel like a rebel just knowing you. Everyone keeps asking me if you really lit Brooklyn on fire." I arch a brow. "On fire?" Catherine pumps up a pillow beneath her head. "The actual event has gotten a bit exaggerated." Her lips twitch. "Maybe I had something to do with that." "Nice. Thanks." "No problem." "So I guess I'm pretty much done for at school." For the first time, it matters to me. If I'm to stay here and make a go of it, it wouldn't hurt to have a few friends. To not be a social outcast. Especially since it seems pretty important for Tamra's success at school, too. "Are you kidding? You're a hero." Her lips twist with a smile. "I think you've got a shot at homecoming queen next fall." I give a short laugh, and then her words sink. Next fall. Might I be here then? With Will? It's almost too sweet to believe. "So," Catherine beings, picking at the loose paper edging my spiral. "Rutledge was absent today." "Yeah?" I try for nonchalance. "Yeah." She stretches the word, her blue-green eyes cutting meaningfully into mine. "And his cousins were around, so he's not off somewhere with them. I wonder..." She cocks her head, her long, choppy bangs, sliding low across her forehead. "Wherever could he have been?" I shrug and pick at the flaking tip of my pencil. She continues, "I know where Xander thinks he was." My gaze swings back to her face. "Xander talked to you?" "I know, right? Can my days as a pariah be coming to an end?" "Where does he think Will was?" "With you, of course.

The list of correlations to that night is as long as the Jersey coast. And so is the list of reasons I shouldn't be looking forward to seeing him at school. But I can't help it. He's already texted me three times this morning: Can I pick you up for school? and Do u want 2 have breakfast? and R u getting my texts? My thumbs want to answer "yes" to all of the above, but my dignity demands that I don't answer at all. He called my his student. He stood there alone with me on the beach and told me he thinks of me as a pupil. That our relationship is platonic. And everyone knows what platonic means-rejected. Well, I might be his student, but I'm about to school, him on a few things. The first lesson of the day is Silent Treatment 101. So when I see him in the hall, I give him a polite nod and brush right by him. The zap from the slight contact never quite fades, which mean he's following me. I make it to my locker before his hand is on my arm. "Emma." The way he whispers my name sends goose bumps all the way to my baby toes. But I'm still in control. I nod to him, dial the combination to my locker, then open it in his face. He moves back before contact. Stepping around me, he leans his hand against the locker door and turns me around to face him. "That's not very nice." I raise my best you-started-this brow. He sighs. "I guess that means you didn't miss me." There are so many things I could pop off right now. Things like, "But at least I had Toraf to keep my company" or "You were gone?" Or "Don't feel bad, I didn't miss my calculus teacher either." But the goal is to say nothing. So I turn around. I transfer books and papers between my locker and backpack. As I stab a pencil into my updo, his breath pushes against my earlobe when he chuckles. "So your phone's not broken; you just didn't respond to my texts." Since rolling my eyes doesn't make a sound, it's still within the boundaries of Silent Treatment 101. So I do this while I shut my locker. As I push past him, he grabs my arm. And I figure if stomping on his toe doesn't make a sound... "My grandmother's dying," he blurts. Commence with the catching-Emma-off-guard crap. How can I continue Silent Treatment 101 after that? He never mentioned his grandmother before, but then again, I never mentioned mine either. "I'm sorry, Galen." I put my hand on his, give it a gentle squeeze. He laughs. Complete jackass. "Conveniently, she lives in a condo in Destin and her dying request is to meet you. Rachel called your mom. We're flying out Saturday afternoon, coming back Sunday night. I already called Dr. Milligan." "Un-freaking-believable.

I'm jittery.It's like the animatronic band from Chuck E. Cheese is throwing a jamboree in my stomach. I've always hated Chuck E. Cheese. Why am I thinking about Chuck E. Cheese? I don't know why I'm nervous.I'm just seeing my mom again. And Seany.And Bridge! Bridge said she'd come. St. Clair's connecting flight to San Francisco doesn't leave for another three hours,so we board the train that runs between terminals,and he walks me to the arrivals area.We've been quiet since we got off the plane. I guess we're tired. We reach the security checkpoint,and he can't go any farther. Stupid TSA regulations.I wish I could introduce him to my family.The Chuck E. Cheese band kicks it up a notch,which is weird, because I'm not nervous about leaving him. I'll see him again in two weeks. "All right,Banana.Suppose this is goodbye." He grips the straps of his backpack,and I do the same. This is the moment we're supposed to hug. For some reason,I can't do it. "Tell your mom hi for me. I mean, I know I don't know her. She just sounds really nice. And I hope she's okay." He smiles softly. "Thanks.I'll tell her." "Call me?" "Yeah,whatever. You'll be so busy with Bridge and what's-his-name that you'll forget all about your English mate, St. Clair." "Ha! So you are English!" I poke him in the stomach. He grabs my hand and we wrestle, laughing. "I claim....no...nationality." I break free. "Whatever,I totally caught you. Ow!" A gray-haired man in sunglasses bumps his red plaid suitcase into my legs. "Hey,you! Apologize!" St. Clair says,but the guy is already too far away to hear. I rub my shins. "It's okay, we're in the way. I should go." Time to hug again. Why can't we do it? Finally, I step forward and put my arms around him. He's stiff,and it's awkward, especially with our backpacks in the way.I smell his hair again. Oh heavens. We pull apart. "Have fun at the show tonight" he says. "I will.Have a good flight." "Thanks." He bites his thumbnail,and then I'm through security and riding down the escalator. I look back one last time. St. Clair jumps up and down, waving at me.I burst into laughter, and his face lights up.The escalator slides down. He's lost from view. I swallow hard and turn around.And then-there they are.Mom has a gigantic smile, and Seany is jumping and waving, just like St. Clair.

When I look at him, I don’t see the cowardly young man who sold me out to Jeanine Matthews, and I don’t hear the excuses he gave afterward. When I look at him, I see the boy who held my hand in the hospital when our mother broke her wrist and told me it would be all right. I see the brother who told me to make my own choices, the night before the Choosing Ceremony. I think of all the remarkable things he is--smart and enthusiastic and observant, quiet and earnest and kind. He is a part of me, always will be, and I am a part of him, too. I don’t belong to Abnegation, or Dauntless, or even the Divergent. I don’t belong to the Bureau or the experiment or the fringe. I belong to the people I love, and they belong to me--they, and the love and loyalty I give them, form my identity far more than any word or group ever could. I love my brother. I love him, and he is quaking with terror at the thought of death. I love him and all I can think, all I can hear in my mind, are the words I said to him a few days ago: I would never deliver you to your own execution. “Caleb,” I say. “Give me the backpack.” “What?” he says. I slip my hand under the back of my shirt and grab my gun. I point it at him. “Give me the backpack.” “Tris, no.” He shakes his head. “No, I won’t let you do that.” “Put down your weapon!” the guard screams at the end of the hallway. “Put down your weapon or we will fire!” “I might survive the death serum,” I say. “I’m good at fighting off serums. There’s a chance I’ll survive. There’s no chance you would survive. Give me the backpack or I’ll shoot you in the leg and take it from you.” Then I raise my voice so the guards can hear me. “He’s my hostage! Come any closer and I’ll kill him!” In that moment he reminds me of our father. His eyes are tired and sad. There’s a shadow of a beard on his chin. His hands shake as he pulls the backpack to the front of his body and offers it to me. I take it and swing it over my shoulder. I keep my gun pointed at him and shift so he’s blocking my view of the soldiers at the end of the hallway. “Caleb,” I say, “I love you.” His eyes gleam with tears as he says, “I love you, too, Beatrice.” “Get down on the floor!” I yell, for the benefit of the guards. Caleb sinks to his knees. “If I don’t survive,” I say, “tell Tobias I didn’t want to leave him.

This seat taken?" My eyes grazing over the only other occupant, a guy with long glossy dark hair with his head bent over a book. "It's all yours," he says. And when he lifts his head and smiles,my heart just about leaps from my chest. It's the boy from my dreams. The boy from the Rabbit Hole,the gas station,and the cave-sitting before me with those same amazing,icy-blue eues, those same alluring lips I've kissed multiple times-but only in slumber, never in waking life. I scold my heart to settle,but it doesn't obey. I admonish myself to sit,to act normal, casual-and I just barely succeed. Stealing a series of surreptitious looks as I search through my backpack, taking in his square chin,wide generous lips,strong brow,defined cheekbones, and smooth brown skin-the exact same features as Cade. "You're the new girl,right?" He abandons his book,tilting his head in a way that causes his hair to stream over his shoulder,so glossy and inviting it takes all of my will not to lean across the table and touch it. I nod in reply,or at least I think I do.I can't be too sure.I'm too stricken by his gaze-the way it mirrors mine-trying to determine if he knows me, recognizes me,if he's surprised to find me here.Wishing Paloma had better prepared me-focused more on him and less on his brother. I force my gaze from his.Bang my knee hard against the table as I swivel in my seat.Feeling so odd and unsettled,I wish I'd picked another place to sit, though it's pretty clear no other table would have me. He buries his smile and returns to the book.Allowing a few minutes to pass,not nearly enough time for me to get a grip on myself,when he looks up and says, "Are you staring at me because you've seen my doppelganer roaming the halls,playing king of the cafeteria? Or because you need to borrow a pencil and you're too shy to ask?" I clear the lump from my throat, push the words past my lips when I say, "No one's ever accused me of being shy." A statement that,while steeped in truth, stands at direct odds with the way I feel now,sitting so close to him. "So I guess it's your twin-or doppelganer,as you say." I keep my voice light, as though I'm not at all affected by his presence,but the trill note at the end gives me away.Every part of me now vibrating with the most intense surge of energy-like I've been plugged into the wall and switched on-and it's all I can do to keep from grabbing hold of his shirt, demanding to know if he dreamed the dreams too. He nods,allowing an easy,cool smile to widen his lips. "We're identical," he says. "As I'm sure you've guessed. Though it's easy enough to tell us apart. For one thing,he keeps his hair short.For another-" "The eyes-" I blurt,regretting the words the instant they're out.From the look on his face,he has no idea what I'm talking about. "Yours are...kinder." My cheeks burn so hot I force myself to look away,as words of reproach stampede my brain. Why am I acting like such an inept loser? Why do I insist on embarrassing myself-in front of him-of all people? I have to pull it together.I have to remember who I am-what I am-and what I was born to do.Which is basically to crush him and his kind-or,at the very least,to temper the damage they do.

He couldn’t have known it, but among the original run of The History of Love, at least one copy was destined to change a life. This particular book was one of the last of the two thousand to be printed, and sat for longer than the rest in a warehouse in the outskirts of Santiago, absorbing the humidity. From there it was finally sent to a bookstore in Buenos Aires. The careless owner hardly noticed it, and for some years it languished on the shelves, acquiring a pattern of mildew across the cover. It was a slim volume, and its position on the shelf wasn’t exactly prime: crowded on the left by an overweight biography of a minor actress, and on the right by the once-bestselling novel of an author that everyone had since forgotten, it hardly left its spine visible to even the most rigorous browser. When the store changed owners it fell victim to a massive clearance, and was trucked off to another warehouse, foul, dingy, crawling with daddy longlegs, where it remained in the dark and damp before finally being sent to a small secondhand bookstore not far from the home of the writer Jorge Luis Borges. The owner took her time unpacking the books she’d bought cheaply and in bulk from the warehouse. One morning, going through the boxes, she discovered the mildewed copy of The History of Love. She’d never heard of it, but the title caught her eye. She put it aside, and during a slow hour in the shop she read the opening chapter, called 'The Age of Silence.' The owner of the secondhand bookstore lowered the volume of the radio. She flipped to the back flap of the book to find out more about the author, but all it said was that Zvi Litvinoff had been born in Poland and moved to Chile in 1941, where he still lived today. There was no photograph. That day, in between helping customers, she finished the book. Before locking up the shop that evening, she placed it in the window, a little wistful about having to part with it. The next morning, the first rays of the rising sun fell across the cover of The History of Love. The first of many flies alighted on its jacket. Its mildewed pages began to dry out in the heat as the blue-gray Persian cat who lorded over the shop brushed past it to lay claim to a pool of sunlight. A few hours later, the first of many passersby gave it a cursory glance as they went by the window. The shop owner did not try to push the book on any of her customers. She knew that in the wrong hands such a book could easily be dismissed or, worse, go unread. Instead she let it sit where it was in the hope that the right reader might discover it. And that’s what happened. One afternoon a tall young man saw the book in the window. He came into the shop, picked it up, read a few pages, and brought it to the register. When he spoke to the owner, she couldn’t place his accent. She asked where he was from, curious about the person who was taking the book away. Israel, he told her, explaining that he’d recently finished his time in the army and was traveling around South America for a few months. The owner was about to put the book in a bag, but the young man said he didn’t need one, and slipped it into his backpack. The door chimes were still tinkling as she watched him disappear, his sandals slapping against the hot, bright street. That night, shirtless in his rented room, under a fan lazily pushing around the hot air, the young man opened the book and, in a flourish he had been fine-tuning for years, signed his name: David Singer. Filled with restlessness and longing, he began to read.

Dating yes. But she thinks we're, uh, more than dating." "Oh," he says, thoughtful. Then he grins. "Oh." The reason her lips are turning his favorite color is because Emma's mom thinks they've been dating and mating. The blush extends down her neck and disappears into her T-shirt. He should probably say something to make her feel more comfortable. But teasing her seems so much more fun. "Well then, the least she could do is give us some privacy-" "Ohmysweetgoodness!" She snatches her backpack from the seat and marches around her car to the driver's side. Before she can get the door unlocked, he plucks the key from her fingers and tucks it into his jeans' pocket. She moves to retrieve it, but stops when she realizes where she's about to go fishing. He's never seen her this red. He laughs. "Calm down, Emma. I'm just kidding. Don't leave." "Yeah, well, it's not funny. You should have seen her this morning. She almost cried. my mom doesn't cry." She crosses her arms again but relaxes against her door. "She cried? That's pretty insulting." She cracks a tiny grin. "Yeah, it's an insult to me. She thinks I would...would..." "More than date me?" She nods. He steps toward her and puts his hand beside her on the car, leaning in. A live current seems to shimmy up his spine. What are you doing? "But she should know that you don't even think of me like that. That it would never even cross your mind," he murmurs. She looks away, satisfying his unspoken question-it has crossed her mind. The same way it crosses his. How often? Does she feel the voltage between them, too? Who cares, idiot? She belongs to Grom. Or are you going to let a few sparks keep you from uniting the kingdoms? He pulls back, clenching his teeth. His pockets are the only safe place for his hands at the moment. "Why don't I meet her then? You think that would make her feel better?" "Um." She swipes her hair to the other side of her face. Her expression falls somewhere between shock and expectation. And she had every right to expect it-he's been entertaining the idea of kissing her for over two weeks now. She fidgets the door handle. "Yeah, it might. She won't let me go anywhere-especially with you-if she doesn't meet you first." "Should I be afraid?" She sighs. "Normally I would say no. But after this morning..." She shrugs. "How about I follow you to your house so you can drop off your car? Then she can interrogate me. When she sees how charming I am, she'll let you ride to the beach with me." She rolls her eyes. "Just don't be too charming. If you're too smooth, she'll never believe-just don't overdue it, okay?" "This is getting complicated," he says, unlocking her car. "Just remember, this is your idea and your fault. Now would be the time to back out." He chuckles and opens the door for her. "Don't lose me on the road.