Bags Under Your Eyes Quotes

I hope one day somebody loves you so much that they see violets in the bags under your eyes, sunsets in the downward arch of your lips that they recognize you as something green, something fresh and still growing even if sometimes you are growing sideways that they do not waste their time trying to fix you.

She never understood that love -- especially that of a child -- was the most necessary weight you can endure in life, even if it hurts, even if it tugs bags under the skin of your eyes. Without it, the soul skitters to the edge of the world and teeters there, confused.

Those aren’t bags under your eyes, they’re suitcases.

And what do you know, John's hands flew through the positions of ASL in various l-got-this combinations. "Is he deaf" the guy behind the cash register asked in a stage whisper. As if someone using American Sign Language was some kind of freak. "No. Blind." "Oh." As the man kept staring, Qhuinn wanted to pop him. "You going to help us out here or what?" "Oh ... yeah. Hey, you got a tattoo on your face." Mr. Observant moved slowly, like the bar codes on those bags were creating some kind of wind resistance under his laser reader. "Did you know that?" Really. "I wouldn't know." ''Are you blind, too?" No filter on this guy. None. "Yeah, I am." "Oh, so that's why your eyes are all weird." "Yeah. That's right." Qhuinn took out a twenty and didn't wait for change-murder was just a liiiiiittle too tempting. Nodding to John, who was also measuring the dear boy for a shroud, Qhuinn went to walk off. "What about your change ?" the man called out. "I'm deaf, too. I can't hear you." The guy yelled more loudly, "I'll just keep it then, yeah?" "Sounds good," Qhuinn shouted over his shoulder. Idiot was stage-five stupid. Straight up.

Amy turned to Nellie. "Can you create a diversion to draw the clerk outside?" The au pair was wary. "What kind of diversion?" "You could pretend to be lost," Dan proposed. "The guy comes out to give you directions, and we slip inside." "That's the most sexist idea I've ever heard," Nellie said harshly. "I'm female, so I have to be clueless. He's male, so he's got a great sense of direction." "Maybe you're from out of town," Dan suggested. "Wait–you are from out of town." Nellie stashed their bags under a bench and set Saladin on the seat with a stern "You're the watchcat. Anybody touches those bags, unleash your inner tiger." The Egyptian Mau surveyed the street uncertainly. "Mrrp." Nellie sighed. "Lucky for us there's no one around. Okay, I'm going in there. Be ready." The clerk said something to her–probably May I help you? She smiled apologetically. "I don't speak Italian." "Ah–you are American." His accent was heavy, but he seemed eager to please. "I will assist you." He took in her black nail polish and nose ring. "Punk, perhaps, is your enjoyment?" "More like a punk/reggae fusion," Nellie replied thoughtfully. "With a country feel. And operatic vocals." The clerk stared in perplexity. Nellie began to tour the aisles, pulling out CDs left and right. "Ah–Artic Monkeys–that's what I'm talking about. And some Bad Brains–from the eighties. Foo Fighters–I'll need a couple from those guys. And don't forget Linkin Park..." He watched in awe as she stacked up an enormous armload of music. "There," she finished, slapping Frank Zappa's Greatest Hits on top of the pile. "That should do for a start." "You are a music lover," said the wide-eyed cashier. "No, I'm a kleptomaniac." And she dashed out the door.

it’s a terrible feeling when you first fall in love. your mind gets completely taken over, you can’t function properly anymore. the world turns into a dream place, nothing seems real. you forget your keys, no one seems to be talking English and even if they are you don’t care as you can’t hear what they’re saying anyway, and it doesn’t matter since your not really there. things you cared about before don’t seem to matter anymore and things you didn’t think you cared about suddenly do. I must become a brilliant cook, I don’t want to waste time seeing my friends when I could be with him, I feel no sympathy for all those people in India killed by an earthquake last night; what is the matter with me? It’s a kind of hell, but you feel like your in heaven. even your body goes out of control, you can’t eat, you don’t sleep properly, your legs turn to jelly as your not sure where the floor is anymore. you have butterflies permanently, not only in your tummy but all over your body - your hands, your shoulders, your chest, your eyes everything’s just a jangling mess of nerve endings tingling with fire. it makes you feel so alive. and yet its like being suffocated, you don’t seem to be able to see or hear anything real anymore, its like people are speaking to you through treacle, and so you stay in your cosy place with him, the place that only you two understand. occasionally your forced to come up for air by your biggest enemy, Real Life, so you do the minimum then head back down under your love blanket for more, knowing it’s uncomfortable but compulsory. and then, once you think you’ve got him, the panic sets in. what if he goes off me? what if I blow it, say the wrong thing? what if he meets someone better than me? Prettier, thinner, funnier, more like him? who doesn’t bite there nails? perhaps he doesn’t feel the same, maybe this is all in my head and this is just a quick fling for him. why did I tell him that stupid story about not owning up that I knew who spilt the ink on the teachers bag and so everyone was punished for it? does he think I'm a liar? what if I'm not very good at that blow job thing and he’s just being patient with me? he says he loves me; yes, well, we can all say words, can’t we? perhaps he’s just being polite. of course you do your best to keep all this to yourself, you don’t want him to think you're a neurotic nutcase, but now when he’s away doing Real Life it’s agony, your mind won’t leave you alone, it tortures you and examines your every moment spent together, pointing out how stupid you’ve been to allow yourself to get this carried away, how insane you are to imagine someone would feel like that about you. dad did his best to reassure me, but nothing he said made a difference - it was like I wanted to see Simon, but didn’t want him to see me.

I used to want to understand how the world worked. Little things, like heavy stuff goes at the bottom of the laundry bag, or big things, like the best way to get a boy to chase you is to ignore him, or medium things, like if you cut an onion under running water your eyes won't sting, and if you wash your fingers afterwards with lemon-juice they won't stink. I used to want to know all the secrets, and every time I learned one, I felt like I'd taken--a step. On a journey. To a place. A destination: to be the kind of person who knew all this stuff, the way everyone around me seemed to know all this stuff. I thought that once I knew enough secrets, I'd be like them.

The world stops for you when you’re pretty. That’s why women spend billions on crap for their faces. Their whole life, they’re the center of attention. People want to be around them just because they’re attractive. Their jokes are funnier. Their lives are better. And then suddenly, they get bags under their eyes or they put on a little weight and no one cares about them anymore. They cease to exist.

[excerpt] The usual I say. Essence. Spirit. Medicine. A taste. I say top shelf. Straight up. A shot. A sip. A nip. I say another round. I say brace yourself. Lift a few. Hoist a few. Work the elbow. Bottoms up. Belly up. Set ‘em up. What’ll it be. Name your poison. I say same again. I say all around. I say my good man. I say my drinking buddy. I say git that in ya. Then a quick one. Then a nightcap. Then throw one back. Then knock one down. Fast & furious I say. Could savage a drink I say. Chug. Chug-a-lug. Gulp. Sauce. Mother’s milk. Everclear. Moonshine. White lightning. Firewater. Hootch. Relief. Now you’re talking I say. Live a little I say. Drain it I say. Kill it I say. Feeling it I say. Wobbly. Breakfast of champions I say. I say candy is dandy but liquor is quicker. I say Houston, we have a drinking problem. I say the cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems. I say god only knows what I’d be without you. I say thirsty. I say parched. I say wet my whistle. Dying of thirst. Lap it up. Hook me up. Watering hole. Knock a few back. Pound a few down. My office. Out with the boys I say. Unwind I say. Nurse one I say. Apply myself I say. Toasted. Glow. A cold one a tall one a frosty I say. One for the road I say. Two-fisted I say. Never trust a man who doesn’t drink I say. Drink any man under the table I say. Then a binge then a spree then a jag then a bout. Coming home on all fours. Could use a drink I say. A shot of confidence I say. Steady my nerves I say. Drown my sorrows. I say kill for a drink. I say keep ‘em comin’. I say a stiff one. Drink deep drink hard hit the bottle. Two sheets to the wind then. Knackered then. Under the influence then. Half in the bag then. Out of my skull I say. Liquored up. Rip-roaring. Slammed. Fucking jacked. The booze talking. The room spinning. Feeling no pain. Buzzed. Giddy. Silly. Impaired. Intoxicated. Stewed. Juiced. Plotzed. Inebriated. Laminated. Swimming. Elated. Exalted. Debauched. Rock on. Drunk on. Bring it on. Pissed. Then bleary. Then bloodshot. Glassy-eyed. Red-nosed. Dizzy then. Groggy. On a bender I say. On a spree. I say off the wagon. I say on a slip. I say the drink. I say the bottle. I say drinkie-poo. A drink a drunk a drunkard. Swill. Swig. Shitfaced. Fucked up. Stupefied. Incapacitated. Raging. Seeing double. Shitty. Take the edge off I say. That’s better I say. Loaded I say. Wasted. Off my ass. Befuddled. Reeling. Tanked. Punch-drunk. Mean drunk. Maintenance drunk. Sloppy drunk happy drunk weepy drunk blind drunk dead drunk. Serious drinker. Hard drinker. Lush. Drink like a fish. Boozer. Booze hound. Alkie. Sponge. Then muddled. Then woozy. Then clouded. What day is it? Do you know me? Have you seen me? When did I start? Did I ever stop? Slurring. Reeling. Staggering. Overserved they say. Drunk as a skunk they say. Falling down drunk. Crawling down drunk. Drunk & disorderly. I say high tolerance. I say high capacity. They say protective custody. Blitzed. Shattered. Zonked. Annihilated. Blotto. Smashed. Soaked. Screwed. Pickled. Bombed. Stiff. Frazzled. Blasted. Plastered. Hammered. Tore up. Ripped up. Destroyed. Whittled. Plowed. Overcome. Overtaken. Comatose. Dead to the world. The old K.O. The horrors I say. The heebie-jeebies I say. The beast I say. The dt’s. B’jesus & pink elephants. A mindbender. Hittin’ it kinda hard they say. Go easy they say. Last call they say. Quitting time they say. They say shut off. They say dry out. Pass out. Lights out. Blackout. The bottom. The walking wounded. Cross-eyed & painless. Gone to the world. Gone. Gonzo. Wrecked. Sleep it off. Wake up on the floor. End up in the gutter. Off the stuff. Dry. Dry heaves. Gag. White knuckle. Lightweight I say. Hair of the dog I say. Eye-opener I say. A drop I say. A slug. A taste. A swallow. Down the hatch I say. I wouldn’t say no I say. I say whatever he’s having. I say next one’s on me. I say bottoms up. Put it on my tab. I say one more. I say same again

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.

It’s all nonsense of course. You can find God in a thunderstorm, or in the smile of a child, or in the wilderness (I believe that Jesus himself tried that at one stage), or in a rain forest, or a puppy, or in a legend, or by just lying under the stars, or in a daydream, or in your lover’s eyes, or in music, or by believing in magic, or in a conversation with a bag lady, or by loving a Gypsy girl, or by stumbling upon a white buffalo, or by dancing around your bones on the edge of extinction.

You carry stories under your bright sad eyes, bag loads and I wish to god I could help you unload.

Sunday night is my personal weekly Halloween. I walk along slowly and drag my fingertips along the bars of chocolate. Goddamn, you sexy little squares. Dark, milk, white, I do not discriminate. I eat it all. Those fluorescent sour candies that only obnoxious little boys like. I suck candy apples clean. If an envelope seal is sweet, I’ll lick it twice. Growing up, I was that kid who would easily get lured into a van with the promise of a lollipop. Sometimes, I let the retail seduction last for twenty minutes, ignoring Marco and feeling up the merchandise, but I’m so tired of male voices. “Five bags of marshmallows,” Marco says in a resigned tone. “Wine. And a can of cat food.” “Cat food is low carb.” He makes no move to scan anything, so I scan each item myself and unroll a few notes from my tips. “Your job involves selling things. Sell them. Change, please.” “I just don’t know why you do this to yourself.” Marco looks at the register with a moral dilemma in his eyes. “Every week you come and do this.” He hesitates and looks over his shoulder where his sugar book sits under a layer of dust. He knows not to try to slip it into my bag with my purchases. “I don’t know why you care, dude. Just serve me. I don’t need your help.” He’s not entirely wrong about my being an addict. I would lick a line of icing sugar off this counter right now if no one were around. I would walk into a cane plantation and bite right in... “Give me my change or I swear to God …” I squeeze my eyes shut and try to tamp down my temper. “Just treat me like any other customer.” He gives me a few coins’ change and bags my sweet, spongy drugs.

“Is Jeb alive?” I ask Morpheus. White bleeds into his jeweled markings—the color of indifference. “I didn’t kill him, if that’s what you’re implying.” “You know it’s not. Could you for once just give me a straight answer?” He gazes up at the smoky gray sky. “Your mortal is alive and well. In fact, you will no doubt be seeing him very soon.” Relieved tears spring into my eyes. “So, that means you know where he is?” Is it possible Morpheus took Jeb under his wings after all? Dad stops stuffing the fabric in the bag, as if waiting to hear the answer. Appraising his cane, Morpheus growls. “I do know where he is.” Before I can respond, he lifts his eyes to mine, jewels now bordering on emerald green. “I suppose I should be grateful his name wasn’t the first thing that came out of your mouth.”

sunsets are for the romantics, for the idealists and the believers. for those fond of the calm, those who've been sheltered, who've never had to weather a storm. but sunrises, sunrises are for the survivors, for the ones who've weathered storms, the ones left standing after a hell of a night in the er, the ones holding your hand through darkness, because they've learned to only need the light inside them. sunsets are for first dates, for exchanging names and hobbies and talking about dreams. sunrises are for the few who will survive nightmares with you, who will help you fight monsters and slay dragons. sunsets are for promises, but sunrises are for reality, for the grittiness of it, for the bags under your eyes, messy hair and spotty skin. sunrises are where life begins. so, i guess what i'm saying is - fall asleep only next to the ones you want to see the first thing in the morning.

You haven’t gotten to the point of leaving a glass for her, too.” He covered his eyes but said nothing. She pulled away his hands, and then, looking straight at him, asked, “She’s alive, isn’t she?” He nodded and sat up. “Rong, I used to think that a character in a novel was controlled by her creator, that she would be whatever the author wanted her to be, and do whatever the author wanted her to do, like God does for us.” “Wrong!” she said, standing up and beginning to pace the room. “Now you realize you were wrong. This is the difference between an ordinary scribe and a literary writer. The highest level of literary creation is when the characters in a novel possess life in the mind of the writer. The writer is unable to control them, and might not even be able to predict the next action they will take. We can only follow them in wonder to observe and record the minute details of their lives like a voyeur. That’s how a classic is made.” “So literature, it turns out, is a perverted endeavor.” “It was like that for Shakespeare and Balzac and Tolstoy, at least. The classic images they created were born from their mental wombs. But today’s practitioners of literature have lost that creativity. Their minds give birth only to shattered fragments and freaks, whose brief lives are nothing but cryptic spasms devoid of reason. Then they sweep up these fragments into a bag they peddle under the label ‘postmodern’ or ‘deconstructionist’ or ‘symbolism’ or ‘irrational.’” “So you mean that I’ve become a writer of classic literature?” “Hardly. Your mind is only gestating an image, and it’s the easiest one of all. The minds of those classic authors gave birth to hundreds and thousands of figures. They formed the picture of an era, and that’s something that only a superhuman can accomplish. But what you’ve done isn’t easy. I didn’t think you’d be able to do it.” “Have you ever done it?” “Just once,” she said simply, and dropped the subject. She grabbed his neck, and said, “Forget it. I don’t want that birthday present anymore. Come back to a normal life, okay?” “And if all this continues—what then?” She studied him for a few seconds, then let go of him and shook her head with a smile. “I knew it was too late.” Picking up her bag from the bed, she left. Then

Belated understanding softened his life-hardened face. “Who was it of yours who took their own life?” She was surprised that she told him. “My husband.” For a moment, Barney seemed overwhelmed by this revelation. He opened his mouth but could think of nothing to say. He looked at the gulls far above and then at her again. Tears shimmered in his eyes. “It’s all right,” she said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you, Barney. I’m dealing with it. I’m okay.” He nodded, worked his mouth soundlessly, nodded again, said at last, “Whyever he might’ve did it, it never could’ve been you.” He turned from her and shuffled away, bent under his backpack, carrying his trash bag, hurrying as best he could, as if it must be this very kind of thing, the tragedies of the world, from which he had so long been running.

Corn is what feeds the steer that becomes the steak. Corn feeds the chicken and the pig, the turkey, and the lamb, the catfish and the tilapia and, increasingly, even the salmon, a carnivore by nature that the fish farmers are reengineering to tolerate corn. The eggs are made of corn. The milk and cheese and yogurt, which once came from dairy cows that grazed on grass, now typically comes from Holsteins that spend their working lives indoors tethered to machines, eating corn. Head over to the processed foods and you find ever more intricate manifestations of corn. A chicken nugget, for example, piles up corn upon corn: what chicken it contains consists of corn, of course, but so do most of a nugget's other constituents, including the modified corn starch that glues the things together, the corn flour in the batter that coats it, and the corn oil in which it gets fried. Much less obviously, the leavenings and lecithin, the mono-, di-, and triglycerides, the attractive gold coloring, and even the citric acid that keeps the nugget "fresh" can all be derived from corn. To wash down your chicken nuggets with virtually any soft drink in the supermarket is to have some corn with your corn. Since the 1980s virtually all the sodas and most of the fruit drinks sold in the supermarket have been sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) -- after water, corn sweetener is their principal ingredient. Grab a beer for you beverage instead and you'd still be drinking corn, in the form of alcohol fermented from glucose refined from corn. Read the ingredients on the label of any processed food and, provided you know the chemical names it travels under, corn is what you will find. For modified or unmodified starch, for glucose syrup and maltodextrin, for crystalline fructose and ascorbic acid, for lecithin and dextrose, lactic acid and lysine, for maltose and HFCS, for MSG and polyols, for the caramel color and xanthan gum, read: corn. Corn is in the coffee whitener and Cheez Whiz, the frozen yogurt and TV dinner, the canned fruit and ketchup and candies, the soups and snacks and cake mixes, the frosting and candies, the soups and snacks and cake mixes, the frosting and gravy and frozen waffles, the syrups and hot sauces, the mayonnaise and mustard, the hot dogs and the bologna, the margarine and shortening, the salad dressings and the relishes and even the vitamins. (Yes, it's in the Twinkie, too.) There are some forty-five thousand items in the average American supermarket and more than a quarter of them now contain corn. This goes for the nonfood items as well: Everything from the toothpaste and cosmetics to the disposable diapers, trash bags, cleansers, charcoal briquettes, matches, and batteries, right down to the shine on the cover of the magazine that catches your eye by the checkout: corn. Even in Produce on a day when there's ostensibly no corn for sale, you'll nevertheless find plenty of corn: in the vegetable wax that gives the cucumbers their sheen, in the pesticide responsible for the produce's perfection, even in the coating on the cardboard it was shipped in. Indeed, the supermarket itself -- the wallboard and joint compound, the linoleum and fiberglass and adhesives out of which the building itself has been built -- is in no small measure a manifestation of corn.

Sissie could see it all. In her uncertain eyes, on her restless hands and on her lips, which she kept biting all the time. But oh, her skin. It seemed as if according to the motion of her emotions Marija's skin kept switching on and switching off like a two-colour neon sign. So that watching her against the light of the dying summer sun, Sissie could not help thinking that it must be a pretty dangerous matter, being white. It made you feel awfully exposed, rendered you terribly vulnerable. Like being born without your skin or something. As though the Maker had fashioned the body of a human, stuffed it into a polythene bag instead of the regular protective covering, and turned it loose into the world. Lord, she wondered, is that why, on the whole, they have had to be extra ferocious? Is it so they could feel safe here on the earth, under the sun, the moon and the stars?

I don't care if you use this phone tomorrow. I don't care if you never use it again. But you are going to keep it on you because one day you might need it." Andrew put a finger to the underside of Neil's chin and forced Neil's head up until they were looking at each other. "On that day you're not going to run. You're going to think about what I promised you and you're going to make the call. Tell me you understand." Neil's voice had left him, but he managed a nod. Andrew let go and snapped his phone shut. Neil closed his own with a quiet click. After looking down at it for another endless minute, he leaned over and put it in his messenger bag. Andrew watched with hooded eyes until Neil sat upright. Neil didn't want to look at him when he wasn't sure he'd gotten his expression back under control, but he couldn't help it. Andrew considered him a minute longer, then sighed and straightened out of Neil's space.

Or when you keep a sex-addiction meeting under surveillance because they’re the best places to pick up chicks.” Serge looked around the room at suspicious eyes. “Okay, maybe that last one’s just me. But you should try it. They keep the men’s and women’s meetings separate for obvious reasons. And there are so many more opportunities today because the whole country’s wallowing in this whiny new sex-rehab craze after some golfer diddled every pancake waitress on the seaboard. That’s not a disease; that’s cheating. He should have been sent to confession or marriage counseling after his wife finished chasing him around Orlando with a pitching wedge. But today, the nation is into humiliation, tearing down a lifetime of achievement by labeling some guy a damaged little dick weasel. The upside is the meetings. So what you do is wait on the sidewalk for the women to get out, pretending like you’re loitering. And because of the nature of the sessions they just left, there’s no need for idle chatter or lame pickup lines. You get right to business: ‘What’s your hang-up?’ And she answers, and you say, ‘What a coincidence. Me, too.’ Then, hang on to your hat! It’s like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get. Most people are aware of the obvious, like foot fetish or leather. But there are more than five hundred lesser-known but clinically documented paraphilia that make no sexual sense. Those are my favorites . . .” Serge began counting off on his fingers. “This one woman had Ursusagalmatophilia, which meant she got off on teddy bears—that was easily my weirdest three-way. And nasophilia, which meant she was completely into my nose, and she phoned a friend with mucophilia, which is mucus. The details on that one are a little disgusting. And formicophilia, which is being crawled on by insects, so the babe bought an ant farm. And symphorophilia—that’s staging car accidents, which means you have to time the air bags perfectly

I threw my binder of materials down on our apartment’s floral couch. “Seriously, pink is a neutral color! And what’s elegant about navy blue? No one ever says, ‘Hey, you know what’s elegant? The Navy!’” Arianna rolled her dead guys. “There is nothing neutral about pink. They need a color that looks good as a background to any shade of dress.” “What color clashes with pink?” “Orange?” “Well, if anyone shows up in an orange dress, she deserves to clash. Yuck.” “Chill out. You can do a lot with navy.” I sank down into the couch next to her. “I guess. I could do navy with silver accents. Stars?” “Yawn.” “Snowflakes?” “Gee, now you’re getting creative for a winter formal.” I ignored her tone, as usual. I was just glad she was here. She’d been gone a lot lately. “Hmm . . . maybe something softer. Like a water and mist theme?” I asked. “I . . . actually kind of like that.” “Wanna help me with the sketches?” She leaned forward and turned on Easton Heights. “Decorating a stupid dance is all yours. You’re the one who decided to be more involved in your ‘normal life.’ I’d prefer to be sleeping six feet under.” “This is probably a bad time to mention I also might have signed up to help with costumes for the spring play. And since I know nothing about sewing, I kind of maybe signed you up as a volunteer aide.” She sighed, running one glamoured corpse hand through her spiky red and black hair. “I am going to kill you in your sleep.” “As long as it doesn’t hurt.” We hummed along to the opening theme, which ended when the door banged open and my boyfriend walked through, shrugging out of his coat and beaming as he dropped a duffel bag. “Free! What did I miss?” Lend asked, his cheeks rosy from the cold and his smile lighting up his watery eyes beneath his dark glamour ones. “I lost the vote on color schemes for the dance, the last episode of Easton Heights before they go into reruns is back on in three minutes, and Arianna is going to murder me in my sleep.” “As long as it doesn’t hurt.” “That’s what I said!

Beside him Mr. Harris folded his morning newspaper and held it out to Claude. "Seen this yet?" "No." "Don't read it," Mr. Harris said, folding the paper once more and sliding it under his rear. "It will only upset you, son." "It's a wicked paper... " Claude agreed, but Mr. Harris was overspeaking him. "It's the big black words that do it. The little grey ones don't matter very much, they're just fill-ins they take everyday from the wires. They concentrate their poison in the big black words, where it will radiate. Of course if you read the little stories too you've got sure proof that every word they wrote above, themselves, was a fat black lie, but by then you've absorbed a thousand greyer ones, and where and how to check on those? This way the mind deteriorates. The best way you can save yourself is not to read it, son." "No, I... " "That's right, if you're not careful," Mr. Harris went on, blue-eyed, red-faced, "you find yourself pretty soon hating everyone but God, the Babe, and a few dead senators. That's no fun. Men aren't so bad as that." "No." "That's right, you begin to worry about anyone who opens his mouth except to say ho it looks like rain, let's bowl. Otherwise you wonder what the hell he's trying to prove, or undermine. If he asks what time it is, you wonder what terrible thing is scheduled to happen, where it will happen, when. You can't even stand to be asked how you feel today - he's probably looking at the bumps on you, they may have grown more noticeable overnight. Soon you feel you should apologize for standing there where he can watch you dying in front of him, he'd rather for you to carry your head around in a little plaid bag, like your bowling ball. There's no joy in that. Men aren't so very bad." Mr. Harris paused to remove his Panama hat. Water seeped from his knobby forehead, which he mopped with a damp handkerchief. "I've offended you, son," he said. "Not at all, I entirely agree with you." Mr. Harris replaced his hat, folded his handkerchief. "I shouldn't shoot off this way," he said. "I read too much." "No, no. You're right...

Go grab one of those little baskets over there,” I said to Connor as I pointed by the door. “You aren’t seriously buying that much, are you?” “Ok Mr. Black, if you must know the truth, it’s my PMS time.” He took a step back and put his hands up, “Whoa, enough said.” I grinned as I picked up a bag of Fritos, Cheetos, a Hersey bar(king size), a Twix bar, a small pack of chocolate donuts, 3 cans of coke, a bag of tiny twist pretzels and a jar of Nutella. Connor looked in the basket and then at me with a horrified look on his face. “Hey, you’re the one who wanted to take me on this road trip. I’m just trying to keep the peace because without these foods for a woman at that time of the month,” I waved my hand. “Well, you don’t really want to know.” I put the basket on the counter. The cashier overheard our conversation, she looked at Connor and said, “Trust her; we girls are two sheets short of psycho when it comes to our special little time.” He just stood there and looked at both of us, speechless, as she rang up the food. She gave me the total, and I looked at Connor. He looked at me in confusion, “Really? You want me to pay for this crap?” The cashier leaned over the counter and looked him straight in the eyes, “Remember, 2 sheets short of psycho.” He pulled out his wallet and paid as he was mumbling under his breath. He took the bag and headed out. I looked at the cashier and high fived her, “Thank you.

Marcelina loved that miniscule, precise moment when the needle entered her face. It was silver; it was pure. It was the violence that healed, the violation that brought perfection. There was no pain, never any pain, only a sense of the most delicate of penetrations, like a mosquito exquisitely sipping blood, a precision piece of human technology slipping between the gross tissues and cells of her flesh. She could see the needle out of the corner of her eye; in the foreshortened reality of the ultra-close-up it was like the stem of a steel flower. The latex-gloved hand that held the syringe was as vast as the creating hand of God: Marcelina had watched it swim across her field of vision, seeking its spot, so close, so thrillingly, dangerously close to her naked eyeball. And then the gentle stab. Always she closed her eyes as the fingers applied pressure to the plunger. She wanted to feel the poison entering her flesh, imagine it whipping the bloated, slack, lazy cells into panic, the washes of immune response chemicals as they realized they were under toxic attack; the blessed inflammation, the swelling of the wrinkled, lined skin into smoothness, tightness, beauty, youth. Marcelina Hoffman was well on her way to becoming a Botox junkie. Such a simple treat; the beauty salon was on the same block as Canal Quatro. Marcelina had pioneered the lunch-hour face lift to such an extent that Lisandra had appropriated it as the premise for an entire series. Whore. But the joy began in the lobby with Luesa the receptionist in her high-collared white dress saying “Good afternoon, Senhora Hoffman,” and the smell of the beautiful chemicals and the scented candles, the lightness and smell of the beautiful chemicals and the scented candles, the lightness and brightness of the frosted glass panels and the bare wood floor and the cream-on-white cotton wall hangings, the New Age music that she scorned anywhere else (Tropicalismo hippy-shit) but here told her, “you’re wonderful, you’re special, you’re robed in light, the universe loves you, all you have to do is reach out your hand and take anything you desire.” Eyes closed, lying flat on the reclining chair, she felt her work-weary crow’s-feet smoothed away, the young, energizing tautness of her skin. Two years before she had been to New York on the Real Sex in the City production and had been struck by how the ianqui women styled themselves out of personal empowerment and not, as a carioca would have done, because it was her duty before a scrutinizing, judgmental city. An alien creed: thousand-dollar shoes but no pedicure. But she had brought back one mantra among her shopping bags, an enlightenment she had stolen from a Jennifer Aniston cosmetics ad. She whispered it to herself now, in the warm, jasmine-and vetiver-scented sanctuary as the botulin toxins diffused through her skin. Because I’m worth it.

Sweet to me your voice, said Caolcrodha Mac Morna, brother to sweet-worded sweet-toothed Goll from Sliabh Riabhach and Brosnacha Bladhma, relate then the attributes that are to Finn's people. [...] I will relate, said Finn. Till a man has accomplished twelve books of poetry, the same is not taken for want of poetry but is forced away. No man is taken till a black hole is hollowed in the world to the depth of his two oxters and he put into it to gaze from it with his lonely head and nothing to him but his shield and a stick of hazel. Then must nine warriors fly their spears at him, one with the other and together. If he be spear-holed past his shield, or spear-killed, he is not taken for want of shield-skill. No man is taken till he is run by warriors through the woods of Erin with his hair bunched-loose about him for bough-tangle and briar-twitch. Should branches disturb his hair or pull it forth like sheep-wool on a hawthorn, he is not taken but is caught and gashed. Weapon-quivering hand or twig-crackling foot at full run, neither is taken. Neck-high sticks he must pass by vaulting, knee-high sticks by stooping. With the eyelids to him stitched to the fringe of his eye-bags, he must be run by Finn's people through the bogs and the marsh-swamps of Erin with two odorous prickle-backed hogs ham-tied and asleep in the seat of his hempen drawers. If he sink beneath a peat-swamp or lose a hog, he is not accepted of Finn's people. For five days he must sit on the brow of a cold hill with twelve-pointed stag-antlers hidden in his seat, without food or music or chessmen. If he cry out or eat grass-stalks or desist from the constant recital of sweet poetry and melodious Irish, he is not taken but is wounded. When pursued by a host, he must stick a spear in the world and hide behind it and vanish in its narrow shelter or he is not taken for want of sorcery. Likewise he must hide beneath a twig, or behind a dried leaf, or under a red stone, or vanish at full speed into the seat of his hempen drawers without changing his course or abating his pace or angering the men of Erin. Two young fosterlings he must carry under the armpits to his jacket through the whole of Erin, and six arm-bearing warriors in his seat together. If he be delivered of a warrior or a blue spear, he is not taken. One hundred head of cattle he must accommodate with wisdom about his person when walking all Erin, the half about his armpits and the half about his trews, his mouth never halting from the discoursing of sweet poetry. One thousand rams he must sequester about his trunks with no offence to the men of Erin, or he is unknown to Finn. He must swiftly milk a fat cow and carry milk-pail and cow for twenty years in the seat of his drawers. When pursued in a chariot by the men of Erin he must dismount, place horse and chariot in the slack of his seat and hide behind his spear, the same being stuck upright in Erin. Unless he accomplishes these feats, he is not wanted of Finn. But if he do them all and be skilful, he is of Finn's people.

So now I was a beauty editor. In some ways, I looked the part of Condé Nast hotshot—or at least I tried to. I wore fab Dior slap bracelets and yellow plastic Marni dresses, and I carried a three-thousand-dollar black patent leather Lanvin tote that Jean had plunked down on my desk one afternoon. (“This is . . . too shiny for me,” she’d explained.) My highlights were by Marie Robinson at Sally Hershberger Salon in the Meatpacking District; I had a chic lavender pedicure—Versace Heat Nail Lacquer V2008—and I smelled obscure and expensive, like Susanne Lang Midnight Orchid and Colette Black Musk Oil. But look closer. I was five-four and ninety-seven pounds. The aforementioned Lanvin tote was full of orange plastic bottles from Rite Aid; if you looked at my hands digging for them, you’d see that my fingernails were dirty, and that the knuckle on my right hand was split from scraping against my front teeth. My chin was broken out from the vomiting. My self-tanner was uneven because I always applied it when I was strung out and exhausted—to conceal the exhaustion, you see—and my skin underneath the faux-glow was full-on Corpse Bride. A stylist had snipped out golf-ball-size knots that had formed at the back of my neck when I was blotto on tranquilizers for months and stopped combing my hair. My under-eye bags were big enough to send down the runway at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week: I hadn’t slept in days. I hadn’t slept for more than a few hours at a time in months. And I hadn’t slept without pills in years. So even though I wrote articles about how to take care of yourself—your hair, your skin, your nails—I was falling apart.

He opened the door after letting me pound on it for almost five minutes. His truck was in the carport. I knew he was here. He pulled the door open and walked back inside without looking at me or saying a word. I followed him in, and he dropped onto a sofa I’d never seen before. His face was scruffy. I’d never seen him anything but clean-shaven. Not even in pictures. He had bags under his eyes. He’d aged ten years in three days. The apartment was a mess. The boxes were gone. It looked like he had finally unpacked. But laundry was piled up in a basket so full it spilled out onto the floor. Empty food containers littered the kitchen countertops. The coffee table was full of empty beer bottles. His bed was unmade. The place smelled stagnant and dank. A vicious urge to take care of him took hold. The velociraptor tapped its talon on the floor. Josh wasn’t okay. Nobody was okay. And that was what made me not okay. “Hey,” I said, standing in front of him. He didn’t look at me. “Oh, so you’re talking to me now,” he said bitterly, taking a long pull on a beer. “Great. What do you want?” The coldness of his tone took me aback, but I kept my face still. “You haven’t been to the hospital.” His bloodshot eyes dragged up to mine. “Why would I? He’s not there. He’s fucking gone.” I stared at him. He shook his head and looked away from me. “So what do you want? You wanted to see if I’m okay? I’m not fucking okay. My best friend is brain-dead. The woman I love won’t even fucking speak to me.” He picked up a beer cap from the coffee table and threw it hard across the room. My OCD winced. “I’m doing this for you,” I whispered. “Well, don’t,” he snapped. “None of this is for me. Not any of it. I need you, and you abandoned me. Just go. Get out.” I wanted to climb into his lap. Tell him how much I missed him and that I wouldn’t leave him again. I wanted to make love to him and never be away from him ever again in my life—and clean his fucking apartment. But instead, I just stood there. “No. I’m not leaving. We need to talk about what’s happening at the hospital.” He glared up at me. “There’s only one thing I want to talk about. I want to talk about how you and I can be in love with each other and you won’t be with me. Or how you can stand not seeing me or speaking to me for weeks. That’s what I want to talk about, Kristen.” My chin quivered. I turned and went to the kitchen and grabbed a trash bag from under the sink. I started tossing take-out containers and beer bottles. I spoke over my shoulder. “Get up. Go take a shower. Shave. Or don’t if that’s the look you’re going for. But I need you to get your shit together.” My hands were shaking. I wasn’t feeling well. I’d been light-headed and slightly overheated since I went to Josh’s fire station looking for him. But I focused on my task, shoving trash into my bag. “If Brandon is going to be able to donate his organs, he needs to come off life support within the next few days. His parents won’t do it, and Sloan doesn’t get a say. You need to go talk to them.” Hands came up under my elbows, and his touch radiated through me. “Kristen, stop.” I spun on him. “Fuck you, Josh! You need help, and I need to help you!” And then as fast as the anger surged, the sorrow took over. The chains on my mood swing snapped, and feelings broke through my walls like water breaching a crevice in a dam. I began to cry. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. The strength that drove me through my days just wasn’t available to me when it came to Josh. I dropped the trash bag at his feet and put my hands over my face and sobbed. He wrapped his arms around me, and I completely lost it.

Soon after I arrived on the island I had a run-in with my son’s first grade teacher due to my irreverent PJ sense of humor. When Billy lost a baby tooth I arranged the traditional parentchild Tooth Fairy ritual. Only six years old, Billy already suspected I was really the Tooth Fairy and schemed to catch me in the act. With each lost tooth, he was getting harder and harder to trick. To defeat my precocious youngster I decided on a bold plan of action. When I tucked him in I made an exaggerated show of placing the tooth under his pillow. I conspicuously displayed his tooth between my thumb and forefinger and slid my hand slowly beneath his pillow. Unbeknownst to him, I hid a crumpled dollar bill in the palm of my hand. With a flourish I pretended to place the tooth under Billy’s pillow, but with expert parental sleight of hand, I kept the tooth and deposited the dollar bill instead. I issued a stern warning not to try and stay awake to see the fairy and left Billy’s room grinning slyly. I assured him I would guard against the tricky fairy creature. I knew Billy would not be able to resist checking under his pillow. Sure enough, only a few minutes later he burst from his room wide-eyed with excitement. He clutched a dollar bill tightly in his fist and bounced around the room, “Dad! Dad! The fairy took my tooth and left a dollar!” I said, “I know son. I used my ninja skills and caught that thieving fairy leaving your room. I trapped her in a plastic bag and put her in the freezer.” Billy was even more excited and begged to see the captured fairy. I opened the freezer and gave him a quick glimpse of a large shrimp I had wrapped in plastic. Viewed through multiple layers of wrap, the shrimp kind of looked like a frozen fairy. I stressed the magnitude of the occasion, “Tooth fairies are magical, elusive little things with their wings and all. I think we are the first family ever to capture one!” Billy was hopping all over the house and it took me quite awhile to finally calm him down and get him to sleep. The next day I got an unexpected phone call at work. My son’s teacher wanted to talk to me about Billy, “Now what?” I thought. When I arrived at the school, Billy’s teacher met me at the door. Once we settled into her office, she explained she was worried about him. Earlier that day, Billy told his first grade class his father had killed the tooth fairy and had her in a plastic bag in the freezer. He was very convincing. Some little kids started to cry. I explained the previous night’s fairy drama to the teacher. I was chuckling—she was not. She looked at me as if I had a giant booger hanging out of a nostril. Despite the look, I could tell she was attracted to me so I told her no thanks, I already had a girlfriend. Her sputtering red face made me uncomfortable and I quickly left. Later I swore Billy to secrecy about our fairy hunting activities. For dinner that evening, we breaded and fried up a couple dozen fairies and ate them with cocktail sauce and fava beans.

Get dressed. We’re going hunting,” he says randomly. In my half-woke state, I feel like I’ve missed something crucial, because I don’t understand how those words are supposed to make sense. “I’m sorry, but what?” I ask, sipping the coffee like the lack of caffeine is the reason I heard him wrong. “We’re going hunting. Emit has some rogue, unregistered wolves who’ve just done something heinous and stupid, and we’re taking you with us, apparently.” “I don’t want to hunt wolves,” I point out, taking a step back, since he’s acting very un-Vance-like. “I don’t want you to hunt wolves, but apparently you’re going with us, or you’re going with him,” he says bitterly, glancing over his shoulder to where there’s a large SUV. Emit’s behind the wheel, smirking like he’s proud of all this. “Yeah, no. Thanks for the offer,” I say as I shut the door…and lock it. I sip my coffee again, as Lemon drinks hers in the kitchen. Her phone rings, and she stands and answers it, while I go to the fridge in search of something to eat. I hear the door unlocking, and look over my shoulder, as Lemon gives me a very unapologetic grin. “Sorry,” she says, confusing me. “But he’s still my alpha.” Emit walks in, filling up my doorway, before he grins over at me in a way that’s sort of…scary. “It’s not really optional,” he says before he stalks to me so fast I don’t have time to react, and I’m unceremoniously slung over his shoulder. My breath comes out in a surprised rush, and I bounce against him as my mind comes to terms with why the world has tipped upside down. Ingrid comes down the stairs with a small bag, giving me a shitty excuse for a contrite smile. “I’ll remember this,” I tell the traitorous omegas dryly, as they give me a little wave and send me on my way like this is a planned vacation. I don’t really put up a fight. I’ve never seen Emit actually determined to do anything, but clearly I’m outnumbered and out wolfed on this one... I allow a small smile as I’m dropped to my feet, and then wipe the smile away because I’m supposed to be annoyed... I climb in as my backpack and small duffel finish flopping to a stop, and close my robe a little more before digging for my boots. “We’ve got everything here under control! Don’t worry about deliveries or the store,” Leiza calls very excitedly, bouncing on her feet. “This is a hunting trip to kill things, right?” I ask Vance directly, though my eyes are on the very happy omegas, who are animatedly waving from the porch now. “Yes,” he states in a tone that assures me he’s not one bit happy I’m here. “Why are they treating it like I’m going on spring break?” I ask, genuinely concerned about their level of enthusiasm. I thought they were a little saner than this. Emit snorts, but clears his expression quickly. “Do I want to know what spring break is a euphemism for?” Vance asks Emit. “You’re really that old?” I groan. “Do you know how long a century is?” Vance asks me dryly. “I averaged a C on vocab tests, so yeah,” I retort, matching his condescension. Emit releases a rumble of laughter, as his body shakes with the force. Then he pulls out and begins to drive us off on our hunt. I’m so not adjusting this fast, but it seems I have no choice in the matter. It’s like a snowball rolling downhill, gaining size and momentum. Either I’ll boulder through anything when I reach the bottom, or I’ll simply go splat into a mountainside. “Do you know how quickly the vernacular shifts and accents devolve, evolve, or simply cease to exist?” Vance asks me. Now I feel a little talked down to. “No.” “I swear he used to be fun,” Emit tells me, smiling at me through the rearview

flinching, Santiago pulled the gun out of the backpack and shot the man in the chest several times. The blood bags under the “dignitary’s” shirt erupted, and he dramatically collapsed to the ground. Silver almost immediately appeared on the scene and had Santiago close his eyes. The stuntman made a hasty exit as Silver then brought

We have to go. I know." She reared back and met his gaze. "Oh, my God. Do you think your friends will know?" Marz tried to hold back his reaction. He really fucking did. But a grin that big wasn't staying under wraps. "Probably. And now they're all a bunch of jealous bastards." She slapped his chest and buried her face. "Oh, my God." He was having none of it. Tipping her chin, he arched an eyebrow. "No shame, Emilie. Not for this." "No," she said. "Never for this." They made quick if somewhat wobbly work of putting themselves back together, and Emilie zipped up her suitcase. "So, uh, big plans?" he asked, pointing at the spilled condoms before she'd finished closing her bag. Emilie rolled her eyes and smiled. "My best friend Kelly told me to be bold and be prepared." Marz laughed. "I like her already." And then he pulled Emilie in for one last, searing kiss. The kind that has his body stirring already again despite his utter exhaustion. Then he grabbed her suitcase for her and they made their way downstairs. Where there was a whole loots staring off at the ceiling, faking napping, and whistling going on. Fuckers.

We have to go. I know." She reared back and met his gaze. "Oh, my God. Do you think your friends will know?" Marz tried to hold back his reaction. He really fucking did. But a grin that big wasn't staying under wraps. "Probably. And now they're all a bunch of jealous bastards." She slapped his chest and buried her face. "Oh, my God." He was having none of it. Tipping her chin, he arched an eyebrow. "No shame, Emilie. Not for this." "No," she said. "Never for this." They made quick if somewhat wobbly work of putting themselves back together, and Emilie zipped up her suitcase. "So, uh, big plans?" he asked, pointing at the spilled condoms before she'd finished closing her bag. Emilie rolled her eyes and smiled. "My best friend Kelly told me to be bold and be prepared." Marz laughed. "I like her already." And then he pulled Emilie in for one last, searing kiss. The kind that has his body stirring already again despite his utter exhaustion. Then he grabbed her suitcase for her and they made their way downstairs. Where there was a whole loots staring off at the ceiling, faking napping, and whistling going on. F*@kers.

Summer, Beth, and one of his ranch hands, Pete, came in with the Army medic bag. “What the hell?” Pete gaped at Jenna. Jenna opened her eyes wide and screamed, “No more!” She tried to get up from the bed, but couldn’t even manage to get her arms under her. “Get out,” Jack shouted at Pete. He put a calming hand on Jenna’s head, encouraging her to lie down, and leaned close to her ear. “You’re all right. No one will hurt you. Stay still. You’re hurting yourself, baby. Please, stay still.” Summer and Beth stood like toy soldiers at the foot of the bed. As he spoke, Jenna’s body relaxed and Jack’s knotted muscles unwound. Pete left the room as ordered and Beth went after him. Jack overheard them on the stairs. “What the hell was that all about? I ain’t never seen Jack look that way, or yell at me like that.” “I know, Pete. I don’t know who that woman is, but Jack won’t let anyone near her. I’ve never seen anything like it. Did you see her back? What did that to her?” “Not what. Who.” Jack heard Pete’s furious words, “A man. And if Jack gets his hands on the scum, he’ll kill him.” Amen, Jack thought. -Pete, Jenna, Jack, & Beth

He straightened and crossed his arms. He wanted her to forget: forget about her family and what she’d left behind. He wanted her sass, not her sorrow. And he wasn’t above baiting her to get it. He fixed a stern expression on his face and jutted a chin at the car. “Get busy, little girl. As much as I’d love to clean out this garbage pit of a car, I don’t have a Dumpster available. Trash bags alone won’t get the job done.” She shot up, planting her hands on her hips. “What did you say?” Yes, there it was: the fire she hid under those layers of Catholic guilt. He cocked a brow. “What’s your objection? That I called you little girl, or messy?” She threw her shoulders back, thrusting out breasts that were almost lost in Gracie’s too-big T-shirt. “Both!” “I call it like I see it.” He shrugged a shoulder. “What are you going to do about it?” Her mouth fell open, and her eyes flashed all sorts of interesting variations of green. She stepped forward and poked him in the center of his chest. “You . . . you . . . ,” she sputtered. He leaned in close, sucking in the scent of lavender, breathing in her hint of wildness. Jesus, he wanted her. He needed every ounce of control to not take her mouth in a hard, brutal fuck-you-where-you-stand kiss. Instead he whispered, “You what?” With another hard jab of her sharp, white-tipped nail, she stomped a foot, temper riled. “You, you jerk!” “Come on, you can do better than that, can’t you?” He paused, waiting one delicious beat that made her lean in closer. “Little girl?” “You arrogant, egotistical . . .” With a strangled scream, she hauled back and punched him in the chest, hard enough that some of the air in his lungs whooshed out. Before she could strike again, he snagged her wrist, caught her around the waist with his free hand, and pulled her close. Her cheeks were flushed a pretty pink. Body rigid, she met his gaze with fiery defiance. He searched her face and found what he was looking for under her righteous, indignant temper: excitement. Hunger. He tightened his hold, pressing along her spine to force her the last couple of inches she needed to be flush against him. He needed one taste of that mouth. But before he could give in to the impulse that was riding him hard, a police cruiser pulled into the parking lot and flashed its lights. “Ah, fuck.” He dropped his hold. Impeccable timing.

She told Rick, “The world stops for you when you’re pretty. That’s why women spend billions on crap for their faces. Their whole life, they’re the center of attention. People want to be around them just because they’re attractive. Their jokes are funnier. Their lives are better. And then suddenly, they get bags under their eyes or they put on a little weight and no one cares about them anymore. They cease to exist.

She opened her eyes and then frowned. “Why are you dressed?” “Because I got up and got dressed so I could find some coffee, but I changed my mind and I’m coming back to bed.” “Fully dressed?” “Yes. No shoes, though.” It was too early to follow along with his crazy bouncing ball of logic. “Did Gram put a pot of coffee on yet?” He groaned and threw his arm over his eyes. “Not exactly.” “What is wrong with you this morning?” “I just ran into your grandmother. She was sneaking into the house…in the same dress she wore last night.” “What?” Emma sat up, aches and pains forgotten. “You caught Gram doing the walk of shame?” “Yes, and it was awkward and now I’m going back to bed.” She pushed his arm off his face. “What did she say?” “She said good-morning and told me she was going to take a quick shower and then start breakfast.” “And what did you say?” “I muttered something about taking her time and then ran like a girl.” Emma flopped back onto her pillow and stare at the ceiling. “Wow.” “I probably should have broken it to you better, but I’m not sure how I could have.” She didn’t know what to say. Go, Gram, a part of her was thinking, but another part wanted to hide under the covers with Sean and not deal with the fact her grandmother was currently taking a shower after doing the walk of shame. That was obviously the side of himself Sean was currently listening to. “We have to go down eventually,” she said. “I need coffee. And food.” “I’ll wait here. Bring some back.” She laughed and slapped his thigh. “If I can face her, so can you. She’s not your grandmother.” “It was awkward.” “I’m sure it’s awkward for her, knowing we’re having sex, but she’s an adult about it.” That just made him cover his face with his arm again. “That’s different.” “Why? Because she’s sixty-five?” “No. Because, as you just said, she’s a grandmother. Your grandmother.” “Come on. We’ll go down together.” She slid out of bed and walked toward the bathroom. “Stop making it such a big deal.” Gram was still in the shower when they went past the bathroom on their way down the hall. They could tell because she was whistling a very cheery tune that made Sean wince. Emma grabbed his arm and tugged him toward the stairs. “Coffee.” They got a pot going and sat at the table in silence until enough had brewed to sneak two cups from it. Emma put the kettle on and dropped a tea bag into Gram’s mug. The woman of the hour appeared just as it whistled, looking refreshed and cheerful. “Good morning.” “Good morning,” they both mumbled.

Sure,’ Mary said, putting on a smile. ‘I have to get back. But please, feel free to look around as much as you’d like.’ Roper gave her a look that said, we don’t need your permission for that, but Jamie thanked her anyway and let her walk off.  He sucked on his teeth the way he did when he wanted a cigarette, and watched Mary go out of earshot. ‘Find anything?’ he asked, turning to Jamie. She let out a long breath. ‘Don’t know yet. Looks like Grace wasn’t as faithful to Ollie as she made out.’ ‘Lover’s tiff?’ ‘Could be.’ Jamie thought about it. ‘Spurned ex, maybe. Maybe it’s the drugs. Maybe something else entirely.’ She rubbed her eyes. It’d been a long morning and she needed to eat. ‘Come on. Let’s head back to HQ, get this written up. We’ll come back when Grace shows her face.’ Roper nodded without a word and headed for the door, already reaching for his cigarettes. Chapter 6 Jamie zipped up her jacket and dug her hands into her pockets, following Roper out the door. He’d sped on ahead so that he could light up before Jamie told him not to. She didn’t like that fresh stink in her car, and she definitely wouldn’t let him smoke in there anyway. And he definitely wasn’t above running out and doing it before she had time to protest. Her effort to make him quit by forcing him to stand in the cold obviously wasn’t working. He was a seasoned smoker and spent most nights standing outside pubs, come rain or shine, sucking down smoke.  That and the fact that he was far too stubborn to give in to such a weak ploy. It was like those goats that stand on the side of damns to lick the salt off. One missed step and it was guaranteed death. But they were single minded. And so was Roper. If she cared more she might have tried harder, but she knew from experience that when guys like Roper made a decision, they’d stick to it forever. As far as he was concerned, the drinking and the smoking was as much a part of him as his belly button was. It couldn’t be changed, and trying would only invite self-loathing. Guys like him had to hit rock bottom. Only then could they start coming back up. But sometimes they just stayed there, scraping the ground until they gouged a hole deep enough to die in.  She should call her mum. It had been a while. Outside, Roper was already two drags in by the time she reached the steps. A couple of the people outside had moved on and the guy in the sleeping bag had woken up and headed inside, though the urine stain that had seeped into the stone under him still remained. Jamie tried not to breathe through her nose as she hopped down the steps, her shin still throbbing from the morning’s bout with Cake.  She opened her mouth to tell Roper to hurry up when she almost got knocked over. A guy in his forties with an expensive suit and a long lambswool coat was rushing by, his head turned towards the steps. ‘Filthy fucking cretins,’ he almost yelled at the three homeless people still perched on the steps, before colliding with Jamie. He stumbled sideways, down into the roadway, shoving Jamie backwards.  ‘Get off!’ he shouted, flapping his arms. Jamie steadied herself and stared at him. Roper even stopped smoking his cigarette and came forward. ‘Hey!’ he called. ‘You’re not having any!’ the man yelled again, striding forward away from the shelter. ‘You should all be drowned. Wash this goddamn city clean!

Drew winced. “My back hurts. What did you do to me in your front yard? One minute I was standing, then I was flat on my back in the grass.” “I swept the leg,” she said matter-of-factly. “But why?” “Why not? It’s the fastest way to get someone to the ground.” “But we were standing on your lawn.” “Exactly. We were on nice, soft grass. I would have wrestled you sooner, but it’s not safe on the pavement.” “Do you always wrestle with guys?” “Just the ones I like.” She tapped him on the nose. “Boop.” He tapped her right back. “Boop.” She asked, “Now that I’ve taught you to watch out for the leg sweep, what else can I do for you? Breakfast in bed? Pack you a bagged lunch for work today?” He checked the time on her alarm clock. “It’s Saturday, which is a light day, but I do have a few patients after lunch.” “What do you mean it’s a light day? You’re not fully booked? You must not be a very good dentist. Maybe I should get a second opinion on that cap you glued into my mouth all willy-nilly.” He dropped his jaw in mock outrage. “Not a very good dentist? Those are fighting words, you bad girl.” She raised her eyebrows. “Want to take this back out to the front lawn?” “I think we gave your neighbors enough of a show last night.” “True,” she said. “Plus, we already got grass stains all over one change of clothes.” He wrinkled his nose. “Grass stains.” He groaned. He leaned back, resting his head on Megan’s second pillow, where Muffins normally slept. The sea-foam-green linens were a perfect complement to his skin tone. His brown eyes were a rich chocolate with bright flecks and an inner ring that was nearly green. The sheets had been purchased to complement Muffins, with his orange fur and entirely green eyes, but they looked even better around Dr. Drew Morgan. Drew asked, “What are you thinking about?” He reached up to run his fingers through her tangled morning hair. She normally hated that, but it felt good when Drew did it. “I’m thinking that you look really good in my sheets. You look good in sea-foam green.” “Thanks.” He grinned. “I can’t wait to see how you look in my bed.” “You think you’re going to get me into your bed?” “Sure. I know how it’s done. You just sweep the leg.” “I shouldn’t have told you all my secrets.” Muffins returned and situated himself between them for a bath. Drew propped himself up on one elbow and petted the cat. “So what do I have to do to get you to my place in the first place?” “Reverse psychology works well on me. You could tell me to never come over. You could ban me from your house.” He chuckled. “Whatever you do, don’t show up naked under a trench coat.” “What makes you think I’d show up naked in a trench coat?” “You’re a wild girl. Exactly what I need right now.” “You need me? Are we talking about, like, a medical type of emergency?” “You tell me.” He scooped up Muffins, placed him on the chair next to the bed, and pulled Megan close to him.

Well, that explains the massive dark circles under your eyes. I could pack for six months with bags like those.

First and foremost, I am experiencing much better sleep, and I am actually dreaming vividly almost every night now! This began happening during the FIRST WEEK of use! I used to have dreams like this when I was a kid, but before using this appliance, not in YEARS! I am sleeping all the way through the night as well. I am so much more awake and alert in the mornings, and all the way throughout the day, for that matter. As for the side effects, I am seeing my skin glowing, my eyes are brighter, and the bags under my eyes are gone! I feel like my circulation all around is much better, and I do not “gasp” for air anymore. Before, I would take [various brand-named allergy medications], nasal spray and gels, humidifiers, tea kettles, exotic muds and salves—you name it! Nothing would prevent me from going to bed fine and waking up stuffed up like hell and feeling like I was going to suffocate! Oh, and that is during NON-allergy season. During allergy season (or a bad allergy day), I would just be stuffed up constantly and medicate myself to the point of exhaustion. Now, I take nothing. I now sleep all the way through the night, and I wake up renewed and refreshed. I was skeptical trying this out. I had braces in the past and did not offer any resistance to the plan to remove two of my front teeth and “shrink” my upper jaw, effectively shrinking the “tiger’s cage” too small to allow normal growth or function. When seeing Dr. Liao, he saw this right away and recommended strongly that I be tested for a narrowed airway. I did not come for this: I came to have mercury amalgam fillings removed, so I was unsure. Dr. Liao took the time to explain to me that, despite my legitimate concern about the fillings, my priority should be to open the airway that had become so narrow that it, unbeknownst to me, affected almost every area of my life. … I opted to have both upper and lower appliances made to increase the size of my jaws, and braces and two false teeth installed later on to hold the shape of my new bite pattern. This was to take place over the course of two to three years’ time, and was to cost a significant amount of money. The appliance(s) began to work immediately, and since they are to be adjusted weekly (easily by us right at home with a small tool provided), they continue to open the airway more and more every day, allowing me to experience these results to an even greater degree as I go. I even had a flight recently to California (from Virginia), and I had NO ear pain or discomfort! I used to have to take a bunch of pills and wear [earplugs for airplane travel], and it would STILL kill my ears to fly, but not now. I never knew that I was being deprived of the oxygen I needed to thrive, but now that I am experiencing it for the first time in my adult life, I regret not looking into having this done YEARS ago! I highly recommend this to anyone who feels stuffed up in the morning, tired and groggy all day, or any of the plethora of other symptoms associated with a narrowed airway. Thank you, Dr. Liao!

He narrows his eyes at me. “What was in the bag?” “Nothing.” Heat creeps up my cheeks. “Was too. What was it?” “Nothing,” I say again. My face is flaming hot. “Are you ready to go to bed?” He nods, and looks me up and down. He goes into the bathroom to brush his teeth. He comes back carrying the box of tampons that I thought I’d hidden behind the towels. “You had your sisters bring you tampons?” He laughs. And it’s not a snicker. It’s a great big belly laugh. I expect him to wipe his eyes any second. I snatch them out of his hand and stick them back under the counter. “That is not amusing.” “Are you kidding?” he cackles. “That shit’s funny as hell.” He laughs for a moment and then he finally sobers. “Why didn’t you tell me you needed them? I would have gone to the store.” My eyes jerk up. He’s serious. “It’s kind of a girl thing.” I scratch my nose, trying to find something to do with my hands. “It’s a boy thing, too, when a boy’s girl needs them. Next time, just tell me and I’ll go get them.” He kisses my forehead. “Thanks,” I say quietly. He

Have you been crying?” She glanced away. “I’m sorry. I had one of those days.” He put his thumb and forefinger on her chin and pulled her eyes back to his. “What’s up?” he asked softly. “Need to talk about it?” “No,” she said, shaking her head. “I know you don’t want to—” “It’s okay. What made you cry? Homesick? Lonesome?” She took a deep breath. “It was a year ago today. Snuck up on me, I guess.” “Ah,” he said. He put his big arms around her. “That would make some tears, I guess. I’m sorry, Marcie. I’m sure it still hurts sometimes.” “That’s just it—it doesn’t exactly hurt. It’s just that I feel so useless.” She leaned against him. “Sometimes I feel all alone. I have lots of people in my life and can still feel so alone without Bobby.” She laughed softly. “And God knows, he wasn’t much company.” He tightened his embrace. “I think I understand.” Yeah, she thought, he might. Here was a guy who was around people regularly, yet completely unconnected to them. She pulled away and asked, “Why did you do this?” “I thought I could clean up a little and take you somewhere.” “Wait. You didn’t think I needed you to do this for me, did you? Because of Erin?” He laughed, and she could actually see the emotion on his face, given the absence of wild beard. “Actually, if you’d asked me to, I probably wouldn’t have. You really think you can match me for stubborn? Probably not. I kept the beard because of the scar,” he said, leaning his left cheek toward her. “That, and maybe a bit of attitude of who cares?” She gently fingered the beard apart to reveal a barely noticeable scar. “It’s hardly there at all. Ian, it’s only a thin line. You don’t have to cover it. You’re not disfigured.” She smiled at him. “You’re handsome.” “Memories from the scar, probably. Anyway, tonight is the truckers’ Christmas parade. A bunch of eighteen-wheelers in the area dress up their rigs and parade down the freeway. I see it every year—fantastic. You think you’re up to it? With it being that anniversary?” “Maybe it’s a good idea,” she said. “Getting out, changing the mood.” “We’ll eat out and—” “What’s all this?” she asked, looking at the bags and boxes. “Snow’s forecast. It’s just what you do up here. Be ready. But this time I got some different things, in case you’re sick of stew. And I never do this—but you’re a girl, so I bought some fresh greens. And fresh eggs. Just enough to last a couple of days. No fridge; and they’ll freeze if we leave ’em in the shed.” “Ian, what about the bathroom? What will we do about the bathroom if there’s a heavy snow?” He laughed at her. “No problem. We’ll tromp out there fine—but I’ll shovel a path. And I’ll plow out to the road, but it’s slow going and if the snow keeps coming, it’s going to be even slower.” “Wow. Is it safe to leave tonight? For the parade? Will we get back in?” “We don’t have blizzards, Marcie. Snow falls slow, but steady. Now, I’m thinking bath day. How about you?” She put her hands on her hips and looked up at him with a glare. “All right, be very careful here. I’ve had my bath. And a hair wash. I’m wearing makeup, Ian. Jesus. You wanna try to clean me up?” His eyes grew large for a moment. Then he said. “Bath day for me, I meant. I knew. You look great.” His thumb ran along her cheek under one eye. “Just a couple of tear marks, but you can take care of that. Let me put this stuff away and get my water ready. You have something to read? Or are you looking for the thrill of your life?” “I have something to read,” she said. And, she thought, at the end of the day, they all turn out to be just men. *

Sky pulls her arm back, right as I turn back to walk to the couch, and suddenly the controller flies out of her hand and smacks directly into my nose. “Ugh!” I grunt out. Sky puts her hand over her mouth and gasps. But then she runs toward me when she sees the blood dripping down my face. I walk into the kitchen because I don’t want to get blood on the carpet. “Oh thit,” I swear, when I see that the kids didn’t follow us. She sits me down in a chair and puts a towel under my nose. “That hurts wike a mudder fudder.” I sound like I’m all stopped up with a cold, but the blood is still dripping, so I pinch my nose closed. “I’m so sorry,” she says as she drops down in front of me. She rests her forearms on my thighs. I can smell the pizza she just ate on her breath, and I really, really want to kiss her, but I have blood all over my face and hands. “I’m so sorry,” she says again. “I didn’t know it would fly out of my hand like that.” “You hab ta wap it awound your wist,” I say. “I have to wrap it around my wrist?” she repeats. “To keep it fwom fwying.” “Crap,” she says again. “I am so sorry.” She already said that. She gets up and goes to get a wet towel. She cleans my hands and wipes gently beneath my nose. My nose hurts like a son of a bitch. I jerk my head back, but she just follows, probing and prodding. “I think the bleeding has stopped,” she says. But I let her continue to fuss over me, just because I like it. “Do you want some ice?” she asks. Yeah, but I need it for my dick and not for my nose. “Pwease,” I say. Her face is only inches from mine. But then she goes to the fridge. She comes back with a small bag of ice. She’d probably get offended if I shoved it in my pants, so I lay it against my nose, instead. I brace my chin with one hand and hold the ice with the other. “I really didn’t mean to hit you,” she says. She looks so worried that I have to let her off the hook. Hell, I lived with four brothers. I have had more nosebleeds than I could ever begin to count. “I’ll wiv,” I say. She leans close and kisses my cheek. I want to turn my head and press my lips to hers, but I don’t. “You in lub wif me yet?” I ask. She laughs and turns her head away, closing her eyes. Her giggle is so damn cute. She winces. “I gwess dats a no,” I say. I lift my shirt and wipe the edge of my nose, since she took my wet towel. When I do, her eyes go to my frog prince, and she leans forward and presses her lips to him. She looks up at me, her blue eyes wide, as she holds her lips there for a second. Then she makes a loud smacking noise and pops back up, grinning. “There. All better?” Fuck no. We’re just getting started. Seth sticks his head into the room. He smirks at me and shakes his head. “Dude,” he says. He laughs. “That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever seen.” I throw down the ice. “Dat’s it. I’m going to kick your ath at bow’ing, Seth. You are going down.” I follow him into the other room, take a controller, and try to pretend like she didn’t just rock my world.

Picking up the empty cans, I brought them over to the trashcan Aiden was placing a fresh bag in. “Cleaning up?” he asked, fitting the bag to the can. “This is unexpected.” “I’m a new girl.” I dumped the cans. “Are you okay?” Aiden hooked a finger into the belt of my jeans and led me over to the sink. Then he rolled up my sleeves, turned on the tap and picked up the hand soap. I rolled my eyes, but shoved my hands under the warm water. “Aiden?” “What? You’re going to have sticky hands and be touching everything.” He squirted the apple-scented soap on my hands. “You’ll leave little fingerprints all over the place.” I watched my hands disappear under his larger ones and sort of forgot about what I was asking. Who knew washing hands could be so… distracting? “Are you concerned about CSI visiting the place?” “You never know.” I let him finish, because who was I to stop his OCD at the moment, then I dried my hands.

What? What?” I sat up, looking around the table. And then it hit me. “You guys don’t trust me, do you?” Lea was the first to meet my eyes. “Okay. I’ll rain on this happy parade. How do we know you’re still not connected to Seth?” “She’s not.” Aiden said, picking up the empty cartons and tossing them in a black trash bag he carried. “Trust me, she’s not connected to him anymore.” Deacon snorted. I glared at him. Lea settled back in her chair, folding her arms. “Is there any other concrete proof, other than you telling us to trust you?” Aiden glanced at me and I quickly looked away. I doubted Lea wanted to hear about that kind of proof. “I’m not connected to Seth. I promise you.” “Promises are weak; you could be faking it,” she shot back. “Lea, dear, she has no reason to fake it.” Laadan smiled gently. “If she was connected to the First, she wouldn’t be sitting here.” “And my brother wouldn’t be cleaning up after us, right?” Deacon slumped back, as if it had just occurred to him that Aiden had been seconds away from death. I wanted to hide under the table as Deacon shook his head, dumbfounded. “Gods, we’d have to get a maid then or something.” Aiden smacked the back of Deacon’s head as he passed by. “I feel the love.” His brother tipped his head back, grinning.

You haven’t gotten to the point of leaving a glass for her, too.” He covered his eyes but said nothing. She pulled away his hands, and then, looking straight at him, asked, “She’s alive, isn’t she?” He nodded and sat up. “Rong, I used to think that a character in a novel was controlled by her creator, that she would be whatever the author wanted her to be, and do whatever the author wanted her to do, like God does for us.” “Wrong!” she said, standing up and beginning to pace the room. “Now you realize you were wrong. This is the difference between an ordinary scribe and a literary writer. The highest level of literary creation is when the characters in a novel possess life in the mind of the writer. The writer is unable to control them, and might not even be able to predict the next action they will take. We can only follow them in wonder to observe and record the minute details of their lives like a voyeur. That’s how a classic is made.” “So literature, it turns out, is a perverted endeavor.” “It was like that for Shakespeare and Balzac and Tolstoy, at least. The classic images they created were born from their mental wombs. But today’s practitioners of literature have lost that creativity. Their minds give birth only to shattered fragments and freaks, whose brief lives are nothing but cryptic spasms devoid of reason. Then they sweep up these fragments into a bag they peddle under the label ‘postmodern’ or ‘deconstructionist’ or ‘symbolism’ or ‘irrational.’” “So you mean that I’ve become a writer of classic literature?” “Hardly. Your mind is only gestating an image, and it’s the easiest one of all. The minds of those classic authors gave birth to hundreds and thousands of figures. They formed the picture of an era, and that’s something that only a superhuman can accomplish

Driving along Broadway, he sees a young guy exit a bus and then turn to help an old woman who was waiting to board that bus. In his entire life, Bobby’s never seen more people help little old ladies cross streets, avoid puddles or potholes, carry their groceries, or find their car keys in purses overstuffed with rosary beads and damp tissues. Everyone knows everyone here; they stop one another in the streets to ask after spouses, children, cousins twice removed. Come winter, they shovel walks together, join up to push cars out of snowbanks, freely pass around bags of salt or sand for icy sidewalks. Summertime, they congregate on porches and stoops or cluster in lawn chairs along the sidewalks to shoot the shit, trade the daily newspapers, and listen to Ned Martin calling the Sox games on ’HDH. They drink beer like it’s tap water, smoke ciggies as if the pack will self-destruct at midnight, and call to one another—across streets, to and from cars, and up at distant windows—like impatience is a virtue. They love the church but aren’t real fond of mass. They only like the sermons that scare them; they mistrust any that appeal to their empathy. They all have nicknames. No James can just be a James; has to be Jim or Jimmy or Jimbo or JJ or, in one case, Tantrum. There are so many Sullivans that calling someone Sully isn’t enough. In Bobby’s various incursions here over the years, he’s met a Sully One, a Sully Two, an Old Sully, a Young Sully, Sully White, Sully Tan, Two-Time Sully, Sully the Nose, and Little Sully (who’s fucking huge). He’s met guys named Zipperhead, Pool Cue, Pot Roast, and Ball Sac (son of Sully Tan). He’s come across Juggs, Nicklebag, Drano, Pink Eye (who’s blind), Legsy (who limps), and Handsy (who’s got none). Every guy has a thousand-yard stare. Every woman has an attitude. Every face is whiter than the whitest paint you’ve ever seen and then, just under the surface, misted with an everlasting Irish pink that sometimes turns to acne and sometimes doesn’t. They’re the friendliest people he’s ever met. Until they aren’t. At which point they’ll run over their own grandmothers to ram your fucking skull through a brick wall. He has no idea where it all comes from—the loyalty and the rage, the brotherhood and the suspicion, the benevolence and the hate. But he suspects it has something to do with the need for a life to have meaning.

Do you remember when you told me that you’d bought something ridiculously luxurious, and it was a mango?” he asks. “I was so fucking jealous of you. I wished that I could feel what that was like. I wanted to want something like that. I wanted to have that so badly.” I don’t have answers to any of his problems. I don’t even have solutions to mine. But this one thing? This, I can handle. “Come on,” I say. “Let’s get some mangoes.” We pull off the freeway a few miles later and follow the computer’s directions to a little grocery store. Fifteen minutes later, we’re sitting in a rest stop, cutting our mangoes to bits. “Here,” I tell him. “Trade me. Pretend you’re me. Let me tell you what it was like when I had that mango.” He shuts his eyes obligingly. “I didn’t have a lot of money,” I tell him. “And that meant one thing and one thing only—fried rice.” He smiles despite himself. “Kind of a stereotype, don’t you think?” “Whose stereotype? Rice is peasant food for more than half the world. It’s easy. It’s cheap. You can dress it up with a lot of other things. A little bit of onion, a bag of frozen carrots and peas. A carton of eggs. With enough rice, that can last you basically forever. It does for some people.” “It actually sounds good.” “If you have a decent underlying spice cabinet, you can break up the monotony a little. Fried rice with soy sauce one day. Spicy rice the next. And then curry rice. You can fool your tongue indefinitely. You can’t fool your body. You start craving.” He’s sitting on the picnic table, his eyes shut. “For me, the thing I start craving first is greens. Lettuce. Pea shoots. Anything that isn’t coming out of a bag of frozen veggies. And fruit. If you have an extra dollar or two, you buy apples and eat them in quarters, dividing them throughout the day.” I slide next to him on the table. The sun is warm around us. “But you get sick of apples, too, pretty soon. And so that’s where I want you to imagine yourself: sick to death of fried rice. No respite. No letting up. And then suddenly, one day, someone hands you a debit card and says, ‘Hey. Here’s fifteen thousand dollars.’ No, I’m not going to buy a stupid purse. I’m going to buy this.” I hold up a piece of mango to his lips. He opens his mouth and the fruit slides in. His lips close on my fingers like a kiss, and I can’t bring myself to draw away. He’s warmer than the sun, and I feel myself getting pulled in, closer and closer. “Oh, God.” He doesn’t open his eyes. “That’s so good.” I feed him another slice, golden and dripping juice. “That’s what it felt like,” I tell him. “Like there’s a deep-seated need, something in my bones, something missing. And then you take a bite and there’s an explosion of flavor, something bigger than just the taste buds screaming, yes, yes, this is what I need.” I hand him another piece of mango. He bites it in half, chews, and then takes the other half. “That’s what it felt like,” I say. “It felt like I’d been starving myself. Like I…” He opens his eyes and looks at me. “Like there was something I needed,” I say softly. “Something I’ve needed deep down. Something I’ve been denying myself because I can’t let myself want it.” My voice trails off. I’m not describing the taste of mango anymore. My whole body yearns for his. For this thing I’ve been denying myself. For physical affection. For our bodies joined. For his arms around me all night. It’s going to hurt when he walks away. But you know what? It’ll hurt more if he walks away and we leave things like this, desperate and wanting, incomplete. My voice drops. “It’s like there’s someone I’ve been denying myself. All this time.

Brandon picked up his beer and tipped it at me. “Josh is actually great at that. That’s why he always bags a bird.” He was wingmanning me for Kristen. I just hoped she found dead turkeys sexy. Kristen smiled at me. A genuine smile. “Have you hunted all your life?” “Yup.” I put the lid on the pot call and handed it back to Brandon. Kristen poked at her salad. Then she looked back up at me, her eyes innocent. “Is it true that ‘vegetarian’ is a Native American word for ‘bad hunter’?” Brandon laughed so suddenly he choked. I smiled at her, happy to see her coming back to her old self. “You know, I still don’t have a car,” Sloan said over her pasta after Brandon stopped laughing. “You two broke my Corolla.” Kristen snorted. “Really? You’re going to put this on us? The hamster probably died.” “What hamster?” Sloan looked confused. Kristen skewered a crouton. “The one running in the wheel under the hood.” Brandon and I laughed, and Sloan pressed her lips into a line, trying to look angry, but she couldn’t keep a straight face. “How can you let her drive that thing?” I shook my head at Brandon. “I told her, I don’t know how many times, that I’ll buy her a new car,” Brandon said, still chuckling. Sloan shrugged. “I don’t want a new car. That was the car I learned to drive in. I had my first kiss in that car.” Brandon gave her a mock serious look. “Well, then it definitely has to go.” Sloan smiled at him and leaned over and kissed him fleetingly on the lips. I watched my best friend look at her for a moment after she went back to her food. He really loved her. I remembered the first time he started talking about her, three years ago. We were sitting in a duck blind in South Dakota, and he went on for hours about this woman he’d been seeing. I’d never seen him so into someone. I made a mental note to talk about that during my best-man speech. “Hey, didn’t you two meet on a call?” I asked, trying to recall the story he’d told me. “At a hospital or something?” Sloan smiled sweetly at Brandon. “Yeah. I only gave him my number because he was in uniform.” I grinned. “Can’t say no to a man in uniform, huh?” I twirled my fork around my pasta. It was incredible. Some kind of venison Bolognese. Sloan was a great cook. Kristen and I really should eat here more often. “No, I can,” she said. “It’s just I figured they wouldn’t let a felon or registered sex offender into the fire department.

Ihung up with Josh, and the switch flipped in my head. Sloan called it my velociraptor brain because it made me fierce and sharp. Something big had to trigger it, and when it did, my compulsive, laser-focused, primal side activated. The one that got me a near perfect score on my SATs and got me through college finals and Mom. The one that made me clean when I was stressed and threatened to launch into full-scale manic OCD if left unchecked—that kicked in. Emotion drained away, the tiredness from staying up all night crying dissipated, and I became my purpose. I didn’t do hysterics. Never had. When in crisis, I became systematic and efficient. And the transition was now complete. I weighed only for a second whether to call Sloan and tell her or go pick her up. I decided to pick her up. She would be too upset to drive properly, but knowing her, she would try anyway. From Josh’s explanation of the situation, Brandon wouldn’t be out of the hospital anytime soon. Sloan wouldn’t leave Brandon, and I wouldn’t leave her. She would need things for the stay. People would need to be called. Arrangements made. I began to compile a list in my head of things to do and things to pack as I quickly but methodically drove to Sloan’s. Phone charger, headphones, blanket, change of clothes for Sloan, toiletries, and her laptop. It took me twenty minutes to get to her house, and I got out of my car ready for a surgical extraction. I stood there, surrounded by the earthy smell of Sloan’s just-watered potted porch flowers. The door opened, and I took in her blissfully ignorant face one more time. “Kristen?” It wasn’t unusual for me to stop by. But she knew me well enough to instantly know something was wrong. “Sloan, Brandon has been in an accident,” I said calmly. “He’s alive, but I need you to get your purse and come with me.” I knew immediately that I’d been right to come get her instead of calling. One look at her and I knew she wouldn’t have been able to put a foot in front of the other. While I mobilized and became strong under stress, she froze and weakened. “What?  ” she breathed. “We have to hurry. Come on.” I pushed past her and systematically executed my checklist. I gave myself a two-minute window to grab what was needed. Her gym bag would be in the laundry room, already filled with toiletries and her headphones. I grabbed that, pulled a sweater from her closet, selected a change of clothes for her, and stuffed her laptop inside the bag. When I came out of the room, she had managed to grab her purse as instructed. She stood by the sofa looking shaken, her eyes moving back and forth like she was trying to figure out what was happening. Her cell phone sat by her easel and I snatched it, pulling the charger from the wall. I grabbed her favorite throw blanket from the sofa and stuffed that in the bag and zipped it. List complete. Then I took her by the elbow, locked her front door, and dragged her to the car. “Wha…what happened? What happened!” she screamed, finally coming out of her shock. I opened up the passenger door and put her in. “Buckle yourself up. I’ll tell you what I know on the way.” When I got around to the driver’s side, she had her phone to her ear. “He’s not answering. He’s not answering! What happened, Kristen?!” I grabbed her face in my hands. “Listen to me. Look at me. He is alive. He was hit on his bike. Josh went on the call. He was unconscious. It was clear he had some broken bones and a possible head injury. He’s at the ER, and I need to get you to the hospital to be with him. But I need you to be calm.” Her brown eyes were terrified, but she nodded. “Right now your job is to call Brandon’s family,” I said firmly. “Relay what I just said to you, calmly. Can you do that for Brandon?” She nodded again. “Yes.” Her hands shook, but she dialed.

Today the entirety of the travel and expense policy still consists of these five simple words: ACT IN NETFLIX’S BEST INTEREST That works better. It is not in Netflix’s best interest that the entire content team fly business from L.A. to Mexico. But if you have to take the red-eye from L.A. to New York and give a presentation the next morning it would likely be in Netflix’s best interest that you fly business, so you don’t have bags under your eyes and slurred speech when the big moment arises.

Hike 1.5 miles on a hilly trail. Get up off the floor under your own power, using a maximum of one arm for support. Pick up a young child from the floor. Carry two five-pound bags of groceries for five blocks. Lift a twenty-pound suitcase into the overhead compartment of a plane. Balance on one leg for thirty seconds, eyes open. (Bonus points: eyes closed, fifteen seconds.) Have sex. Climb four flights of stairs in three minutes. Open a jar. Do thirty consecutive jump-rope skips.

Eat- Yō Sandwich (Lunch) It is a foot long; Ha- better than six inches, said Maddie. Karly- Suck on your meatballs… ‘You should know you’ve done both.’ Some girl down the table- said. Let’s talk about books, said Olivia. God just shot me in the head, so I can die, ha- hey see the sped? Nice- book’s- Maddie- ha! Karly- I think movies like Twilight freaking suck, (Throwing both middle fingers in the air making a skilling face.) The sporting actress made fame, what it is. Look at her and the look at that, what is- that, I love Anna Kendrick? Teach walking by saying that a mother-week Barns. Liv- I think she would have made a better Bella, than the girl with no personality, yet that’s the book I read that thing and it was painful. I guess that my assignment in life is over my Karly kiss my ass where it is brown and holy! And that another one, sure it is… Suck my clit. No! Yes, you want to! (Sexy eyes) That's it- you're expelled- Good now I can party and have some fun sleeping and not doing this crap, so you're going to punish me by not being here, freak yeah! The towing sickness of a teacher whose name is Mr. Abdèlaziz Okay smart-ie, in-school suspension, then right. Karly- Freaking-, ho-bag, psycho, b*tch, p*ssy-tart- cunt! Under her breath. (She gets taken out by her hair, by the officer what’s his name, roughly, I might add.) Like who paints a room all black, and faces the desks at the wall, where you could only piss two times… no air to speak of and some fat ass smelling like crap farting up and down the five by thirdly long skinny room, next to you is what… I got six out of seven freaking hours, all week I might add. ~*~ (Flashback) I love bands that are not cool so what do you do here? Freak yeah, at least I made it as one of our dumb ho’s… in a short skirt that shows nothing under it, to think I made it, wow good to think… you think I am good enough to be the same look, and size or whatever, yet you can’t say the N-word or a knotty little swore ward… Yet- yet- teachers can call me every name you can think of… in the urban book of crap, like I cannot even wear a tank… without a bra in the halls, yet, this girl can… do you see all the bouncing, and nipples pointing, at you, I sure do?

THE STRAIGHT RIGHT JOLT IS THROWN FROM THE SAME POSITION AS THE STRAIGHT LEFT. Stand in your normal punching position. Your relaxed right hand is half-opened, and the upper knuckle of the thumb is about four inches in front of your lips. Without any preliminary movement of the right hand, shoot it at the chin-high spot on the bag as you do the falling step. Neither pull back nor cock the right before throwing it. As you step in to explode the second knuckle of your upright fist against the bag, your chin should be partially protected by your left shoulder, left arm and left hand. Remember that your left hand opens to make a "knife blade," with the palm turned slightly toward your opponent. While the right fist is being thrown, the left hand and arm should stiffen for an instant in order to present a rigid barrier before the face in case an opponent attempts to strike with a countering right. The index knuckle of your opened left hand should remain about ten inches in front of your left eye as you step in. But the instant your right fist lands, your left hand should relax into its normal half-opened condition so that it will be ready to punch immediately, if necessary (Figure 13B). Straight punches for the body, with either hand, are begun and executed in the same manner as head punches. (Any change in position before the start would be a telltale.) When in motion, however, your fist turns so that the palm is down when the second knuckle explodes against the bag. Also, as you begin the body punch, you bend forward to slide under guarding arms and to make your own chin a less open target. As you practice those punches, keep your eyes wide open. Don't close your eyes as you step in. Focus your eyes on your target, YOU MUST KEEP YOUR EYES WIDE OPEN AT ALL TIMES WHEN YOU ARE FIGHTING OR BOXING.

Exercise 3: A Future With Anxiety I want you to close your eyes once more. This time, I want you to see yourself in five years' time. Imagine that you are staring into a mirror, looking at your reflection. But what I want you to do is this: imagine that you have never recovered from your health anxiety. Imagine that your anxiety has not only remained but become worse over the five years. Notice how you look – do you look a lot older? Are there bags under your eyes with all the stress and anxiety? How do you feel about yourself as you look at yourself in the mirror? It's okay to feel sad as you visualise this. It's okay to be upset. Let yourself visualise this future for five minutes and turn the page. Sometimes this can be a powerful awakening. I remember when I first tried it at the height of anxiety I burst into tears. As I say, it's okay to be upset by this but remember: this doesn't have to be the future. You have the power to change this. You may well have been fighting anxiety for the last five years – it doesn't mean that you have to be for the next five. In your notebook, please write a few sentences answering the following question: If I let anxiety control me in five years' time, how will this affect my life? You might want to write about how it will affect your relationships, your career plans, your social life. Will you be sleeping well or waking up early and worrying about your health? Once you've finished writing this, turn the page and let's move on to the final exercise.

Sure, Raoul, but let’s see your money.’ ‘Fuck you, Zachery Blubber.’ But he slapped twenty bucks down. Zak opened a beer, banged it on to the counter and sauntered back for the bourbon. ‘So how’s LA, man? You get all that fancy gear there?’ Raoul shrugged. His nose was running and he sniffed as Zak leaned against the bar, sliding the bourbon glass forwards. ‘Cool, it’s cool.’ ‘You look like you need to chill out.’ Raoul knocked back the bourbon and reached for the beer. ‘Your brothers are workin’ out back.’ ‘Uncle Fryer around?’ ‘Sleepin’, like always at this time. Place was jumpin’ last night, he played so much he got his big old lips swollen up, but he sure as hell can play that beat-up bugle o’ his.’ Raoul sniffed again, wiping his nose with his shirt cuff. He took out a thick roll of notes and peeled off another twenty. ‘Same again, have one yourself.’ Zak eyed the wad, and slowly moved back along the bar. ‘Don’t mind if I do, brother, don’t mind if I do.’ Raoul had to wait a while as a couple of customers needed refills. He was beginning to get the shakes and wondered why the hell he’d come back. He’d get more than the shakes when he showed his face back home. What had seemed like a good idea was now beginning to pale. Zak passed another beer and bourbon along, holding up a glass to indicate he’d taken his drink and started to chinwag with two old boys huddled at the far end of the bar. ‘Zak, eh, Zak man, come on down here a second, will ya?’ Raoul said loudly, gulping down his beer. ‘What you want?’ said Zak, handing out beers and tossing the empties into a crate beneath the bar. He kind of knew, so he opened a drawer under the till and took out a packet. ‘This what you want, bro?’ Raoul put his hand over the plastic bag. Zak leaned forward, whispering that it was good home-grown gear, he could vouch for it. ‘You got any skins?’ Raoul asked, peeling off fifty dollars. ‘Shit, man, what you want me to do, smoke it for you?’ He reached into the back pocket of his pants and tossed down a squashed pack of rolling

We listened to Daddy when he said: "when all you got goin' for you is cuteness and then you get bags under your eyes, they forget about you and get someone younger. When all you can do is play basketball and you break your knee, they forget about you and give your place to someone else. But when what you got goin' for you is inside your head, that's something nobody can take away from you. Nobody. Ever. 'Cept by killin' you, and then it don't matter no more 'cause you're dead.

To wash down your chicken nuggets with virtually any soft drink in the supermarket is to have some corn with your corn. Since the 1980s virtually all the sodas and most of the fruit drinks sold in the supermarket have been sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) -- after water, corn sweetener is their principal ingredient. Grab a beer for you beverage instead and you'd still be drinking corn, in the form of alcohol fermented from glucose refined from corn. Read the ingredients on the label of any processed food and, provided you know the chemical names it travels under, corn is what you will find. For modified or unmodified starch, for glucose syrup and maltodextrin, for crystalline fructose and ascorbic acid, for lecithin and dextrose, lactic acid and lysine, for maltose and HFCS, for MSG and polyols, for the caramel color and xanthan gum, read: corn. Corn is in the coffee whitener and Cheez Whiz, the frozen yogurt and TV dinner, the canned fruit and ketchup and candies, the soups and snacks and cake mixes, the frosting and candies, the soups and snacks and cake mixes, the frosting and gravy and frozen waffles, the syrups and hot sauces, the mayonnaise and mustard, the hot dogs and the bologna, the margarine and shortening, the salad dressings and the relishes and even the vitamins. (Yes, it's in the Twinkie, too.) There are some forty-five thousand items in the average American supermarket and more than a quarter of them now contain corn. This goes for the nonfood items as well: Everything from the toothpaste and cosmetics to the disposable diapers, trash bags, cleansers, charcoal briquettes, matches, and batteries, right down to the shine on the cover of the magazine that catches your eye by the checkout: corn. Even in Produce on a day when there's ostensibly no corn for sale, you'll nevertheless find plenty of corn: in the vegetable wax that gives the cucumbers their sheen, in the pesticide responsible for the produce's perfection, even in the coating on the cardboard it was shipped in. Indeed, the supermarket itself -- the wallboard and joint compound, the linoleum and fiberglass and adhesives out of which the building itself has been built -- is in no small measure a manifestation of corn.

This Darren,” Chiara finally says as we approach Riomaggiore, still huddled under the bright umbrella. “Is he the same boy you told me about in Roma? The one you saw times two?” “Two times,” I correct, “and yes. Same guy.” She stops in her tracks. The rain’s still sheeting down, so I stop with her to keep as dry as possible. I slide my hand over my tote bag to check it. It’s just a little moist, not soaking wet. Yet. We really need to keep moving. “And he happened to be there when you were hurt?” Her wide eyes stare back into mine. “And he left. And he came back.” “Yes…” She places her free hand on my shoulder, our skin clammy from the humidity. “Can you not see?” I swallow hard. “You’re scaring me.” Her tone is serious. “Pippa. This is why you are here. Why you knew you must come here.” A shiver travels down my spine. Could that be? Did I feel the pull of Cinque Terre because I’d find Darren here again? “I know things,” Chiara continues, still looking me in the eye. “And I know that Darren is for you.” But there could be another reason I was led here. “Are you just saying that because you don’t want me with Bruno?” “Run from the truth all that you want. It always has a way of finding you.

You gonna wake up?” She lazily opened her eyes and jolted awake, scooting up on her elbows. “What? What?” “Easy. It’s okay. Sort of.” She blinked a few times and then her eyes were wide. “Where am I?” “I brought you inside. I had to. You were on your way to freezing to death. You must not have a brain in your head.” She squinted at him, pursing her lips. “Oh—I have a brain. I’m just not real experienced in mountain life.” She struggled to sit up. “Gee, if I’d known you got your eyebrow back and grew your beard in red, I might’ve found you sooner. I’ll get out of your hair, which I notice, you have plenty of.” “You’re not going anywhere,” he said, putting a big hand against her sternum, holding her down. “You’re stuck—and so am I.” “No problem,” she said. “I sleep in the car every night. I have a good sleeping bag…” “Did you hear me? You were passed out on your way back from the john, covered with snow and damn near frozen to death. You wanted to see me, you’re going to get your wish.” Her eyes widened suddenly. “I’m…ah…naked under here?” “You’re not naked. You have underwear. I had to get your wet clothes off you. That or just let you die. It wasn’t an easy decision,” he lied. “You undressed me and wrapped me in this quilt?” she asked. “Pretty much,” he said. And felt your small, soft body against mine for an hour, the first female body that’s been against mine in five years. Until tonight, he hadn’t thought he missed that feeling. “What happened out there? How’d you end up in the doorway of the john like that?” “I don’t have the first idea. I was so glad there was an outhouse for once and I wouldn’t have to squat behind a bush. I was going to make it quick, but I was so tired I could hardly move, and that’s the last thing I remember till I woke up.” She coughed. “I didn’t think I was so tired I’d fall asleep on the way.” “You didn’t fall asleep,” he said. “You lost consciousness. Hypothermia. Like I said—half frozen.” “Hmm.

I’ve got to get home. Where’s my cell?” I ask, patting my back pocket. “Alex has it, I think.” So sneaking out without talking to him isn’t an option. I struggle to keep the Oompa Loompas at bay as I stagger out of the bedroom, searching for Alex. It’s not hard to find him, the house is smaller than Sierra’s pool house. Alex is lying on an old sofa, wearing jeans. Nothing else. His eyes are open, but they’re bloodshot and glazed with sleep. “Hey,” he says warmly while stretching. Oh, God. I’m in big trouble. Because I’m staring. I can’t keep my eyes from ogling his chiseled triceps and biceps and every other “eps” he has. The butterflies in my stomach have just multiplied tenfold as my wandering gaze meets his. “Hey.” I swallow, hard. “I, um, guess I should thank you for taking me here instead of leaving me passed out on the beach.” His gaze doesn’t falter. “Last night I realized somethin’. You and I, we’re not so different. You play the game just like I do. You use your looks, your bod, and your brains to make sure you’re always in control.” “I’m hungover, Alex. I can’t even think straight and you’re getting all philosophical on me.” “See, you’re playin’ a game right now. Be real with me, mamacita. I dare you.” Is he kidding? Be real? I can’t. Because then I’ll start crying, and maybe freak out enough to blurt the truth--that I create a perfect image so I can hide behind it. “I better get home.” “Before you do that, you should probably go to the bathroom,” he says. Before I ask why, I catch a glimpse of my reflection in a mirror hanging on the wall. “Oh, shit!” I shriek. Black mascara is caked under my eyes and streaky lines of it are running down my cheeks. I resemble a corpse. Hurrying past him, I find the hall bathroom and stare at myself in the mirror. My hair is a stringy bird’s nest. If the mascara marrying my cheeks wasn’t bad enough, the rest of me is as pale as my aunt Dolores without her makeup. I have puffy bags under my eyes as if I’m storing water for the winter months. All in all, not a pretty sight. By anyone’s standards.

He sat the medical bag next to him on the couch and placed his hands under my wrist and lifted them. He leveled my wrist and hands near our eye level. “Because of this shit. I promised you at least your well-being. Marks and bruises are going to happen, but I try to never break the skin and you didn’t ask for this.” My wrists were red and raw from being cuffed, but I was fine.

God, I could pack my whole wardrobe in those bags under your eyes,” Mom mutters.