Bedroom Frame Quotes

Ronan's bedroom door burst open. Hanging on the door frame, Ronan leaned out to peer past Gansey. He was doing that thing where he looked like both the dangerous Ronan he was now and the cheerier Ronan he had been when Gansey first met him. "Hold on," Gansey told Adam. Then, to Ronan: "Why would he be?" "No reason. Just no reason." Ronan slammed his door. Gansey asked Adam, "Sorry. You still have that suit for the party?" Adam's response was buried in the sound of the second-story door falling open. Noah slouched in. In a wounded tone, he said, "He threw me out the window!" Ronan's voice sang out from behind his closed door: "You're already dead!

I had to lull Mom and Hank into believing I was in the right frame of mind to be taken into public. If I exited my bedroom foaming at the mouth and dressed in black LOVE SUCKS tee, my plan would never get off the ground.

She was halfway through the book, her eyes heavy with sleep, when the bedroom door opened.  Brishen stood at the threshold, dressed down to undertunic and trousers, his feet bare and his hair damp.  He leaned against the door frame and crossed his arms.  “Woman of day, you waited for me.” Ildiko closed her book and offered him a drowsy smile.  Relief and happiness coursed through her.  “Prince of night, you’ve come back to me—your head intact.” “I promised I’d try.”  

Dear Mr. Kulti, You are my favorite player. I play soccer 2 butt I'm not good like you are. Not yet. I practice all the time so 1 day I can be just like you or beter. I watch all of ur games so don't mess up. Ur #1 fan, Sal <3<3<3 P.S. Do u have a girl friend? P.P.S. Why don't u cut ur hair? "I was nineteen when that showed up to the club's offices. It was my third fan letter ever and the other two were topless pictures. That letter stayed in every locker I used for the nest ten years. It was the first thing I looked at before my games, and the first thing I saw after I played. I framed it and put it in my house in Meissen once it started to wear out. It's still there on the wall of my bedroom.

She'd learned since rescuing it a couple of days ago that this particular cat was not like most others; it lacked all grace and spatial awareness, as evident by its current path of evacuation. Streaking off in the direction of the bedroom, it managed to hit the sofa, the base of a standing lamp, and the door frame before making good its escape. Chloe had decided that this nervous clumsiness marked the two of them as a fated pair.

When I arrived home from Boston, I realized there were no pictures on my mantel. I set down my suitcase and walked into the living room and looked across to the fireplace, and it felt empty. Empty of real stories. I went to my bedroom where the bed was made, and on my desk there were no pictures in frames and on the end tables there were no pictures. There was a framed picture of Yankee Stadium above the toilet in the bathroom, and there was some art I’d picked up in my travels, but there was little evidence of an actual character living an actual life. My home felt like a stage on which props had been set for a face story rather than a place where a person lived an actual human narrative. It’s an odd feeling to be awakened from a life of fantasy. You stand there looking at a bare mantel and the house gets an eerie feel, as though it were haunted by a kind of nothingness, an absence of something that could have been, an absence of people who could have been living here, interacting with me, forcing me out of my daydreams. I stood for a while and heard the voices of children who didn’t exist and felt the tender touch of a wife who wanted me to listen to her. I felt, at once, the absent glory of a life that could have been.

A day doesn't go by when I don't look at them, she said. I can't have them up on the kitchen refrigerator or in a frame in the bedroom--I just can't do it, I just can't run into them casually when I'm supposed to be doing something else--but I also can't last a day without seeing them. Visiting with them when I am alone in the house.

But even while Rome is burning, there’s somehow time for shopping at IKEA. Social imperatives are a merciless bitch. Everyone is attempting to buy what no one can sell.  See, when I moved out of the house earlier this week, trawling my many personal belongings in large bins and boxes and fifty-gallon garbage bags, my first inclination was, of course, to purchase the things I still “needed” for my new place. You know, the basics: food, hygiene products, a shower curtain, towels, a bed, and umm … oh, I need a couch and a matching leather chair and a love seat and a lamp and a desk and desk chair and another lamp for over there, and oh yeah don’t forget the sideboard that matches the desk and a dresser for the bedroom and oh I need a coffeetable and a couple end tables and a TV-stand for the TV I still need to buy, and don’t these look nice, whadda you call ’em, throat pillows? Oh, throw pillows. Well that makes more sense. And now that I think about it I’m going to want my apartment to be “my style,” you know: my own motif, so I need certain decoratives to spruce up the decor, but wait, what is my style exactly, and do these stainless-steel picture frames embody that particular style? Does this replica Matisse sketch accurately capture my edgy-but-professional vibe? Exactly how “edgy” am I? What espresso maker defines me as a man? Does the fact that I’m even asking these questions mean I lack the dangling brass pendulum that’d make me a “man’s man”? How many plates/cups/bowls/spoons should a man own? I guess I need a diningroom table too, right? And a rug for the entryway and bathroom rugs (bath mats?) and what about that one thing, that thing that’s like a rug but longer? Yeah, a runner; I need one of those, and I’m also going to need…

Maybe the wealth we wanted as children is this, I thought: not strongboxes full of diamonds and gold coins but a bathtub, to immerse yourself like this every day, to eat bread, salami, prosciutto, to have a lot of space even in the bathroom, to have a telephone, a pantry and icebox full of food, a photograph in a silver frame on the sideboard that shows you in your wedding dress—to have this entire house, with the kitchen, the bedroom, the dining room, the two balconies, and the little room where I am studying, and where, even though Lila hasn’t said so, soon, when it comes, a baby will sleep.

As Strane works at me, part of me leaves the bedroom and wanders into the kitchen, where the cup he drank from lies tipped over in the sink. The faucet drips; the refrigerator hums. The kitten pads in from the living room, wanting to be held. Standing by the window, the broken-off part of me takes the kitten in her arms, gazes down at the quiet street below. It’s started to storm, a streetlight’s orange glow illuminating the sheets of rain, and the broken-off part of me watches it fall, humming softly to herself to block out the sounds coming from the bedroom. Every so often, she holds her breath and listens to check if it’s still happening. When she hears the metal scrape of the bed frame, the slap of skin on skin, she holds the kitten closer, turns back to the rain.

It was raining hard the evening Holly died. One of those summer rains that seem to come from nowhere and catch all but the most compulsively weather-conscious off guard. She was beautiful, Holly, and much too good for me by a long stretch. Big soulful eyes. A beautiful face framed in a flowing mane of brunette hair that would lift along the edges at the slightest breeze. Full soft lips that conveyed warmth and sunshine when she smiled, and tender sensuality when they brushed across mine in the quiet darkness of our bedroom. It is no exaggeration to say that I worshiped the ground my wife walked on — perhaps less secretly than would have been wise had it been any woman but Holly. For whatever reason, she adored me, and ours was a mutual admiration society. She thought me the finest man who’d ever walked this earth, and could not imagine going through life with anyone other than me. I thought the world a better place for her being in it, and each time she rose from our tangled sheets to dress in the morning, I was certain birds began to sing songs of joy simply because she was awake.

At the casting sessions it was all boys and though I wasn’t exactly bored I didn’t need to be there, and songs constantly floating in the car keep commenting on everything neutral encased within the windshield’s frame ( … one time you were blowing young ruffians … sung over the digital billboard on Sunset advertising the new Pixar movie) and the fear builds into a muted fury and then has no choice but to melt away into a simple and addictive sadness.

Ideas are goddesses who deign at times to make themselves visible to a solitary mortal, at a turning in the road, even in his bedroom while he sleeps, when they, standing framed in the doorway, bring him the annunciation of their tidings.

Cam backed toward the door, arms still raised. He tapped the top of the door frame. "Guess what?" "What?" A slight grinned appeared. "My bedroom is right across the hall." My tummy tumbled. "Okay." The grin spread, turning wicked. "Just thought you'd be happy to hear that.

Suddenly a little wind stirred the trees: it shivered the fringed fingers of the yews where goldfinches were perching and pecking: then it smacked against the half-open window and the old loose frames muttered in their grooves. A current of air swept through the bedroom, cool from under a grey sky, almost cold. It was refreshing and smelt of freedom. If rocks were alive and breathed, they would exhale just that air, smelling of moss and running water. My bedside book seemed redundant suddenly; the morning's paper even more so. I banished the printed word, lay back and remembered . . .

Let me go. Let me go back. I don’t like it.” “Let you go?” said Caspian. “But where?” Eustace rushed to the ship’s side, as if he expected to see the picture frame hanging above the sea, and perhaps a glimpse of Lucy’s bedroom. What he saw was blue waves flecked with foam, and paler blue sky, both spreading without a break to the horizon. Perhaps we can hardly blame him if his heart sank.

It seemed as if nothing were to break that tie — as if the years were merely to compact and cement it; and as if those years were to be all the years of their natural lives. Eighteen-forty-two turned into eighteen-forty-three; eighteen-forty-three into eighteen- forty-four; eighteen-forty-four into eighteen-forty-five. Flush was no longer a puppy; he was a dog of four or five; he was a dog in the full prime of life — and still Miss Barrett lay on her sofa in Wimpole Street and still Flush lay on the sofa at her feet. Miss Barrett’s life was the life of “a bird in its cage.” She sometimes kept the house for weeks at a time, and when she left it, it was only for an hour or two, to drive to a shop in a carriage, or to be wheeled to Regent’s Park in a bath-chair. The Barretts never left London. Mr. Barrett, the seven brothers, the two sisters, the butler, Wilson and the maids, Catiline, Folly, Miss Barrett and Flush all went on living at 50 Wimpole Street, eating in the dining-room, sleeping in the bedrooms, smoking in the study, cooking in the kitchen, carrying hot-water cans and emptying the slops from January to December. The chair-covers became slightly soiled; the carpets slightly worn; coal dust, mud, soot, fog, vapours of cigar smoke and wine and meat accumulated in crevices, in cracks, in fabrics, on the tops of picture-frames, in the scrolls of carvings. And the ivy that hung over Miss Barrett’s bedroom window flourished; its green curtain became thicker and thicker, and in summer the nasturtiums and the scarlet runners rioted together in the window-box. But one night early in January 1845 the postman knocked. Letters fell into the box as usual. Wilson went downstairs to fetch the letters as usual. Everything was as usual — every night the postman knocked, every night Wilson fetched the letters, every night there was a letter for Miss Barrett. But tonight the letter was not the same letter; it was a different letter. Flush saw that, even before the envelope was broken. He knew it from the way that Miss Barrett took it; turned it; looked at the vigorous, jagged writing of her name.

Tyler pulls his shirt down over his head and I pretend like I’m not sad to see his naked abs go. “I can’t believe you’re kicking me out at three-o’clock in the morning,” he grumbles as he slides his feet into tennis shoes without bothering to tie them. He walks over to the window and slides it open, looking back at me and smirking. “So, same time, same place tomorrow?” Rolling my eyes, I shake my head. “No. Absolutely not. We’re not doing this anymore. Leave and don’t come back.” He’s got one leg swung over the windowsill and his body halfway out before he jerks his head back inside and stares at me in surprise. “What? What do you mean ‘don’t come back? Like, don’t come back tomorrow, or ever?” “Ever. This was a huge mistake.” He actually has the nerve to growl at me thank god he didn’t whinny or I’d be puking right into my lap. “Fine! But You’ll be begging for another piece of Tyler, mark my words!” “Jesus Christ, don’t talk about yourself in third person,” I complain. “They comeback, They always come back to Tyler,” he mutters with another smirk, completely ignoring me. “By ‘they’, I’m assuming you’re talking about the ponies you were dreaming about?” I chuckle. “Fuck your face! Fuck you face right now!” he demands. “Get the hell out of my bedroom and don’t come back, Prancer!” I fire back. Sticking his tongue out at me in one poorly-executed, last ditch effort to put me in my place, he tries to smoothly exit my window but his head smacks against the frame. He Lets go of the sill to grab his wounded head and loses his balance, falling out the window and into the shrubs on the otherside. “Mother fucking dick fuck ass cake piece of shit shrub!

Ronan's bedroom door burst open. Hanging on the door frame, Ronan leaned out to peer past Gansey. He was doing that thing where he looked like both the dangerous Ronan he was now and the cheerier Ronan he had been when Gansey had first met him. "Is Noah out here?" "Hold on," Gansey told Adam. Then, to Ronan: "Why would he be?" "No reason. Just no reason." Ronan slammed his door. Adam's response was buried in the sound of the second-story door falling open. Noah slouched in. In a wounded tone, he said, "He threw me out the window!" Ronan's voice sang out from behind his closed door: "You're already dead!

I’m going to visit you every day. And then someday, when they find a way to reverse your condition scientifically, medically, we’ll buy some land with wonderful trees and build treehouses in every one of them. And we could have a bunch of kids, and read plays together, as a family, and on clear nights, we’ll look at the stars. Can you picture it? And if you decide you don’t want kids, Totally okay, totally fine. We’ll read every book and watch every show and sleep in and travel and make money and art and love all the time, whenever we want. Or we could adopt a couple big dogs. You’ve always wanted big dogs, right?” Lewis stared at her blankly as his tail swished in the surf behind him. “Why aren’t you saying anything? Please say something,” Wren begged, clutching him harder. “I’m not the person I used to be. I’m not the man you married.” “What do you mean?” Lewis wished he could embrace her back, wrap two human arms around her small, shivering frame. He tried to do the best he could with words: “It’s like standing in my childhood bedroom, looking around at the comic books, action figures, and school yearbooks with signatures from all the girls, and remembering how that tiny room used to be my only stake in the world. I don’t know how else to explain it. There are things I cannot unsee.

Leaving Forever My son can look me level in the eyes now, and does, hard, when I tell him he cannot watch chainsaw murders at the midnight movie, that he must bend his mind to Biology, under this roof, in the clear light of a Tensor lamp. Outside, his friends throb with horsepower under the moon. He stands close, milk sour on his breath, gauging the heat of my conviction, eye-whites pink from his new contacts. He can see me better than before. And I can see myself in those insolent eyes, mostly head in the pupil's curve, closed in by the contours of his unwrinkled flesh. At the window he waves a thin arm and his buddies squall away in a glare of tail lights. I reach out my arm to his shoulder, but he shrugs free and shows me my father's narrow eyes, the trembling hand at my throat, the hard wall at the back of my skull, the raised fist framed in the bedroom window I had climbed through at three A.M. "If you hit me I'll leave forever," I said. But everything was fine in a few days, fine. "I would have come back," I said, "false teeth and all." Now, twice a year after the long drive, in the yellow light of the front porch, I breathe in my father's whiskey, ask for a shot, and see myself distorted in his thick glasses, the two of us grinning, as he holds me with both hands at arm's length.

Ronan’s bedroom door burst open. Hanging on the door frame, Ronan leaned out to peer past Gansey. He was doing that thing where he looked like both the dangerous Ronan he was now and the cheerier Ronan he had been when Gansey had first met him. “Is Noah out here?” “Hold on,” Gansey told Adam. Then, to Ronan: “Why would he be?” “No reason. Just no reason.” Ronan slammed his door. Gansey asked Adam, “Sorry. You still have that suit for the party?” Adam’s response was buried in the sound of the second-story door falling open. Noah slouched in. In a wounded tone, he said, “He threw me out the window!” Ronan’s voice sang out from behind his closed door: “You’re already dead!

Having finished the letter, she tiptoed into their bedroom and towards their framed wedding photograph on the dressing table. As she sat on the stool, she couldn’t take her eyes off the picture. In time, dropping the letter in her lap, she took the frame into her hands. But, soon finding the light too dim to hold the picture, she took the frame closer to her. At that, as the memories of their honeymoon came in torrents, her eyes turned into waterfalls. When she realized that the farewell letter in her lap was getting wet, she placed it on the table along with the photograph. If not for her wish to let her man know her mind at the parting, perhaps, she would have wept herself to death and thus allowed her missive to smudge in the pool of her tears.

Eccles had reached for him, it felt like, out of the ground. The minister’s voice had sounded tinny and buried. Ruth’s bedroom is dim; the streetlamp like a low moon burns shadows into the inner planes of the armchair, the burdened bed, the twisted sheet he tossed back finally when he realized the phone would never stop. The bright rose window of the church opposite is still lit: purple red blue gold like the notes of different bells struck. His body, his whole frame of nerves and bone, tingles, as if with the shaking of small bells hung up and down his silver skin. His spent groin tingles. He wonders if he had been asleep, and how long, ten minutes or five hours. He finds his underclothes and trousers draped on a chair and fumbles with them; his white shirt seems to crawl, like a cluster of glowworms in grass. He hesitates a second before poking

I was afraid of other people’s houses. After school sometimes a friend might talk me into going to his house or apartment to do our homework together. It was a shock, the way people lived, other people, those who weren’t me. I didn’t know how to respond, the clinging intimacy of it, kitchen slop, pan handles jutting from the sink. Did I want to be curious, amused, indifferent, superior? Just walking past a bathroom, a woman’s stocking draped over the towel rack, pill bottles on the windowsill, some open, some capsized, a child’s slipper in the bathtub. It made me want to run and hide, partly from my own fastidiousness. The bedrooms with unmade beds, somebody’s socks on the floor, the old woman in nightclothes, barefoot, an entire life gathered up in a chair by the bed, hunched frame and muttering face. Who are these people, minute to minute and year after year? It made me want to go home and stay there.

Ca--Ca--Caspian!” gasped Lucy as soon as she had breath enough. For Caspian it was; Caspian, the boy king of Narnia whom they had helped to set on the throne during their last visit. Immediately Edmund recognized him too. All three shook hands and clapped one another on the back with great delight. “But who is your friend?” said Caspian almost at once, turning to Eustace with his cheerful smile. But Eustace was crying much harder than any boy of his age has a right to cry when nothing worse than a wetting has happened to him, and would only yell out, “Let me go. Let me go back. I don’t like it.” “Let you go?” said Caspian. “But where?” Eustace rushed to the ship’s side, as if he expected to see the picture frame hanging above the sea, and perhaps a glimpse of Lucy’s bedroom. What he saw was blue waves flecked with foam, and paler blue sky, both spreading without a break to the horizon. Perhaps we can hardly blame him if his heart sank. He was promptly sick.

There's a faulty signal on this line, about halfway through my journey. I assume it must be faulty, in any case, because it's almost always red; we stop there most days, sometimes just for a few seconds, sometimes for minutes on end. If I sit in carriage D, which I usually do, and the train stops at this signal, which it almost always does, I have a perfect view into my favourite trackside house: number fifteen. Number fifteen is much like the other houses along this stretch of track: a Victorian semi, two storeys high, overlooking a narrow, well-tended garden which runs around twenty feet down towards some fencing, beyond which lie a few metres of no man's land before you get to the railway track. I know this house by heart. I know every brick, I know the colour of the curtains in the upstairs bedroom (beige, with a dark-blue print), I know that the paint is peeling off the bathroom window frame and that there are four tiles missing from a section of the roof over on the right-hand side.

Uncle Charles lived in a shady wooden house out in the country, and he was too old to eat corn on the cob. He lay in bed, shrunken and brown and very old. He complained that the pictures were hung crooked on the wall, and they took down all the framed pictures - it was not that. He complained that his bed was placed in a wrong corner, and so they moved the bed - it was not that. Then his voice failed, and when he tried to talk, it was as though his throat had filled with glue, and they could not understand the words. One Sunday the Wests had gone out to see him and taken Frankie with them; she had tiptoed to the open door of the back bedroom. He looked like an old man carved in brown wood and covered with a sheet. Only his eyes had moved, they were like blue jelly, and she had felt they might come out from the sockets and roll like blue wet jelly down his stiff face. She had stood in the doorway staring at him - then tiptoed away, afraid. They finally made out that he complained the sun shone the wrong way through the window, but that was not the thing that hurt him so. And it was death.

said he was attracted to the way I lived my life, the way I’d dance easily, laugh loudly, fill a room with colour; but instead of sitting back and enjoying the butterfly, he caught it. He framed me like a butterfly, pinning me into his frame, but the pins that hold the butterfly in place are not easily visible, and no one can see I’m being held down. Over the years the butterfly has faded – he’s stripped me of everything that made me what I was, and now he’s left with this dull, colourless woman who’s scared to say what she really thinks. And I can’t dance any more. It’s hard to reconcile the person I once was with the woman I am now, standing helplessly in my beautiful bedroom with handmade oak wardrobes and gold silk eiderdown. The only reason I get out of bed in the morning is my children; they are my reason to live, and without them I don’t think I would survive. Things have never been perfect between Simon and I, but until Caroline, my life was bearable, but now I see her curling up on our king-sized bed. She’s lounging seductively on our sofa, arms around the boys, my boys, and she’s in my kitchen serving breakfast. This woman wants to take over my husband, but she’ll also take over my life,

I'd painted nearly every surface in the main room. And not with just broad swaths of colour, but with decorations- little images. Some were basic: colours of icicles drooping down the sides of the threshold. They melted into the first shoots of spring, then burst into full blooms of summer, before brightening and deepening into fall leaves. I'd painted a ring of flowers round the card table by the window, leaves and crackling flames around the dining table. But in between the intricate decorations, I'd painted them. Bits and pieces of Mor, and Cassian, and Azriel, and Amren... and Rhys. Mor went up to the large hearth, where I'd painted the mantel in black shimmering with veins of gold and red. Up close, it was a solid pretty bit of paint. But from the couch... 'Illyrian wings,' she said. 'Ugh, they'll never stop gloating about it.' But she went to the window, which I'd framed in tumbling strands of gold and brass and bronze. Mor fingered her hair, cocking her head. 'Nice,' she said, surveying the room again. Her eyes fell on the open threshold to the bedroom hallway, and she grimaced. 'Why,' she said, 'are Amren's eyes there?' Indeed, right above the door, in the centre of the archway, I'd painted a pair of glowing silver eyes. 'Because she's always watching.' Mor snorted. 'That simply won't do. Paint my eyes next to hers. So the males of this family will know we're both watching them the next time they come up here to get drunk for a week straight.' 'They do that?' They used to.' Before Amarantha. 'Every autumn, the three of them would lock themselves in this house for five days and drink and drink and hunt and hunt, and they'd come back to Velaris looking halfway to death but grinning like fools. It warms my heart to know that from now on, they'll have to do it with me and Amren staring at them.

Not only was the four-poster- a lofty structure that would have put princesses and peas to shame- a place of rest and relaxation but it was, and had been for quite some time now, a portal for her magic carpet escapades. It was there that Estelle first began to practice what Marjan had called "eating at the edge of a ready 'sofreh'." Estelle always followed the same routine when assembling her dinner 'sofreh' on her bed. First, she would spread the paisley blanket Marjan had given her, tucking the fringed ends in tight around the sides of her mattress. Then, having already wetted a pot of jasmine tea, she would dig a trivet into the blanket's left corner and place the piping pot on top of it. Following the Persian etiquette of placing the main dishes at the center of the 'sofreh', Estelle would position the plate of saffron 'chelow' (with crunchy 'tadig'), the bowl of stew or soup that was the day's special, and the 'lavash' or 'barbari' bread accordingly. She would frame the main dishes with a small plate of 'torshi', pickled carrots and cucumbers, as well as a yogurt dip and some feta cheese with her favorite herb: balmy lemon mint. Taking off her pink pom-pom house slippers, Estelle would then hoist herself onto her high bed and begin her ecstatic epicurean adventure. She savored every morsel of her nightly meal, breathing in the tingle of sumac powder and nutmeg while speaking to a framed photograph of Luigi she propped up on its own trivet next to the tea. Dinner was usually Persian, but her dessert was always Italian: a peppermint cannoli or marzipan cherry, after which she would turn on the radio, always set to the 'Mid-West Ceili Hour', and dream of the time when a young Luigi made her do things impossible, like when he convinced her to enter the Maharajah sideshow and stand on the tallest elephant's trunk during carnival season in her seaside Neapolitan town.

The door opened. We all froze. “Mom, this isn’t what it looks like.” Mom put her hand on her hip. “It looks like a group of boys wrestling on the floor of your bedroom while you watch. Wearing a towel.” “Okay,” I admitted, “it is what it looks like, but it’s not—” “Sexual?” She raised her eyebrows. “Mom!” Luna stuck her head under Mom’s arm and sucked in a breath. “She’s gone from a love triangle to a kinky sex pentagon.” Blake lifted his head. “Vote for Team Blake!” Mom rolled her eyes. “Boys, vacate. Now. Aurora get dressed. And everybody head downstairs. Breakfast is on. I made quiche. There’s plenty for all.” “First edible breakfast in weeks,” Luna said. Blake smacked his lips. “Yum!” Mom checked behind the door. “Ayden’s not here, is he?” I shook my head. “Then there’s no lust factor. Although, your father may not be as easy going as I am. So, gentlemen, get out.”  As she left, Mom dragged Luna away with her. Blake shook off the other boys and stood. “That’s offensive. I’m a very lustful guy.” “And a big blabbermouth.” Logan whacked the back of Blake’s head. “But remember you can’t tell—” “Ayden!” Blake shouted. “Right,” Tristan said, “or —” “No, it’s…” Wide-eyed, Blake jerked his chin toward my door. Our heads swiveled. Ayden filled the doorway, leaning against the frame, arms folded. “What can’t you tell me?” He arched one eyebrow awaiting a reply. The silence seemed ready to explode. Ayden zeroed in on Blake. “Come on, Weak Link, give it up.” Blake blurted out, “Jayden was in the shower with Aurora!”  I choked. “What!” “You idiot!” Logan thumped Blake repeatedly. “Technically, that’s true.” Jayden said. “But only once.” Ayden’s arms dropped. Along with his jaw. Tristan jumped up and shoved Jayden’s shoulder. “Shut up!” I tugged the towel tighter. “Ayden, that didn’t happen. Exactly. Guys, he already knows the Divinicus thing.” “Oh, good.” Blake was relieved. “Secrets? Not my thing.” “No kidding,” I said. “You told Blake before me?” Ayden said. “Unbelievable.” Blake raised his brows. “What’s that supposed to mean?" I held up my hand. “I didn’t tell anyone.” “Oh, my God! Why are you in a towel?” A & E Kirk (2014-05-26). Drop Dead Demons: The Divinicus Nex Chronicles: Book 2 (Divinicus Nex Chronicles series) (pp. 466-467). A&E Kirk. Kindle Edition.

The bell over the front door chimed, and I caught my breath as Simon walked in. After all this time, we hadn’t interacted much outside of Faire. (Unless you counted one pretty significant interaction in his bedroom the night before last. I for one counted the hell out of it.) He looked like a strange amalgamation of his identities: the crisply ironed shirt and immaculate jeans of Simon Graham, but with the longer hair and face-framing beard of Captain Blackthorne. The juxtaposition was . . . well, I squirmed a little and fought the urge to hop the counter and wrinkle that shirt in the best possible way. Simon stopped short inside the doorway when he saw me, and Chris nudged me with her shoulder. “Now, I know for a fact you can handle him.” While my face flamed with mortification and Simon’s eyebrows knit in confusion, she snickered at her own joke and walked out of the store with a wave. Simon held the door for her, then turned back to me. “Hey.” “Hey.” I dropped my head to the counter and let the cool glass soothe my forehead. “God, it’s like working for my mother.” “What was that about?” I shook my head as I stood back up. “She knows.  Apparently, the whole town does.” “Knows?” After a beat his expression cleared and his eyes widened. “About us?” “Yeah.” I bit the inside of my cheek and waited for his reaction. “Huh.” He looked over his shoulder in the direction Chris had gone, as if he could still see her. “Well, if Chris knows, that’s as good as taking an ad out in the paper.” He tilted his head, thinking. “Do people still do that?” “Do what?” “Take ads out in the paper. Do people still even read the paper?” “I . . . I guess?” I was a little confused by the direction the conversation had gone, but now that he mentioned it I was curious too. “I mean, my mother does. The Sunday paper has coupons, you know.” Coupons that she still clipped and sent once a week to April and me, inside greeting cards where the coupons fell out like oversized confetti when we opened them. He considered that. “Seems like a dying thing, though. So will the idiom change? Should we start saying things like ‘posting it online’?” “‘Create a banner ad’?” I suggested, leaning my elbows on the counter. “See, I like that better.” He mirrored my pose and he was  close, so close to me that my heart pounded. I was no match for his smile. “Close to the original idiom, and it implies the same thing—spending money to make an announcement.” I allowed myself a second to be lost in his smile before I laughed. “Good God. Once an English teacher, always an English teacher.

That's how long it had been since thirty-five year-old Frank DeLuca had been home. It was strange how little had changed in the old neighborhood. He glanced in the rearview mirror. He supposed he didn't look much different than he had back then. His coal black hair was still thick and free of gray. A few small lines had appeared at the corners of his mouth and his dark blue eyes, but his six feet, four inch frame was still lean and muscled, courtesy of his athletic lifestyle. He wasn't sure why he'd expected the neighborhood to have changed so much. Things here rarely did. His childhood home seemed smaller, somehow, even though it looked exactly the same: a two-story, four bedroom, two bathroom, brick Cape Cod with a small front yard and a slightly larger fenced-in back

He unfolded his lanky frame and stood up on his bed, pulling the basement window open, followed by the screen. Two long legs in faded jeans were crouched down beside the faded flowerbed, knees pressed into the damp dirt. He shivered as the chill autumn air filled the bedroom. With the window open, the sound of late-night insects chirping in the distance joined the noises of the house. “Tess?” he asked, craning his neck to peer upward. “Everything alright?” She was backlit by the streetlight, her hair a halo of gold-framed blue. She gave an angry shake of her head. “Can I come in, Kyle?

Skin like milk with freckles across her face and shoulders. Wispy body frame, arms and legs like a spider. Black dead eyes fixed on the ceiling fan spinning her odor around the bedroom.

Anyway, you're to have four sets- to match jewels, I suppose- white gold, pale gold, yellow gold and rose gold. Can't have your oculars clashing with your bracelets, I suppose. I'll send the 'prentice up with them later. I'm waiting for the frames to cool now." "If the Princess is not here, you can leave them with her handmaiden, Iris," Lady Thalia put in, and came around to take a look at the Sophont's handiwork. She blinked. "Good heavens. That is 'much' more flattering!" "Yes, it is," Balan agreed with a lopsided smile. "Now you can see what pretty eyes she has. Well, I'm off! Lady Thalia, it was a pleasure meeting you. Princess, a delight to serve you!" As soon as he was out of the room, Andie was out of the chair. Picking up the skirt of her gown this time to keep it from tripping her, she ran to her bedroom to peer into the little mirror over her dressing table. The difference was astounding. The old oculars had been small, vaguely rectangular, and had cut across her face like a slash mark. These were large, circular and, for the first time, did not obscure her eyes. If anything, they made her eyes look bigger, like those of a young animal, soft and giving an impression of innocence and vulnerability. The frame, of white gold, was very simple and polished, somehow less fussy than Balan's frame of twisted wire had been. "Gracious!" Iris exclaimed. "What a difference!" "You don't think they look-well- 'owlish'?" Lady Thalia asked, a little doubtfully. "Not a bit!" Iris declared. "Just look how big they make her eyes look! And 'you've' heard all those daft poets, my Lady, going on about a girl's eyes supposed to be like a doe's, or big pools of water!

In order to construct a flawless imitation, the first step was to gather as much video data as possible with a web crawler. His ideal targets were fashionable Yoruba girls, with their brightly colored V-neck buba and iro that wrapped around their waists, hair bundled up in gele. Preferably, their videos were taken in their bedrooms with bright, stable lighting, their expressions vivid and exaggerated, so that AI could extract as many still-frame images as possible. The object data set was paired with another set of Amaka’s own face under different lighting, from multiple angles and with alternative expressions, automatically generated by his smartstream. Then, he uploaded both data sets to the cloud and got to work with a hyper-generative adversarial network. A few hours or days later, the result was a DeepMask model. By applying this “mask,” woven from algorithms, to videos, he could become the girl he had created from bits, and to the naked eye, his fake was indistinguishable from the real thing. If his Internet speed allowed, he could also swap faces in real time to spice up the fun. Of course, more fun meant more work. For real-time deception to work, he had to simultaneously translate English or Igbo into Yoruba, and use transVoice to imitate the voice of a Yoruba girl and a lip sync open-source toolkit to generate corresponding lip movement. If the person on the other end of the chat had paid for a high-quality anti-fake detector, however, the app might automatically detect anomalies in the video, marking them with red translucent square warnings

The stench of death and blood hit me hard. In the room's corner, blood had pooled and hardened over parts of the slated wood floor near the bedroom window. There was also blood spattered against the corner walls. The room was sparse, filled with the essentials of an old man. The bed looked slept in. A small painting in an ornate frame hung on the wall above it. It was a print from one of William Turner’s works, an English painter from the early 1980s. It depicted a ship, capsized with its crew in lifeboats struggling against a powerful storm.

Step 3: Keep this image in a place of honor. Take a picture of it to use as wallpaper on your phone, stick it on the fridge, put it up at work, or frame it and put it in your bedroom. Make it accessible so you’ll see it regularly, add to it as things evolve, and don’t worry about the timeline.

Eventually it’s time for bed, so Mack and I walk back to the farmhouse. We don’t say much, but he reaches over to squeeze my hand at one point. I’m not sure why, but I don’t let his go, so we’re holding hands for the rest of the walk back. By the time we reach our pretty guestroom, I’m feeling closer to him than I’ve ever felt to anyone in my entire life. And I’m also holding back tears because it feels so much like I’m about to lose him. He’ll leave in the morning, and I’ll risk my life in this attack. There’s a chance we’ll never see each other again, and even if we do, it won’t be like it’s been in these past two months. Tonight might be our last. Maybe Mack is experiencing something similar. He’s subdued when he finally releases my hand as we stand in our bedroom. They don’t have showers here. They have to pump water manually to fill tubs, and most of the time they use a basin and pitcher of water in rooms to wash up the way they do at New Haven. We get as clean as we can and get ready for bed. I change into a simple knit nightgown while Mack takes off all his clothes. We switch off the lantern on the bedside table and climb into bed. Mack still hasn’t said anything as he pulls me closer and rolls on top. He stares down at me in the dark for a minute before he finally lowers his head so he can kiss me. I kiss him back, wrapping my arms around him and softening my lips. He slides his tongue into my mouth. As our kiss deepens, I move my hands over his body, stroking his smooth scalp, caressing my way down his back, running my fingers over his large frame, his developed muscles, his tight skin. Every part of him is big and strong and solid and warm. Every part of him is perfect for me, exactly what I want to feel under my hands. We kiss for a really long time. His body slowly tenses up, and eventually his erection is poking into me. But he doesn’t rush to the main event. He seems to need this—this intimate, needy kiss—as much as anything else. I need it too. I’m hotly aroused and filled with so much more in my heart when he finally breaks his mouth away, gasping and ducking his head to suck on the pulse in my throat. “Mack!” His name on my lips is a whispered gasp. He makes a guttural sound as he pushes up my nightgown so he can get his mouth on my breasts. He teases and sucks until I’m squirming. I hold on to his head until I can’t take any more. “Mack!” I’m still keeping my voice soft so no one can hear us through the walls. We aren’t in our little cabin right now where it doesn’t matter how loud we get.

The little case opened to make a stand, so when I went up to my bedroom I set the miniature on my dressing table, next to my framed photograph of Papa. Seeing them side by side, I smiled. They belonged together, Papa and Isabella. Isabella. Suddenly it seemed wrong to call her by her first name. She was my mother. “Mama.” As I said it out loud, tears came to my eyes. I’d resisted that word for a long time. It seemed disloyal to Ma and Pa, who’d adopted me when I was just a tiny baby. They had been simple working people, kind and honest and loving, with no money for fripperies like portraits or photographs.

People are more persuaded by positives than by negatives, so frame your argument in a positive way. For example, rather than telling your child to stop making such a mess in their bedroom, ask them to clean up after themselves.

Oh yes. I keep thinking about that night at the Midnight Garden and how brave you were to face me. How sweet you tasted! And right now, I wish it had been me last night who had you alone in a bedroom at my mercy.” Lucien nipped her bottom lip and the spot between her legs ached. “Lucien, I’m always at your mercy.” Horatia brushed her hand through his dark red hair as he teased her further. “And you do have me alone in a bedroom.” “Mmm, I do, don’t I?” He framed her face with his hands and plundered her mouth in a way that left her dazed and throbbing. -Lucien & Horatia

Jon glanced at his bedroom again. Nothing moved within the black rectangle framed by the doors. “Al-Qaeda.” Pike nodded. “Listen, so you know, just because some idiot sells this crap doesn’t mean it’s going to terrorists. All-American morons turn grenades into paperweights, and RPGs into lamps.” “The woman doesn’t care about morons. She’s been trying to contact an FTO.” FTO. Foreign terrorist organization. Jon

Even his initial stirrings of domesticity had some quirks. He bought a proper house in the Los Gatos hills, which he adorned with a Maxfield Parrish painting, a Braun coffeemaker, and Henckels knives. But because he was so obsessive when it came to selecting furnishings, it remained mostly barren, lacking beds or chairs or couches. Instead his bedroom had a mattress in the center, framed pictures of Einstein and Maharaj-ji on the walls, and an Apple II on the floor.

As we pass the mirror in the bedroom, my attention is drawn to the lovely couple in the reflection. There is a man, tall with broad shoulders. His red hair cut short. He has nothing but a towel on. In his arms is a female, slender but muscular. Her wheat colored hair is pulled back in a neat bun on top of her head. Both of their skin is smooth and flawless, a little paler than most, but still complete perfection. You can tell by the way the man holds her, he cares a lot for her. You can also tell that he is afraid of holding her too tight, not wanting to crush her smaller frame into his body. Looking at this young pair in the mirror, one can only wonder of all the possibilities. What led them to this place? What is in store for them? Will there be a happy ending?

Cade stood still in the doorway to the bedroom that had been the source of the only happiness he could remember. The mattress had been gutted by someone looking for hidden wealth. The bed frame and washstand had been used for firewood. The porcelain washbowl and pitcher with their colorful roses and greenery lay shattered on the floor. And Lily's elegant windows had been blasted by a shotgun. Cade was a proud man, and a strong one. Nothing in all his life had ever brought him to his knees, but he was on the verge now. Clinging to the door frame, Cade held himself upright by sheer force of will. Lily's cries of passion still haunted these walls. He could almost hear the sound of a flute as he clung to the wood. He had wanted to give her music and happiness. He had wanted to lay the world at her feet. He had wanted... He had wanted. And this was the result. Everything she had, destroyed. It was a poor return for everything she had given him in those few short months. Cade closed the door and walked away. Lily carried his life with her. He knew it as the soul knows the stars are out of reach. If Lily lived, he would survive. If she did not, he was a walking ghost. He could not return to being the man he had once been. He could not live alone again. He

me. “Well, I know one thing about my twins. They’re not going to be models. I already tried them out for catalogue work. Within the first ten minutes, Orianthe informed me that she doesn’t like to do boring things and that modelling’s boring. And she’s not going to let her brother do boring things either.” I laughed. The cries of the twins pealed down the hallway as they bounded inside and called Jessie’s name. They must have discovered she was home. “Hey, where’s the pup?” I asked Pria. “Can I see him? Jessie said he’s growing big.” Immediately, Pria rolled her eyes and made a low disparaging sound. “I sent Buster out with the dog walker as soon as I knew Kate was coming over with the kids. He’d knock them flying. Wish I’d never bought him, to tell you the truth. After the break-in, I wanted a watchdog, but I should have paid more attention to the breed. He’s damned strong—even though he’s only nine months old. And he snaps. To tell you the truth, I’m a bit scared of the mutt. I’m having a dog trainer try to rein him in, but if that doesn’t work, he’s gone.” “What a shame,” I said. “Jess told me she’d like to walk the dog sometimes, but that’s not sounding good.” “Nope. The only thing I got right about him is his name. Because Buster has busted everything from doors to shoes.” She shook her head, a sorry smile on her face. The sound of the three children playing became too much. Tommy had once run through this house, too. I stayed for a while longer then made an excuse to leave.     29.                 PHOEBE   Tuesday night   STORM CLOUDS PUSHED INTO THE SKY, making the day darken a good hour before the incoming night. The heavy atmosphere pressed down on me. I opened the window of my bedroom upstairs at Nan’s house, letting the chill air stream in. I could only just catch a glimpse of the water from here. An enormous cruise liner dominated the harbour, staining the water red and blue with its lights. Maybe my small step in seeing Pria and Kate earlier had helped my frame of mind, but I didn’t feel it yet. I was back at square one. I began pacing the room, feeling unhinged. Things were all so in between. Dr Moran hadn’t succeeded in jogging my memory about the letters. She’d said she didn’t think it was possible to do all that I’d done in sleepwalking sessions and so the memory should still be in my mind somewhere. True sleepwalkers rarely remembered their dreams. Not remembering any of it was the most disturbing thing of all. It wasn’t the first time I’d forgotten things. With the binge drinking and the trauma of losing Tommy, there were gaps in my memory. But not a fucking chasm. And forgetting the writing of three notes and delivering them was a fucking chasm. Nan called me for dinner, and we ate the pumpkin soup together. I’d tried watching one of her sitcoms with her after that, but I gave up halfway through. I headed back upstairs. Surprisingly, I was tired enough to sleep. I crawled into bed and let myself drift off. I woke just before four thirty in the morning. The temperature had plummeted—I guessed it was below ten degrees. I’d been dreaming. The dream had been of the last day that Sass, Luke, Pria, Kate,

Close your eyes sweetheart.” “Why?” I dragged out the word a bit. Brandon stepped close and placed his lips to my ear, his fingers gently rubbing my swollen stomach. “I have a surprise for you, will you please close them?” I obeyed and he took my hands to lead me to another room, my jaw dropped when I finally opened them. “When did you do this?” I glanced around at our bedroom that was dim, the only light coming from candles, and the huge bouquets of orange lilies. At least another two dozen lilies had the stems cut off and were lying on the bed. He kissed me gently and walked me to the bed, “I made sure you were kept busy for a while. You really thought Bree wouldn’t know where to put the nursery and kitchen items?” He sat me down and bent over, kissing me again. “Thank you Brandon, for everything.” “Harper, I will love you forever, and I promise to take care of you and our kids for the rest of my life.” He leaned over and pulled something out of a nightstand drawer, then dropped to one knee, my mouth popped open and my eyes widened. “Will you please marry me?” Of course tears started streaming down my face as I nodded my head and managed to squeak out, “Yes!” I pulled Brandon’s face to mine and kissed him until I couldn’t think straight anymore. I gasped when he opened the black box and there lay a thick white gold band with three large round diamonds on top. He pulled it out and gently placed it on the ring finger of my left hand. I laughed when the ring instantly fell to one side from the weight of it and pressed my lips to Brandon’s, pulling him onto the bed with me. His large frame curled around my body as he kissed me passionately and slowly made his way to my stomach, which he kissed tenderly and told Gummy Bear that Mommy and Daddy were getting married.

You don’t have to run.” She jumped in surprise and whirled around, her face ashen. “How did you get in?” “The key under the flowerpot,” he said. “Same place I always kept mine. Pretty unimaginative. And pretty rare, this door locking in Virgin River. Abby, it’s too late for you to run.” She lifted her chin, but her eyes were moist. She put a protective hand over her tummy. He stepped into the bedroom doorway. “What are you so afraid of, Abby? You think I’d do something to hurt you? You know better than that. If I meant to hurt you, I had a perfect opportunity in Oregon.” “Cameron, look, this is real complicated, and I can’t let it get more complicated. Please.” He shrugged and put his hands in his pockets. He leaned against the door frame. “Catch me up a little—tell me why you’d be so damn afraid of me making your life more complicated. And stop packing, for God’s sake. I’m not the enemy.” She

You—Miss Elizabeth, you are not properly attired to be addressing a gentleman in the dark of the night!” She cocked an eyebrow, letting her frame fall carelessly against the door. “So you say, but you are still here. By this I accept your admission that you must not be a gentleman, Mr Collins. Am I to report, sir, that you would harass young ladies in their own bedrooms, in their own homes, in the middle of the night? Terribly shocking, Mr Collins. Lady Catherine would be most seriously displeased!” He gulped, his fingers spasmodically moving to cover his eyes one moment and afford him a better view the next. He knew he ought to turn and flee to his room, but he could not tear himself away. “Miss Elizabeth Bennet, I shall speak to your mother about your serious lack of modesty!” “Oh, do, please.” A sardonic smile tugged her lips. “I am quite certain she and all her friends will enjoy hearing how the clergyman of Hunsford came by such knowledge.

I presume this is part of your erotic art collection?" she mused out loud. "It is most beautifully done; only look at the masterful brushwork and the lush, luminous colors. Curiously enough, it reminds me of Boucher, though I suppose it was done by a less well-known artist." He lifted a brow. "I am impressed, madam, since Boucher is exactly who painted the work. You do indeed know your art. The provenance says he did this painting as a private commission for a wealthy, anonymous patron. I acquired it at an equally private auction a few years ago and have enjoyed viewing it ever since." "Well, if this painting is representative of your collection, I would guess that all the works must have scandalous, clandestine origins due to the lurid nature of the subject matter." "Actually, this is one of the less provocative pieces," he informed her. "The majority of my collection is housed in a separate gallery devoted strictly to erotic art and literature. A couple of the maids won't even go inside to clean." Esme turned her gaze on him. "Is it really that bad?" "Or that good, depending on your point of view." He grinned. "I'll show it to you sometime, if you'd like. After all, you are an art lover. Come to think, perhaps I should frame the naked sketch you did of me and add it to the collection. Or would you prefer to keep it and hang it on your bedroom wall?" "I believe I will leave it exactly where it is, else the entire house know what you look like without clothing. Although knowing you, you'd likely be as proud as Bacchus here and every bit as shameless." His grin widened. "Yes, but only because certain parts of me actually do rival the gods.

Tessa emerges from the bedroom in my shirt and shorts, and I don’t think I’ve seen anything sexier in my entire life. Her all dressed up is absolutely stunning, but her like this? Seeing her small frame being swallowed by my clothes, does something to me, and I feel my cock twitch in my dress pants. Anything Tessa does makes me want to ravish her. I can’t seem to control it.

Did they talk about me during their phone calls? Had he told her how I’d fucked him at the gym on Saturday? My frame tensed, my hands fisting. My feelings for Foster were a jumbled mess, but when it came to Vivienne, one emotion rang clear. Fury. “I’m done with this conversation.” “There’s more to talk⁠—” “Good night.” With that, I walked through the living room and up the stairs to my bedroom. And left Foster to show himself out.

The new place he’d live would have tall wide windows to let in so much light. The walls would be bare, not cluttered with frames, and it would be so clean inside. He would pick a place close to a grocery store so he could go shopping every day after classes. He would keep ferns of course, but would also have vases of flowers and bowls of fruit and the whole house would smell like their ripening. He would take one painting of his mom, just one so it had more meaning. His bedroom would be the biggest room in the house. Even if he had to share it with the kitchen or put his bed in the living room. He’d have a mattress big enough to make snow angels.

that a person’s bedroom gives three kinds of clues to his or her personality. There are, first of all, identity claims, which are deliberate expressions about how we would like to be seen by the world: a framed copy of a magna cum laude degree from Harvard, for example. Then there is behavioral residue, which is defined as the inadvertent clues we leave behind: dirty laundry on the floor, for instance, or an alphabetized CD collection. Finally, there are thoughts and feelings regulators, which are changes we make to our most personal spaces to affect the way we feel when we inhabit them: a scented candle in the corner, for example, or a pile of artfully placed decorative pillows on the bed.

My family’s house is going up in flames like a tinderbox. Everything is burning—the pictures of my great-grandparents in their dusty frames. The posters on my bedroom walls. My mother’s piano. I never could have let this happen if my father were still alive—it would have killed him. But like Yenin, I’m willing to lose something I love to get my revenge. I sacrificed a piece that had great value to me to lure him out of his car.

I remember one of the last things Mother said to us, one of the very last things. In my mind, it has become the last thing, and maybe it was. She was lying on the cedar frame bed in the back bed-room in the early summer, with the bed moved over right against the window. The window was open to let the breeze and birdsong and sunlight in, the light rushing in through the lace curtains. She had lost a lot of weight and had had a hard time, but was never more beautiful in the way that there can be nothing more beautiful than dignity. "I've seen a lot," she said, and smiled, and it was not an act for us, it was not a thing said for our benefit. She was just saying it, and smiling. She was just brave, was all.

see,” she said. I noticed her looking around the room. Her eyes quickly went over the rustic wood paneling and expensive artwork by artists with names I couldn’t pronounce. Bethany bought them because she thought they were cool. If push came to shove, they would be the first things I put up for auction to raise money. I hated the damn things. “I don’t see any pictures of your daughter,” she said, letting her eyes settle on me with a frown. I looked around the room. She was right. There was not a single framed picture of my daughter. In fact, there were no personal photos at all. None in the den, none in my office, and none in my bedroom. There had once been lots of pictures of Bethany and me at various stages of our relationship. I had thrown them in the trash long ago, expensive frames and all.

I lie splayed out on the bed, staring numbly at the world's most beautiful bedroom. I've been given the Duchess Suite, a relic from the days when husbands and wives slept in separate rooms. The bedroom's damask walls are painted robin's-egg blue, the same shade as Tiffany's famous little boxes, with matching curtains framing the French windows. The ceiling above my bed is gilded in a mosaic pattern, and impressionist paintings grace the walls. Delicate white-and-gold furniture softens the room's edges, and the freshly cut peonies in a vase on my bedside table lend the air a sweet smell.

Our Dutch hostess—or rather, the woman we are hoping will host us once we show up on her doorstep—is known to everyone but me. And though I had been warned about Johanna Hoffman’s friendliness and large dogs, there is no way to be truly prepared for either. When the door to her canal house opens, three dogs that look as though they each weigh more than I do spill out, followed by a plump, bright-faced woman in a pink dress that matches the bows around each dog’s neck. When she sees Felicity, she screams. In spite of not having anything in her hands, I swear she somehow still drops a vase. She throws her arms around Felicity, squeezing her so hard she nearly lifts her off the ground. “Felicity Montague, I thought you were dead!” “Not dead,” Felicity says. One of the dogs tries to wedge itself between the two of them, tail wagging so furiously it makes a thumping drumbeat against the door frame. A second snuffles its nose against my palm, trying to flip my hand onto the top of its head in an encouragement to pet. “It’s been years. Years, Felicity, I haven’t heard from you in years.” She takes Felicity’s face in her hands and presses their foreheads together. “Hardly a word since you left! What on earth are you doing here? I can’t believe it!” She releases Felicity just long enough to turn to Monty and throw open her arms to him. “And Harold!” “Henry,” he corrects, the end coming out in a wheeze as she wraps him in a rib-crushing hug. The dog gives up nudging my hand and instead mashes its face into my thigh, leaving a trail of spittle on my trousers. “Of course, Henry!” She lets go of him, turns to me, and says with just as much enthusiasm, “And I don’t know who you are!” And then I too am being hugged. She smells of honey and lavender, which makes the embrace feel like being wrapped in a loaf of warm bread. “This is Adrian,” Felicity says. “Adrian!” Johanna cries. One of the dogs lets out a long woof in harmony and the others take up the call, an off-key, enthusiastic chorus. She releases me, then turns to Felicity again, but Felicity holds up a preemptive hand. “All right, that’s enough. No more hugs.” She brushes an astonishing amount of dog hair off the front of her skirt, then says brusquely, “It’s good to see you, Johanna.” In return, Johanna smacks her on the shoulder. “You tell me you’re going to Rabat with some scholar and then you never come back and I never hear a single word! Why didn’t you write? Come inside, come on, push the dogs out the way, they won’t bite.” As we follow her into the hallway and then the parlor, she’s speaking so fast I can hardly understand her. “Where are you staying? Wherever it is, cancel it; let me put you up here. Was your luggage sent somewhere? I can have one of my staff collect it. We have plenty of room, and I can make up the parlor for you, Harry—” “Henry,” Monty corrects, then corrects himself. “Monty, Jo, I’ve told you to call me Monty.” She waves that away. “I know but it always feels so terribly glib! You were nearly a lord! But I’m happy to set you up down here so you needn’t navigate the stairs on your leg—gosh, what have you done to it? Your lovely Percy isn’t here, is he? Though we’ll have to do something so the dogs don’t jump on you in the night. They usually sleep with Jan and me, but they get squirrely when we have company. One of Jan’s brokers from Antwerp stayed with us last week and he swears he locked the bedroom door, but somehow Seymour still jumped on top of him in the middle of the night. Poor man thought he was being murdered in his bed. Please sit down—the dogs will move if you crowd them.

She left her mother in the living room and headed for her childhood bedroom, with its canopy bed and pink ruffles. Most kids had posters in their rooms, but Mom hadn’t allowed tacks to be stuck into her expensive wallpaper, so Frankie had framed art on her walls. A row of old stuffed animals sat along the top of her bookshelf. A pink ballerina jewelry box on the bedside table held junior and high school trinkets, probably a stack of senior pictures and prom memorabilia. You knew what was expected of a girl who slept in a room like this.

Like the upstairs living area, its windows were open to the brutal world beyond—no glass, no shutters—and sheer amethyst curtains fluttered in that unnatural, soft breeze. The large bed was a creamy white-and-ivory concoction, with pillows and blankets and throws for days, made more inviting by the twin golden lamps beside it. An armoire and dressing table occupied a wall, framed by those glass-less windows. Across the room, a chamber with a porcelain sink and toilet lay behind an arched wooden door, but the bath … The bath. Occupying the other half of the bedroom, my bathtub was actually a pool, hanging right off the mountain itself. A pool for soaking or enjoying myself. Its far edge seemed to disappear into nothing, the water flowing silently off the side and into the night beyond. A narrow ledge on the adjacent wall was lined with fat, guttering candles whose glow gilded the dark, glassy surface and wafting tendrils of steam. Open, airy, plush, and … calm. This room was fit for an empress. With the marble floors, silks, velvets, and elegant details, only an empress could have afforded it.

Ronan’s bedroom door burst open. Hanging on the door frame, Ronan leaned out to peer past Gansey. He was doing that thing where he looked like both the dangerous Ronan he was now and the cheerier Ronan he had been when Gansey had first met him. “Is Noah out here?” “Hold on,” Gansey told Adam. Then, to Ronan: “Why would he be?” “No reason. Just no reason.” Ronan slammed his door. Gansey asked Adam, “Sorry. You still have that suit for the party?” Adam’s response was buried in the sound of the second-story door falling open. Noah slouched in. In a wounded tone, he said, “He threw me out the window!” Ronan’s voice sang out from behind his closed door: “You’re already dead!

Marina Gregg received Craddock in a room on the first floor, which was obviously her own private sitting room opening out of her bedroom. After the accounts of her prostration and her nervous state, Dermot Craddock had expected to find a fluttering invalid. But although Marina was half reclining on a sofa her voice was vigorous and her eyes were bright. She had very little makeup on, but in spite of this she did not look her age, and he was struck very forcibly by the subdued radiance of her beauty. It was the exquisite line of cheek and jawbone, the way the hair fell loosely and naturally to frame her face. The long sea-green eyes, the pencilled eyebrows, owing something to art but more to nature, and the warmth and sweetness of her smile, all had a subtle magic.

He missed her again, or still missed her, right now. That was the good feeling, wanting to be with her, wanting to touch her. He had said to her it was like starting over. Or like coming home after a long business trip. Last night, undressing together in the bedroom had reminded him of that, of coming home and going up to the bedroom, no matter what time of the day it was, and making love, not doing much fooling around but getting right in there and doing it, feeling the sweat breaking out on their bodies. There were other times for fooling around and being naked together and making it last. Though she didn’t have to be naked to arouse him. She could sit down in a chair, holding her skirt to her thigh as she crossed her legs, and he would want to make love to her. She could be sewing a button on his coat and look up at him, over the top of her reading glasses, and he would want to make love to her: undress her in the stillness of a Sunday afternoon with sunlight framed in the bedroom windows and the phone pulled out of the jack and make slow love to her, feeling her make her gradual change from lady to woman. Dressed, she was a lady. In bed she was a woman.

My room was... a dream. ... Like the upstairs living area, its windows were open to the brutal world beyond- no glass, no shutters- and sheer amethyst curtains fluttered in that unnatural soft breeze. The large bed was a creamy white-and-ivory concoction, with pillows and blankets and throws for days, made more inviting by the twin golden lamps beside it. An armoire and dressing table occupied a wall, framed by those glass-less windows. Across the room, a chamber with a porcelain sink and toilet lay behind an arched wooden door, but the bath... The bath. Occupying the other half of the bedroom, my bathtub was actually a pool, hanging right off the mountain itself. A pool for soaking and or enjoying myself. Its far edge seemed to disappear into nothing, the water flowing silently off the side and into the night beyond. A narrow ledge on the adjacent wall was lined with fat, guttering candles whose glow gilded the dark, glassy surface and wafting tendrils of steam. Open, airy, plush, and... calm. The room was fit for an empress. With the marble floors, silks, velvets, and elegant details, only an empress could have afforded it. I tried not to think what Rhys' chamber was like, if this was how he treated his guests. Guest- not prisoner. Well... the room proved it.

Jack is right. Besides, we have no choice. We rush back to the front door. The giants must have left it open when they came outside. They are really bad with safety. It’s like they’re asking for us to rob them! In the kitchen, I listen for goose sounds, but then realize I have no idea what sounds a goose makes. Like a duck? I definitely don’t hear quacking. Or anything, really. “Let’s try the bedroom,” Jack suggests. We go down the hallway and sneak into the giants’ bedroom. They have an enormous bed the size of an Olympic swimming pool. Above the bed is a huge photograph in a gold frame of Magnus and

No! Not the ice cream stand, with its little item frames featuring all eight flavors! Not that! Anything but that! Ransack my bedroom, fine! Blow up our fountain, okay! Just don’t touch that cute little hut made out of fence and blocks of wood! With it gone, I’d no longer be able to enjoy diamond ore chunk, with its perfect texture, its fantastic consistency, and a blend of flavors so utterly amazing it should count as enchanted food! How could they destroy that?! How could they?! They might be monsters, but even they have limits, right? Even they should know where to draw the line!

My father slept here for years, letting us have the bedroom. That bed in there... I was born in that bed. My mother died in that bed. I hate that bed.' She ran a hand over the cracking wood of the cot's frame. Splinters snagged at her fingertips. 'But I hate this cot even more. He'd drag it in front of the fire every night and curl up there, huddling under the blankets. I always thought he looked so... so weak. Like a cowering animal. It enraged me. 'Does it enrage you now?' A casual, but careful question. 'It...' Her throat worked. 'I thought him sleeping here was a fitting punishment while we got the bed. It never occurred to me that he wanted us to have the bed, to keep warm and be as comfortable as we could. That we'd only been able to take a few items of furniture from our former home and he'd chosen the bed as one of them. For our comfort. So we didn't have to sleep on cots, or on the floor.' She rubbed at her chest. 'I wouldn't even let him sleep in the bed when the debtors shattered his leg. I was so lost in my grief and rage and... and sorrow, that I wanted him to feel a fraction of what I did.' Her stomach churned. He squeezed her shoulder, but said nothing. 'He had to have known that,' she said hoarsely. 'He had to have known how awful I was, and yet... he never yelled. That enraged me, too. And then he named a ship after me. Sailed it into battle. I just... I can't understand why.' 'You were his daughter.' 'And that's an explanation?' She scanned his face, the sadness etched there. Sadness- for her. For the ache in her chest and the stinging in her eyes. 'Love is complicated.

You think you know me me, my daughter-in-law, but you don't. For instance, I bet you don't know I'm a space traveler. But I am. And I do. In my mind, I travel through time and space in ways you cannot even dream of - from Ohio to Bombay to Ohio again; from the land of the living to the land of the dead, where my Rustom resides; from my wallpapered bedroom in this house, to my painted bedroom in Bombay, of which I know every inch - where the embroidered handkerchiefs are kept in the bottom drawer of the chest of drawers, what books are on the bedside table; the color of the frame that holds the painted picture of Lord Zoroaster that Rustom got me for my fiftieth birthday. Yes, I may be older than you, Susan, and my knees my creak when I got up in the morning, but I can run faster and fly higher than you will ever know.

Ashley sat in the bar of the boutique hotel, admiring the gorgeous tiled light fixtures hanging from the high ceiling above, the colorful Mexican plates displayed on shelves, the framed chalkboard on the wall indicating live music later that night. Being in Tulum made her feel so far away from her five-bedroom mid-century modern house in Santa Monica, with its floor-to-ceiling windows facing west, and sleek but slightly uncomfortable gray furniture. With its closets full of more shoes than she could ever wear—the garage boasting designer cars and every toy and gadget her two daughters could ever want—its backyard home to a pool and hot tub she hadn’t so much as dipped a toe in for months.

He was standing in front of Daniel’s dresser, holding our drinks as he looked at the photos shoved in the mirror frame. “You guys really have been friends a long time.” He pointed the beer bottle at one. “What are you there? Six?” “About that.” He grinned. “I like the pigtails.” He leaned in to look at a few others. Someone yelled something downstairs, and I said, “Come on,” suddenly realizing I really didn’t want to be found with Rafe in Daniel’s bedroom, however innocent the explanation. Rafe took his time, still checking out the room. He gestured at a pile of textbooks on the floor. “What’s he use those for? Weight lifting?” “If you showed up in class more often, you wouldn’t be asking that. Daniel’s not a dumb jock.” “No kidding.” He leaned over to read the titles. “Pre-law? Please tell me those belong to his older brothers.” “An uncle. They’re Daniel’s now. A little outdated but…” I shrugged. He looked at me like he thought I was kidding.

They pulled up to 195 Madison Street - a tall narrow six-story redbrick and limestone-trimmed tenement house indistinguishable from all the tenement houses on all the other streets of tenements. The bars and ladders of a fire escape ran up the left side of the building; sooty stone scrolls, shields, and flowers framed the second- and third-story windows. This was the place where they had to live? Two blocks from the commercial madness of East Broadway; two blocks from the filthy snout of the East River, smelling of fish, ships, and garbage; three blocks from the brain-rattling racket of the elevated train; three blocks from the playground of the Henry Street Settlement; practically in the shadow of the construction side of the twin-towered Manhattan Bridge. Every three blocks they passed more people than the entire population of Rakov. Half a million Jews packed the one and a half square miles of the Lower East Side in 1909; 702 people per acre in the densest acres. It was one of the most crowded places on earth, and all of them seemed to be swarming outdoors on the June afternoon that Gishe Sore and her family arrived. Aside from the crisscross steel girders of the Manhattan Bridge at the end of the street, it was all tenement houses as far as she could see. Tenements and bodies. In every room of every building, bodies fought for a ray of light and a sip of air. Bodies slept four to a bed and on two chairs pushed together; bodies sat hunched over sewing machines in parlors and sunless back bedrooms and at kitchen tables heaped with cloth and thread; bodies ate, slept, woke, and cleared out for the next shift of bodies to cycle through. Toilets in the hall or in courtyard outhouses; windows opening, if they opened at all, onto fetid air shafts; no privacy; no escape from the racket and smell of neighbors; no relief from summer heat or blasting winter furnaces. This was the place her American children had brought them to live?

(Home) ‘This land is beautiful, but the people are horrible.’ The people took this beautiful land and raped it, and put up a bunch of ugly boxes, however, my home is in the Victorian-style and it is old and has a handcrafted personality. There is an ancient oak tree outside my window, sometimes I step out my window then onto the roof of the porch, and sit in the tree branch that hangs over, and watches all the stars as they appear to turn on and off. Yes, I have wished upon a shooting star, that things will change, and that the towers will be no more. Looking straight ahead, I can see all the lights that go on the horizon, some days the sunsets are blazing before the lights turn on. Then there are some days that the window is shut because it is cold windy while everything is chilled with the color of blue. (Frame of mind) My mood can change just like this and that it seems. Yes, just like all the summer turns into winter, and the winters turn into spring, and all of these thoughts running in my mind fall like the leaves through my brain, and they most likely do not mean a thing. I guess you could blame it on my ADD, ADHD, dyslexia, bipolar disorder, or OCD. I do not have any of these… I do not have anything wrong with me. But, if you are like one of the sisters or someone from my school, you would say my mood changes are because of my- STD’s, HIV, or being as they say GAY or BI, and LEZ-BO. They have also said, I am a pedophile and a child stocker, and I get moody if I do not get some from them. That is why I am so sober at times, or so they say. Whatever…! They also have said that I am a schizophrenic- psycho and that I could not even buy love. I would not try that anyways. I think that having money does not give you happiness; I am okay being a humble farm- girl, the guy that finds me… needs to be happy with that also. I am sure there are more things they say. However, those are just some of them that I can dredge up as of now, off the top of my head. They have murdered me and my life, in so many ways. So now, do you wonder as to why I am afraid of talking to people or even looking at them? You know you and they can try to destroy me, and my life. However, I do not have any of those listed either; none of these random arrangements of letters defines me as the person I truly am. (Sight) Looking out the windows, I can see the golden hayfields of ecstasy, I see the windmills that twist and tumble. I can see the abandoned railroad track that lies not far from my home. I can hear the cries of the swing as the wind gusts in spurts. But yet I am still in my room, but that is just okay with me. Because I know that there will someday soon be someone there for me. (Household) My room is a land of peace and tranquility without all the gloom, with a bed and a canopy overhead but still, I am not truly happy? There is nothing- like the sounds of the crickets speaking up often in the cool August night breeze. It is relaxing to me, however; it is a reminder to me of how the last glimmers of summer are ending. Besides the sounds slowly fade away, yes- I can hear this music from my bedroom window. It is just like in the spring the birds sing in the morning and leave in the cool gusts to come. It is just like the hummingbirds that flutter by, and then before I know it, all has changed; so, it seems by the time I walk out my bedroom door, to start my day. ‘Life goes in cycles of tunes it seems, and nature is its synchronization in its symphony you just have to listen.

Max had left a week’s supply of foul-smelling dog food and two pages of instructions about doggie daycare. Neve had expected advice about dog-walking, worming tablets and the vet’s emergency phone number, but it turned out that Max had a very dim view of her dog-sitting abilities: • Do NOT let him in your bedroom. • It also goes without saying that he is NOT to sleep on your bed. • Do NOT let him in the bathroom. He’ll try to drink out of the toilet bowl. • Do NOT feed him at the table. He eats dog food not human food. • And do NOT give him chocolate. I’m serious. Human chocolate can make dogs very ill. Have left a bag of liver treats instead. • He doesn’t like old men, especially if they have walking sticks or zimmer frames. • He doesn’t like balloons, carrier bags or kites. • Also avoid small children. • A small child trying to fly a kite, while holding a balloon and a carrier bag in their other hand would just about finish him off. By the time Neve went to bed that night, Keith had stayed in the bathroom while she had a shower (and tried to get in the cubicle to drink the water), because he’d barked and scrabbled at the door so hard, she’d feared for her paintwork. He’d also had a piece of steamed haddock from her plate because she hadn’t been able to eat dinner without his nose in her crotch and his paw prodding her leg until she fed him. Neve had secretly suspected that Keith wouldn’t have so many emotional issuesif Max refused to indulge him, but it turned out that she was the softest of soft touches, unable to wield any sort of discipline or say, ‘No, Keith, you have to sleep in the lounge,’ in an authoritative voice. She’d lasted five minutes until the sound of Keith whimpering and howling and generally giving the impression that he was being tortured had forced her into the living room to pick up his bed, and his toys and his water bowl. But if he had to sleep in her room, then he could do it in his own bed, Neve reasoned as she sat up, eyes fixed on Keith. Every time she took her gaze off him and tried to read, he’d dive out of his bed and start advancing towards her. ‘Back to your basket, you wicked boy,’ she’d say and he’d slink away, eyes downcast, only to be given away by the joyous wag of his stumpy tale, as if it was the best gameever. It was inevitable – as soon as Neve turned out the light, there was a scrabble of claws on the wooden floor, then a dead weight landed on her feet. ‘Bad dog,’ she snapped, but they could both tell her heart wasn’t in it. Besides, if Keith stayed at the bottom of the bed, he could double up as a hot-water bottle. Keith had other ideas. He wriggled up the bed on his belly as if he was being stealthy and settled down next to Neve, batting his paws against her back until she was shoved right over and he could put his head on her pillow and pant hot doggy breath against her face. ‘Celia was right,’ Neve grumbled. ‘You are a devil dog.

The boy lay still on his deflated Lilo, listening to Dad and Auntie Flip talking in the living room. After a few minutes, Frank’s bedroom door opened a little, and Dad peered in. The boy shut his eyes tight in a pantomime of sleep. “I’m sorry, mate,” whispered Dad, “but I have no choice. I have to do this. For both of us.” Frank opened one eye the tiniest bit. He saw his dad framed in the doorway. It was something Frank thought he’d never see again: his father had his old racing gear on.

STATE BIRD Confession: I did not want to live here, not among the goldenrod, wild onions, or the dropseed, not waist-high in the barrel- aged brown corn water, not with the million- dollar racehorses, nor the tightly wound round hay bales. Not even in the old tobacco weigh station we live in, with its heavy metal safe doors that frame our bricked bedroom like the mouth of a strange beast yawning to suck us in, each night, like air. I denied it, this new land. But love, I’ll concede this: whatever state you are, I’ll be that state’s bird, the loud, obvious blur of song people point to when they wonder where it is you’ve gone.

Back in Nina’s large Spartan bedroom, the three of them plunked their sore, beat-up frames into the same seats they’d chosen before the madness.

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Once upstairs, Regina unlocked the bedroom door and stepped aside. Bas’s room was what I imagined my high school bullies went home to every night. A shelf with trophies. A row of autographed pictures of famous athletes on the wall. A framed news story about a high school football team, presumably his, winning a state championship. A TV positioned so that he could play video games from his bed. Dirty clothes scattered on the floor, mostly T-shirts and shorts. In one corner, there was an altar built out of human bones, topped with a glowing skull that was floating two inches from its stone base, slowing spinning in circles. I said, “Anything jump out at you?” “I’m going to go check around the altar.

The room is full of color. Clothing strewn here and there, art, and posters. On the corner of a desk, a framed photograph. A girl my age leans into another girl, her hip cocked, arm slung over her friend’s shoulders. They are both smiling as though they’ve just shared a secret. One of the girls is clearly the one from the family portrait in the hall, but older here, with her friend. They wear ripped jeans. One of them has on a midriff-revealing tank top, the other what I think is a band or movie T-shirt, though I don’t recognize the name. Again, like the magazines, the sense that there is so much more color to these girls, to their lives, than my own. I turn my attention to the rest of the desk. Cluttered with rainbow pens, coins, to-do lists, jotted-down notes on scraps of paper, highlighters, stickers. A University of Wisconsin red hoodie draped over the chair. Photographs, drawings, ripped homework pages, clothes, and more variations of lip gloss than I would have thought existed. This is the bedroom of a teenage girl. Mine is that of a child. There are no crosses in this room. There’s no framed painting of Jesus, no stuffed animals or Bible.

some forget they were in a wall in a bedroom or a kitchen or a bathroom some in a ceiling some forget they sat behind photo frames for years a few stones [forget] they were stones those hit by the bomb

stones of house after explosion get amnesia some forget they were in a wall in a bedroom or a kitchen or a bathroom some in a ceiling some forget they sat behind photo frames for years a few stones [forget] they were stones those hit by the bomb

She brought him a framed photo of her sitting on his lap at her table. ‘So you have a picture of us.’ Cary already had their picture from college – when he was just out of boot camp – shoved into the frame of his bedroom mirror.

My brother did a report in school on the Harlem Hellfighters.” “He must have attended a Negro school.” “He did. For months, everything he talked about and did was related to your unit.” Catau still had the unit’s insignia framed on his bedroom wall. Grant released a grunt. “He was so proud of you all. We all were. Are,” she corrected. And she knew he knew that when she said ‘we’ she meant all of colored America and not just her family. Behold the weight and glory of being a Negro in America. There was no such thing as being singular. You carried every colored man or woman’s pain and shame. But you also wallowed in their success.

handle.” 60 At this particular intersection of Detroit music, many different styles and genres of music were being mixed, but the introduction of Atkins’ “secret weapon,” live beat-making on the TR-808, extended the modality of turntablism even further—perhaps too far. “All those so-called snob parties, playing for all those kids and organizations—for us was dress rehearsal,” May said of the future-shocked youth scene. With an outsider's vantage point, and having learned to mix records from Atkins, May framed the bedroom studio productions that Atkins had been working on since he was

I’m going to visit you every day. And then someday, when they find a way to reverse your condition scientifically, medically, we’ll buy some land with wonderful trees and build treehouses in every one of them. And we could have a bunch of kids, and read plays together, as a family, and on clear nights, we’ll look at the stars. Can you picture it? And if you decide you don’t want kids, Totally okay, totally fine. We’ll read every book and watch every show and sleep in and travel and make money and art and love all the time, whenever we want. Or we could adopt a couple big dogs. You’ve always wanted big dogs, right?” Lewis stared at her blankly as his tail swished in the surf behind him. “Why aren’t you saying anything? Please say something,” Wren begged, clutching him harder. “I’m not the person I used to be. I’m not the man you married.” “What do you mean?” Lewis wished he could embrace her back, wrap two human arms around her small, shivering frame. He tried to do the best he could with words: “It’s like standing in my childhood bedroom, looking around at the comic books, action figures, and school yearbooks with signatures from all the girls, and remembering how that tiny room used to be my only stake in the world. I don’t know how else to explain it. There are things I cannot unsee.

Here are some examples of things you can do: show up at their doorstep, drop off dinner, help them clean up their apartment, fill their fridge with healthy food, walk into their bedroom and pull the shades open and lift up the windows to let the air in, do their laundry, make a playlist of great songs, send them podcast episodes that will help give them hope, send them care packages filled with thoughtful and nurturing things, or buy them a digital picture frame and load up photos so in their environment they are constantly reminded of happy memories and people around them.