Blur Smile Quotes

Laugh, even when you feel too sick or too worn out or tired. Smile, even when you're trying not to cry and the tears are blurring your vision. Sing, even when people stare at you and tell you your voice is crappy. Trust, even when your heart begs you not to. Twirl, even when your mind makes no sense of what you see. Frolick, even when you are made fun of. Kiss, even when others are watching. Sleep, even when you're afraid of what the dreams might bring. Run, even when it feels like you can't run any more. And, always, remember, even when the memories pinch your heart. Because the pain of all your experience is what makes you the person you are now. And without your experience---you are an empty page, a blank notebook, a missing lyric. What makes you brave is your willingness to live through your terrible life and hold your head up high the next day. So don't live life in fear. Because you are stronger now, after all the crap has happened, than you ever were back before it started.

One foot in front of the other, counting tiles on the floor so I don't have to focus the blur of painted smiles, fake faces.

Why am I so drawn to you?" He muttered, almost to himself. "Why is it so hard to let go? I thought... at first... it was Ariella, that you remind me of so much. But it's not." Though he didn't smile, his eyes lightened a shade. "You're far more stubborn than she ever was." I sniffed. "That's like the pot calling the kettle black," I whispered, and a faint, tiny grin finally crossed his face, before his expression clouded and he lowered his head, touching his forehead to mine. "What do you want of me, Meghan?" he asked, a low thread of anguish flickering below the surface. Tears blurred my vision, all the fear and heartache of the past few days rising to the surface. "Just you," I whispered. "I just want you." -Ash and Meghan

I can pick up the city feeds on my antenna. It said they were going to change you all. Turn you into something less dangerous. Are you still...?" She gazed at him. "What do you think, David?" He peered into her eyes for a long moment, then sighed and shook his head. "You just look like Tally to me." She looked down, her vision blurring. What's the matter?" Nothing, David." She shook her head. "You just took on five million years of evolution again." I what? Did I say something wrong?" No." She smiled. "You said something right.

How long have you done it?” “Since the second day of B and G. The first day was a bit of a blur. I’ve always meant to compile some stats. Sorry. Saying it aloud sounds insane.” “I wish I’d thought of doing it, if it makes you feel better. I’m equally insane.” “You cracked the shirt code pretty quick.” “Why do you even wear them in sequence?” “I wanted to see if you noticed. And once you did notice, it pissed you off.” “I’ve always noticed.” “Yeah, I know.” He smiles, and I smile too. 

exhilaration fizzed through Clarke’s body. Before she realised what she was doing, she had thrown her arms around Bellamy. He joined in her laughter as he staggered backward, and wrapped his arms around her waist, lifting her up and spinning her through the air. The colours of the clearing swirled, green and gold and blue all blurring until there was nothing in the world but Bellamy’s smile, lighting up his eyes. Finally he set her down gently on the ground. Be he didn’t loosen his grip. Instead he pulled her even closer, and before Clarke had time to catch her breath, his lips were on hers. A voice in her brain told her stop, but it was overpowered by the smell of his skin and the pressure of his touch. Clarke felt like she was melting into his arms, losing herself in the kiss. He tasted like joy, and joy tasted better on Earth.

When I pointed to him his palms slipped slightly, leaving greasy sweat streaks on the wall, and he hooked his thumbs in his belt. A strange spasm shook him, as if he heard fingernails scrape slate, but as I gazed at him in wonder the tension slowly drained from his face. His lips parted into a timid smile, and our neighbor’s image blurred with my sudden tears. “Hey, Boo,” I said. “Mr. Arthur, honey,” said Atticus, gently correcting me. “Jean Louise, this is Mr. Arthur Radley. I believe he already knows you.

Things always appear clear and simple from behind glass. It is in the thick of tribulations that blurring details arise, complicating my life. You can't rightly judge me, nor can you assist, from a shielded viewpoint.

There is no such thing as originality. It has all been said before, suffered before. If a person knows that, is it any wonder love becomes mechanical and death just a scene to be shunned? There is no absolute knowledge to be gained from either. Just another ride on the merry-go-round, another blurred scene of faces smiling and faces grieved.

I was following a phantom in my mind, whose shadowy form had taken shape at last. Her features were blurred, her coloring indistinct, the setting of her eyes and the texture of her hair was still uncertain, still to be revealed. She had beauty that endured, and a smile that was not forgotten. Somewhere her voice still lingered, and the memory of her words.

Hold on to me!” Tedros yelled, hacking briars with his training sword.Dazed, Agatha clung to his chest as he withstood thorn lashes with moans of pain. Soon he had the upper hand and pulled Agatha from the Woods towards the spiked gates, which glowed in recognition and pulled apart, cleaving a narrow path for the two Evers. As the gates speared shut behind them,Agatha looked up at limping Tedros, crisscrossed with bloody scratches, blue shirt shredded away. “Had a feeling Sophie was getting in through the Woods,” he panted, hauling her up into slashed arms before she could protest. “So Professor Dovey gave me permission to take some fairies and stakeout the outer gates. Should have known you’d be here trying to catch her yourself.” Agatha gaped at him dumbly. “Stupid idea for a princess to take on witches alone,” Tedros said, dripping sweat on her pink dress. “Where is she?” Agatha croaked. “Is she safe?” “Not a good idea for princesses to worry about witches either,” Tedros said, hands gripping her waist. Her stomach exploded with butterflies. “Put me down,” she sputtered— “More bad ideas from the princess.” “Put me down!”Tedros obeyed and Agatha pulled away. “I’m not a princess!” she snapped, fixing her collar. “If you say so,” the prince said, eyes drifting downward.Agatha followed them to her gashed legs, waterfalls of brilliant blood. She saw blood blurring— Tedros smiled. “One . . . two . . . three . . .”She fainted in his arms. “Definitely a princess,” he said.

It occurs to me how close happiness and sadness are. So closely knitted together. Such a thin line, a thread-like divide that in the midst of emotions, it trembles, blurring the territory of exact opposites ... how quickly a moment of love was snapped away to a moment of hate ... Of how love and war stand upon the very same foundations. How, in my darkest moments, my most fearful times, when faced, became my bravest. When feeling at your weakest you end up showing more strength, when at your lowest are suddenly lifted above higher than you've ever been. They all border one another, the opposites, and how we can be altered. Despair can be altered by one simple smile offered by a stranger; confidence can become fear by the arrival of one uneasy presence. ... How similar emotions are.

He sang “I wish I weren’t me” over and over again just flat of the key of love until he forgot the words and could only hum along. Everyday was the same. The same stupid smile on the same stupid boy. Until the days blurred into a haze and the boy dropped into a depression. Not a cool dark room and cigarette depression like the songs he loved, but one that felt like he was being smothered by a safe, suburban, monotonous blanket. Everything felt like a headache to the boy. Every face, every stupid stuttered sentence all wrapped up into the biggest headache ever. So the boy took an aspirin. And another and another and then went to sleep, lullabyed by hopes he would never wake up to.

I slipped in and out of consciousness as time stretched and flowed around me. Dreams and reality blurred, but I liked the dreams better. Noah was in them. I dreamed of us, walking hand in hand down a crowded street in the middle of the day. We were in New York. I was in no rush—I could walk with him forever—but Noah was. He pulled me alongside him, strong and determined and not smiling. Not today. We wove among the people, somehow not touching a single one. The trees were green and blossoming. It was spring, almost summer. A strong wind shook a few steadfast flowers off of the branches and into our path. We ignored them. Noah led me into Central Park. It was teeming with human life. Bright colored picnic blankets burst across the lawn, the pale, outstretched forms of people wriggling over them like worms in fruit. We passed the reservoir, the sun reflecting off its surface, and then the crowd began to thicken. They funneled into a throbbing mass as we strode up a hill, over and through. Until we could see them all below us, angry and electric. Noah reached into his bag. He pulled out the little cloth doll, my grandmother’s. The one we burned.

Ah, mistress, you’re an angel. Sure there’s not a drop left? I might have remembered one more person….” “Up yours,” I said rudely with another belch. “It’s empty. You should tell me the name anyway, after making me drink all that sewage.” Winston gave me a devious smile. “Come back with a full bottle and I will.” “Selfish spook,” I mumbled, and staggered away. I’d made it a few feet when I felt that distinct pins-and-needles sensation again, only this time it wasn’t in my throat. “Hey!” I looked down in time to see Winston’s grinning, transparent form fly out of my pants. He was chuckling even as I smacked at myself and hopped up and down furiously. “Drunken filthy pig!” I spat. “Bastard!” “And a good eve’in’ to you, too, mistress!” he called out, his edges starting to blur and fade. “Come back soon!” “I hope worms shit on your corpse!” was my reply. A ghost had just gotten to third base with me. Could I sink any lower?

James dropped Cordelia’s hands. They were no longer dancing. James turned away from Cordelia without a word and strode across the room toward the newcomers. She stood, frozen in confusion, as James bent to kiss the hand of the stunningly beautiful girl who had just walked into the room. Titters rose on the dance floor. Lucie had stepped back from Matthew, her eyes wide. Alastair and Thomas both turned to look at Cordelia with expressions of surprise. At any moment, Cordelia knew, her mother would notice that she was drifting in the middle of the dance floor like an abandoned tugboat and charge toward her, and then Cordelia would die. She would die of the humiliation. Cordelia was scanning the room for the nearest exit, ready to flee, when a hand grasped her arm. She was spun around and into an expert grip: a moment later she was dancing again, her feet automatically following her partner’s. “That’s right.” It was Matthew Fairchild. Fair hair, spicy cologne, a blur of a smile. His hands were gentle as he swept her back into the waltz. “Just—try to smile, and no one will notice anything happened. James and I are practically interchangeable in the public consciousness anyway.” “James—left,” Cordelia said, in shock. “I know,” said Matthew. “Very bad form. One should not leave a lady on the dance floor unless something is actually on fire. I’ll have a word.” “A word,” Cordelia echoed. She was beginning to feel less stunned and more angry. “A word?” “Several words, if it will make you feel better?

Lachlain: 'And you must be the soothsayer - ' Nix: 'I prefer predeterminationally abled, thank you.' Her hand shot out, ripping a button from his shirt, so fast it was a blur. She'd taken the one closest to his heart, and for a moment her face turned very cold. She'd made a point - she could have gone for his heart. Then she opened her hand and gasped in surprise. 'A button!' She smiled delightedly. 'You can never have enough of these!' Lachlain: 'How did you find this place?' Regin: 'A phone tap, satellite imaging, and a psychic,' she said, then immediately frowned. 'How do YOU find places?

Damen was smiling helplessly. 'that was adequate.' 'You've been waiting to say that.' The words were only a little blurred.

Clay, did you ever love me?" I'm studying a billboard and say that I didn't hear what she said. "I asked if you ever loved me?" On the terrace the sun bursts into my eyes and for one blinding moment I see myself clearly. I remember the first time we made love, in the house in Palm Springs, her body tan and wet, lying against cool, white sheets. "Don't do this, Blair," I tell her. "Just tell me." I don't say anything. "Is it such a hard question to answer?" I look at her straight on. "Yes or no?" "Why?" "Damnit, Clay," she sighs. "Yeah, sure, I guess." "Don't lie to me." "What in the fuck do you want to hear?" "Just tell me," she says, her voice rising. "No," I almost shout. "I never did." I almost start to laugh. She draws in a breath and says, "Thank you. That's all I wanted to know." She sips her wine. "Did you ever love me?" I ask her back, though by now I can't even care. She pauses. "I thought about it and yeah, I did once. I mean I really did. Everything was all right for a while. You were kind." She looks down and then goes on. "But it was like you weren't there. Oh shit, this isn't going to make any sense." She stops. I look at her, waiting for her to go on, looking up at the billboard. Disappear Here. "I don't know if any other person I've been with has been really there, either ... but at least they tried." I finger the menu; put the cigarette out. "You never did. Other people made an effort and you just ... It was just beyond you." She takes another sip of her wine. "You were never there. I felt sorry for you for a little while, but then I found it hard to. You're a beautiful boy, Clay, but that's about it." I watch the cars pass by on Sunset. "It's hard to feel sorry for someone who doesn't care." "Yeah?" I ask. "What do you care about? What makes you happy?" "Nothing. Nothing makes me happy. I like nothing," I tell her. "Did you ever care about me, Clay?" I don't say anything, look back at the menu. "Did you ever care about me?" she asks again. "I don't want to care. If I care about things, it'll just be worse, it'll just be another thing to worry about. It's less painful if I don't care." "I cared about you for a little while." I don't say anything. She takes off her sunglasses and finally says, "I'll see you later, Clay." She gets up. "Where are you going?" I suddenly don't want to leave Blair here. I almost want to take her back with me. "Have to meet someone for lunch." "But what about us?" "What about us?" She stands there for a moment, waiting. I keep staring at the billboard until it begins to blur and when my vision becomes clearer I watch as Blair's car glides out of the parking lot and becomes lost in the haze of traffic on Sunset. The waiter comes over and asks, "Is everything okay, sir?" I look up and put my sunglasses on and try to smile. "Yeah.

I was her daughter, but more. I was Karen, Cheryl, Leif. Karen Cheryl Leif. KarenCherylLeif. Our names blurred into one in my mother’s mouth all my life. She whispered it and hollered it, hissed it and crooned it. We were her kids, her comrades, the end of her and the beginning. We took turns riding shotgun with her in the car. “Do I love you this much?” she’d ask us, holding her hands six inches apart. “No,” we’d say, with sly smiles. “Do I love you this much?” she’d ask again, and on and on and on, each time moving her hands farther apart. But she would never get there, no matter how wide she stretched her arms. The amount that she loved us was beyond her reach. It could not be quantified or contained. It was the ten thousand named things in the Tao Te Ching’s universe and then ten thousand more. Her love was full-throated and all-encompassing and unadorned. Every day she blew through her entire reserve.

Dear Karen, I've been thinking about Us, the story of us. How the fuck do I sum it up? Has it been perfect? Hardly. Any story with me at the center of it will never be anything less than a big smiling mess. But here's what I know for sure—our time in the sun has been a thing of absolute fucking beauty. The nightmares, the hangovers, the fucking and the punching. The gorgeous shimmering insanity of the city of ours. Where for years I woke up, fucked up, said I was sorry, passed out and did it all over again. As a writer, I'm a sucker for happy endings. The guy gets the girl, she saves him from himself, fade to fucking black. As a guy who loves a girl, I realize there's no such thing. There's no sunset. There's just now, and there's just the two of us, which can be scary fucking ugly sometimes. But if you close your eyes and listen for the whisper of your heart—if you simply keep trying and never ever give up, no matter how many times you get it wrong, until the beginning and the end blur into something called until we meet again -- and that's it. I didn't know how to finish it, because it's not over. It'll never be over, as longs as there's you, and there's me, and there's hope, and grace.

You gave me a Ruger?" she asked. "No one has ever given me a..." She took a small step back. "Oh, my God." Charlie couldn't help but smile. "It's you," she cheered. "My giant, helpful blur!" "The name is Berg. Berg Dunn.

But if you knew that, why on earth did you marry her?" Rosemary asked. "Why?" Rhett's mouth twisted in a smile. "Because she was so full of fire and so recklessly, stubbornly brave.Because she was such a child beneath all her pretenses.Because she was unlike any woman I had ever known. She fascinated me,infuriated me, drove me mad. I loved her as consumingly as she loved him. From the day I first laid eyes on her. It was a kind of disease." There was a weight of sorrow in his voice. He bowed his head into his two hands and laughed shakily. His voice was muffled and blurred by his fingers. "What a grotesque practical joke life is. Now Ashley Wilkes is a free man and would marry Scarlett on a moment's notice, and I want to be rid of her. Naturally that makes her determined to have me. She wants only what she cannot have." Rhett raised his head. "I'm afraid," he said quietly, "afraid that it will all begin again. I know that she's heartless and completely selfish, that she's like a child who cries for a toy and then breaks it once she has it. But there are moments when she tilts her head at a certain angle, or she smiles that gleeful smile, or she suddenly looks lost-and I come close to forgetting what I know.

She smiles, lightning quick, then squeezes my hand harder, holding on like she’s afraid someone will come and pull us apart. “You’ll face it all with me?” The world narrows, the sounds of the oncoming search party fading, the lights blurring around us until it’s just her and me, our breath condensing and mingling in the cold air. She’s stolen my voice, this girl in my arms, and for a moment I can’t answer. I have to gather my wits, try to remember how to breathe. “Always.” Her smile is like the sun coming out. “Then you ought to kiss me while you can, Major Merendsen. It may be a while before your next opportunity.

Her smiles were blurred, as if seen from a moving train. Her eyes always creased at the edges by dreams of leaving.

On the screen it rained and rained confetti, for minutes, and that glitter-rain, plus the cameras flashing and the lights from the billboards and the awesome mass of the crowds in their shiny hats and toothy smiles, made the world pop and shine and blur in a way that makes you sad to be watching it all on your TV screen, in a way that makes you feel like, instead of bringing the action into your living room, the TV cameras are just reminding you of how much you're missing, confronting you with it, you in your pajamas, on your couch, a couple of pizza crusts resting in some orange grease on a paper plate in front of you, your glass of soda mostly flat and watery, the ice all melted, and the good stuff happening miles and miles away from where you're at.

... and it was quite a sad thing, the way I watched you sleep like nothing could go wrong and I did not want to harm it, I did not want to blur it, but how could I not when everything I’ve ever known has slowly gone away and I know by now that that’s the way you let the new day in with new roads and views and chances to grow but it was quite a sad thing because I don’t want this to ever become ’then’ or ’was’ and it was quite an unfamiliar thing. The way I took off my shoes again, put down my bag and quietly went back to bed, slowly between the sheets of moments I don’t want to leave and it was quite a beautiful thing the way you had no idea but still must have known because you did not even open your eyes, but turned around and took my hand and you were still asleep, breathing in and out like nothing could go wrong, but still held my hand like you were glad I didn’t leave. ’Thank you for staying’ and it was quite a wonderful thing, the way I smiled and so did you, sound asleep, and that’s all I need to know for now. That’s all I want to know for now.

Dancing wasn't quite the same as running . . . or any sport, for that matter. I didn't feel like I had a purpose, a goal. But after a while I let my mind relax and realized not everything had to have a point. Some things could just be for the fun of it. I looked over at Amber dancing next to me. She smiled, then hooked her arm in mine and twirled me around. My surroundings blurred and I soaked the moment in, deciding this night was something I could do again.

But when I turned a chill caressed me—Go—a voice crawled up my spine—Leave—a finger turned my jaw—Hurry—and then there was a rushed blur of voices, hands, faces, running through the hall—Shhh, this way, run, don't say a word. Death strode among them, glanced at me, but this time he didn't smile. He wept. His arms were full and he could carry no more.

smiles. “No, I’m saying find someone who you can talk to. Someone who makes you laugh. I think you’ll realize that that’s what you find attractive.

I know you told me you'd wait for me, but I don't want either of us to wait anymore. Especially when I knew from the first moment I saw you that you were special. I feel like I've been running my whole life, speeding from small town into a big city, jumping from one place to the next for years until they all blurred together. And right when I decided it was time to finally stop running and set down some roots, there you were. My new beginning." Her eyes filled with tears as she smiled up at him and slid her arms around his neck to pull him closer. "My love." Jack sank down onto the couch with Mary, her curves soft beneath his muscles. "I'll always be yours, Angel. Forever.

Go on," Kell told him without taking his eyes from Lila. " Get some rest." Hastra shifted. "I can't, sir," he said. "I'm to escort Miss Bard--" "I'll take that charge," cut in Kell. Hastra bit his lip and retreated several steps. Lila let her forehead come to rest against his, her face so close the features blurred. And yet, that fractured eye shone with frightening clarity. "You never told me," he whispered. "You never noticed," she answered. And then, "Alucard did." The blow landed, and Kell started to pull away when Lila's eyelids fluttered and she swayed dangerously. He braced her. "Come on," he said gently. "I have a room upstairs. Why don't we--" A sleepy flicker of amusement. "Trying to get me into bed?" Kell mustered a smile. "It's only fair. I've spent enough time in yours." "If I remember correctly," she said, her voice dreamy with fatigue, "you were on top of the bed the entire time." "And tied to it," observed Kell. Her words were soft at the edges. "Those were the days..." she said, right before she fell forward. It happened so fast Kell could do nothing but throw his arms around her. "Lila?" he asked, first gently, and then more urgently. "Lila?" She murmured against his front, something about sharp knives and soft corners, but didn't rouse, and Kell shot a glance at Hastra, who was still standing there, looking thoroughly embarrassed. "What have you done?" demanded Kell. "It was just a tonic, sir," he fumbled, "something for sleep." "You drugged her?" "It was Tieren's order," said Hastra, chastised. "He said she was mad and stubborn and no use to us dead." Hastra lowered his voice when he said this, mimicking Tieren's tone with startling accuracy. "And what do you plan to do when she wakes back up?" Hastra shrank back. "Apologize?" Kell made an exasperated sound as Lila nuzzled-- actually nuzzled-- his shoulder. "I suggest," he snapped at the young man, "you think of something better. Like an escape route." Hastra paled, and Kell swept Lila up into his arms, amazed at her lightness... Kell swept through the halls until he reached his room and lowered Lila onto the couch. Hastra handed him a blanket. "Shouldn't you take off her knives?" "There's not enough tonic in the world to risk it," said Kell.

I surrendered my identity in your eyes. Now I'm just like everybody else, and it's so funny, the way monogamy is funny, the way someone falling down in the street is funny. I entered a revolving door and emerged as a human being. When you think of me is my face electronically blurred? I remember your collarbone, forming the tiniest satellite dish in the universe, your smile as the place where parallel lines inevitably crossed. Now dinosaurs freeze to death on your shoulder. I remember your eyes: fifty attack dogs on a single leash, how I once held the soft audience of your hand. I've been ignored by prettier women than you, but none who carried the heavy pitchers of silence so far, without spilling a drop.

Exhilaration fizzed through Clarke’s body. Before she realized what she was doing, she had thrown her arms around Bellamy. He joined in her laughter as he staggered backward, and wrapped his arms around her waist, lifting her up and spinning her through the air. The colors of the clearing swirled, green and gold and blue all blurring until there was nothing in the world but Bellamy’s smile, lighting up his eyes.

Preverbal, love is the smell of a known body, the touch of a recognized hand, the blurred face in a haze of light. Words come, and love sharpens. Love becomes describable, narratable, relatable. Over time, one love comes to lay atop another, a mother's love, a father's love, a lover's love, a friend's love, an enemy's love. This promiscuous mixing of feelings and touches, of smiles and cries in the dark, of half-pushed pleasures and heart-cracking pain, of shared unutterable intimacies and guttural expressions, layer in embellished bricolage. One love coats another, like the clear pages of an anatomy textbook, drawing pictures of things we can only ever see in fractions. With the coming of words, love writes and is then overwritten; love is marginalia illegibly scrawled in your own illegible hand. In time, love becomes a dense manuscript, a palimpsest of inscrutable, epic proportions, one love is overlaying another, thick and hot and stinking of beds. It's an unreadable mess.

Slowly what she composed with the new day was her own focus, to bring together body and mind. This was made with an effort, as if all the dissolutions and dispersions of her self the night before were difficult to reassemble. She was like an actress who must compose a face, an attitude to meet the day. The eyebrow pencil was no mere charcoal emphasis on blond eyebrows, but a design necessary to balance a chaotic asymmetry. Make up and powder were not simply applied to heighten a porcelain texture, to efface the uneven swellings caused by sleep, but to smooth out the sharp furrows designed by nightmares, to reform the contours and blurred surfaces of the cheeks, to erase the contradictions and conflicts which strained the clarity of the face’s lines, disturbing the purity of its forms. She must redesign the face, smooth the anxious brows, separate the crushed eyelashes, wash off the traces of secret interior tears, accentuate the mouth as upon a canvas, so it will hold its luxuriant smile. Inner chaos, like those secret volcanoes which suddenly lift the neat furrows of a peacefully ploughed field, awaited behind all disorders of face, hair, and costume, for a fissure through which to explode. What she saw in the mirror now was a flushed, clear-eyed face, smiling, smooth, beautiful. The multiple acts of composure and artifice had merely dissolved her anxieties; now that she felt prepared to meet the day, her true beauty emerged which had been frayed and marred by anxiety.

She pressed her hands against my chest and tried to push me away. "I can't think straight when you 're this close." I backed her up against the wall. "I don't like the thoughts running through your head. I plan on staying here until you look me in the eye and tell me you 're mine." "This isn't going to work. It never would have." "Bullshit. We belong together." Echo sniffed and the sound tore at me. I softened my voice. "Look at me, baby. I know you love me. Three nights ago you were willing to offer everything to me. There is no way you can walk away from us." "God Noah..." Her voice broke. "I'm a mess." A mess? "You 're beautiful." "I'm a mental mess. In two months you 're going to face some judge and convince him that you are the best person to raise your brothers. I'm a liability." "Not true. My brothers will love you and you 'll love them. You are not a liability." "But how will the judge see me? Are you really willing too take that risk? [...] What happens if the judge find out about me? What if he discovers what a mess you 're dating?" Breathing became a painful chore. Her lips turned down while her warm fingers caressed my cheek. That touch typically brought me to knees, but now it cut me open. "Did you know that when you stop being stubborn and accept i may be right on something, your eyes widen a little and you tilt your head to the side?" she asked. I forced my head straight and narrowed my eyes. "I love you." She flashed her glorious smile and then it became the saddest smile in the world. "You love your brothers more. I'm okay with that. In fact, it's one of the things i love about you. You were right the other day. I do want to be a part of a family. But i'd never forgive myself if i was the reason you didn't get yours." To my horror, tears pricked my eyes and my throat swelled shut. "No, you 're not pulling this sacrificial bullshit on me. I love you and you love me and we 're supposed to be together." Echo pressed her body to mine and her fingers clung to my hair. Water glistened in her eyes. "I love you enough to never make you choose." She pushed off her toes toward me, guiding my head down, and gently kissed my lips. No. This wouldn't be goudbye. I'd fill her up and make her realize she'd always be empty without me. I made Echo mine. My hands claimed her hair, her back. My lips claimed her mouth, her tongue. Her body shook against mine and i tasted salty wetness on her skin. She forced her lips away and i latched tighter to her. "No, baby, no," i whispered into her hair. She pushed her palms against my chest, then became a blur as she ran past. "I'm sorry.

Our love story comes to me in waves, in movie stills and long summer afternoons spent under a sky of incessant blue. I still think of your eyes in flashes of color, your hands in a frenetic, feverish blur—your smile a mosaic of light and shadow. I still find myself lost in those moments of abstraction.

His lips parted into a timid smile, and our neighbor’s image blurred with my sudden tears. “Hey, Boo,” I said.

There’s nothing to be scared of.” Instead of taking Charlie’s pulse – there was really no point – he took one of the old man’s hands in his. He saw Charlie’s wife pulling down a shade in the bedroom, wearing nothing but the slip of Belgian lace he’d bought her for their first anniversary; saw how the ponytail swung over one shoulder when she turned to look at him, her face lit in a smile that was all yes. He saw a Farmall tractor with a striped umbrella raised over the seat. He smelled bacon and heard Frank Sinatra singing ‘Come Fly with Me’ from a cracked Motorola radio sitting on a worktable littered with tools. He saw a hubcap full of rain reflecting a red barn. He tasted blueberries and gutted a deer and fished in some distant lake whose surface was dappled by steady autumn rain. He was sixty, dancing with his wife in the American Legion hall. He was thirty, splitting wood. He was five, wearing shorts and pulling a red wagon. Then the pictures blurred together, the way cards do when they’re shuffled in the hands of an expert, and the wind was blowing big snow down from the mountains, and in here was the silence and Azzie’s solemn watching eyes.

Laugh, even when you feel too sick or too worn out or tired. Smile, even when you're trying not to cry and the tears are blurring your vision. Sing, even when people stare at you and tell you your voice is crappy. Trust, even when your heart begs you not to. Twirl, even when your mind makes no sense of what you see. Frolick, even when you are made fun of. Kiss, even when others are watching. Sleep, even when you're afraid of what the dreams might bring. Run, even when it feels like you can't run any more. And, always, remember, even when the memories pinch your heart. Because the pain of all your experience is what makes you the person you are now." ‪#‎AlyshaSpeer

When I asked you about it, you pulled the crumpled cardboard box from the garbage, pointed to the hummingbird, its blurred wings and needled beak—a bird you could not name but could nonetheless recognize. “Đẹp quá,” you smiled. “Đẹp quá.

Much. so there is free dessert involved here." I put my hand to my forehead. "oh, that i had discovered the job first!" Ryan laughs. "tragic." want to hear something tragic? my dad is going to a Christian singles' retreat." Ryan nearly spits out his coffee. "your dad?" he is shacking. Brandon wallops him on the back a few times. Ryan holds his hands up at him, coughing. "Stop," he croaks, standing. he inhales a few times and gets his voice back. "You would have to tell me this when my mouth was full, wouldn't you?" he sits again. I smile broadly. a Christian singles' retreat?" he repeats Yep," Brandon says. "Get the name: Marley's Michigan Marriage Makers." I cover my face Ryan's expression twists. " thats.... interesting," he says slowly Hallie frowns. "If its a Christian retreat, why is it called Marley's?" Its a denomination in Michigan," Brandon says. "Marlotist. I just call them Marley for fun." I double over until my head hits the table. There is not a denomination called Marlotist," Hallie says. Is too. I visited one of their churches when I went to Michigan to ski one time," Brandon says. My eyes blur with tears from laughing so hard and holding it all in. My shoulders start shaking. Brandon levels a good kick to my shin. Ow!" I reach for my leg. What is the name of it, Laurie?" Ryan asks. Meet Your Match in Michigan" Brandon scowls at me. " Spoilsport.

From the eyes of his angel in the Baptism of Christ to the smile of the Mona Lisa, the blurred and smoke-veiled edges allow a role for our own imagination

When we are crushing on someone, they are a swirling blur of dimples and crooked smiles, hair flips and skateboard tricks.

My mother died at eighty-three, of cancer, in pain, her spleen enlarged so that her body was misshapen. Is that the person I see when I think of her? Sometimes. I wish it were not. It is a true image, yet it blurs, it clouds, a truer image. It is one memory among fifty years of memories of my mother. It is the last in time. Beneath it, behind it is a deeper, complex, ever-changing image, made from imagination, hearsay, photographs, memories. I see a little red-haired child in the mountains of Colorado, a sad-faced, delicate college girl, a kind, smiling young mother, a brilliantly intellectual woman, a peerless flirt, a serious artist, a splendid cook—I see her rocking, weeding, writing, laughing — I see the turquoise bracelets on her delicate, freckled arm — I see, for a moment, all that at once, I glimpse what no mirror can reflect, the spirit flashing out across the years, beautiful. That must be what the great artists see and paint. That must be why the tired, aged faces in Rembrandt’s portraits give us such delight: they show us beauty not skin-deep but life-deep.

A little bit of hatred can spoil a score of years And blur the eyes that ought to smile with many needless tears. A little bit of thoughtlessness and anger for a day Can rob a home of all its joy and drive delight away.. A little bit of shouting in a sharp and vicious tone Can leave a sting that will be felt when many years have flown. And just one hasty moment of ill temper can offend And leave an inner injury the years may never mend. It takes no mental fiber to say harsh and bitter things; It doesn't call for courage to employ a lash that stings. And cruel words and bitter any fool can think to say, But the hurt they leave behind them takes years to wipe away. Just a little bit of hatred robs a home of all delight, And leaves a winding trail of wrong that time may never right. For only those are happy and keep their peace of mind, Who guard themselves from hatred and words that are unkind!

Was it last month or last year that the ambulance ran like a hearse with its siren blowing on suicide— Dinn, dinn, dinn!— a noon whistle that kept insisting on life all the way through the traffic lights? I have come back but disorder is not what it was. I have lost the trick of it! The innocence of it! That fellow-patient in his stovepipe hat with his fiery joke, his manic smile— even he seems blurred, small and pale. I have come back, recommitted, fastened to the wall like a bathroom plunger, held like a prisoner who was so poor he fell in love with jail.

Preverbal, love is the smell of a known body, the touch of a recognized hand, the blurred face in a haze of light. Words come, and love sharpens. Love becomes describable, narratable, relatable. Over time, one love comes to lay atop another, a mother's love, a father's love, a lover's love, a friend's love, an enemy's love. This promiscuous mixing of feelings and touches, of smiles and cries in the dark, of half-pushed pleasures and heart-cracking pain, of shared unutterable intimacies and guttural expressions, layer in embellished bricolage. One love coats another, like the clear pages of an anatomy textbook, drawing pictures of things we can only ever see in fractions. With the coming of words, love writes and is then overwritten; love is marginalia illegibly scrawled in your own illegible hand. In time, love becomes a dense manuscript, a palimpsest of inscrutable, epic proportions, one love is overlaying another, thick and hot and stinking of beds. It's an unreadable mess.

Hi, lover of the past. I remember your smile but have left your heart. You were a part of me but now you are a blurred vision of what I lost. I am happier without you and I can find my light in the dark.

And then I feel like the biggest asshole because she gives me this beyond-happy smile, and I realize I’ve just done the ultimate dick move of toying with one girl’s emotions just to get a rise out of another girl.

It was some time before she heard galloping behind her, and then she did ease up, instinctively wheeling Javelin around to see the blur of horse and rider coming down the path. Arin slowed, and sidled alongside Kestrel. The horses whickered. Arin looked at her, at the smile she couldn’t hide, and his face seemed to hold equal parts frustration and amusement. “You are a bad liar,” she told him. He laughed. She found it hard to look at him then, and her gaze dropped to his stallion. Her eyes widened. “That is the horse you chose?” “He is the best,” Arin said seriously. “He is my father’s.” “I won’t hold that against the horse.” It was Kestrel’s turn to laugh.

When they smile in your face, but behind you, it ain't well wishes When they eatin' all the food off your plate and they don't do dishes When they words and they actions blur and they don't know different No time for these FABs.

This was not going the way I wanted it to. I felt a desperate need to escape before I said something that would screw up my plans. Ren was the dark side, the forbidden fruit, my personal Delilah-the ultimate temptation. The question was…could I resist? I gave his knee a friendly pat and played my trump card…”I’m leaving.” “You’re what?” “I’m going home to Oregon. Mr. Kadam thinks it will be safer for me anyway, with Lokesh out there looking to kill us and all. Besides, you need time to figure out…stuff.” “If you’re leaving, then I’m going with you!” I smiled at him wryly. “That kind of defeats the purpose of me leaving. Don’t you think?” He slicked back his hair, let out a deep breath, then took my hand and looked intently into my eyes. “Kells, when are you going to accept the fact that we belong together?” I felt sick, like I was kicking a faithful puppy who only wanted to be loved. I looked out at the pool. After a moment, he sat back scowling and said menacingly, “I won’t let you leave.” Inside, I desperately wanted to take his hand and beg him to forgive me, to love me, but I steeled myself, dropped my hands in my lap, then implored, “Ren, please. You have to let me go. I need…I’m afraid…look, I just can’t be here, near you, when you change your mind.” “It’s not going to happen.” “it might. There’s a good chance.” He growled angrily. “There’s no chance!” “Well, my heart can’t take that risk, and I don’t want to put you in what can only be an awkward position. I’m sorry, Ren. I really am. I do want to be your friend, but I understand if you don’t want that. Of course, I’ll return when you need me, if you need me, to help you find the other three gifts. I wouldn’t abandon you or Kishan in that way. I just can’t stay here with you feeling obligated to pity-date me because you need me. But I’d never abandon your cause. I’ll always be there for you both, no matter what.” He spat out, “Pity-date! You? Kelsey, you can’t be serious!” “I am. Very, very serious. I’ll ask Mr. Kadam to make arrangements to send me back in the next few days.” He didn’t say another word. He just sat back in his chair. I could tell he was fuming mad, but I felt that, after a week or two, when he started getting back out in the world, he would come to appreciate my gesture. I looked away from him. “I’m very tired now. I’d like to go to bed.” I got up and headed to my room. Before I closed the sliding door, I asked, “Can I make one last request?” He sat there tight-lipped, his arms folded over his chest, with a tense, angry face. I sighed. Even infuriated he was beautiful. He said nothing so I went on, “It would be a lot easier on me if I didn’t see you, I mean as a man. I’ll try to avoid most of the house. It is yours after all, so I’ll stay in my room. If you see Mr. Kadam, please tell him I’d like to speak with him.” He didn’t respond. “Well, good-bye, Ren. Take care of yourself.” I tore my eyes away from him, shut the door, and drew the curtains. Take care of yourself? That was a lame goodbye. Tears welled in my eyes and blurred my vision. I was proud that I’d gotten through it without showing emotion. But, now, I felt like a steamroller had come along and flattened me.

The memory of his face was already blurring. Had his eyes been more golden brown, or soil brown? She couldn’t remember. And she’d never get the chance to find out. Never get to see that half smile. Never get to hear his laugh, never get to hear him say her name like it meant something special, something more than being Adarlan’s Assassin ever could. She didn’t want to go out into a world where he didn’t exist. So she watched the light shift and change, and let the world pass by without her.

He heard a soft voice calling him and turned towards it, trying to focus the vision before him. It wasn't his mother. If he weren't so tired, he would have smiled. He hadn't expected to find an angel in Hell. The angel, her image blurred, a whiteness surrounding her, would understand. The angel would know. "Why couldn't she love me?" he asked. The angel's answer was garbled. He strained to understand the words, not all his senses failed him as he slipped back into the abyss on the edge of Hell. And the angel knelt down beside the bed and wept.

When I pictured Adelita’s face in my head, the lines were getting blurred. I struggled to see impurity. Adelita’s smile, lightly-tanned skin and dark eyes clouded my mind. And, fuck, to me, they were perfect…just like her…a perfect Mexican…I didn’t know what the fuck to do with that.

Margaret’s throat had some swollen thing in it. Fog blurred everything but the charging red face. An unvoiced whimper shook her breast. She wanted to run to him as to a lover. She wanted to run from him as from a ravisher. She stood very still in her doorway, smiling demurely with dry, hot mouth.

I was backed against the sink; Emile was close, warm, his eyes glittering, his mouth sensuous and lovely. "You," I said deliberately, "don't give a damn about me except physically." Any boy would deny that; any gallant boy; any gallant lier. But Emile shook me, his voice was urgent, "You know, you shouldn't have said that. You know? You know? The truth always hurts." (Even clichés can come in handy.) He grinned, "Don't be bitter; I'm not. Come away from the sink, and watch." He stepped back, drawing me toward him, slapping my stomach away, he kissed me long and sweetly. At last he let go. "There," he said with a quiet smile. "The truth doesn't always hurt, does it?" And so we left. It was pouring rain. In the car he put his arm around me, his head against mine, and we watched the streetlights coming at us, blurred and fluid in the watery dark. As we ran up the walk in the rain, as he came in and had a drink of water, as he kissed me goodnight, I knew that something in me wanted him, for what I'm not sure: He drinks, he smokes, he's Catholic, he runs around with one girl after another, and yet... I wanted him. "I don't have to tell you it's been nice," I said at the door. "It's been marvelous," he smiled. "I'll call you. Take care." And he was gone. So the rain comes down hard outside my room, and like Eddie Cohen," I say, "... fifteen thousand years - - - of what? We're still nothing but animals." Somewhere, in his room, Emile lies, about to sleep, listening to the rain. God only knows what he's thinking.

Strong Woman Sometimes I think, that I know her, From a distant past, where images are blur, Her smile, coffee and morning walk, Her questions, songs and random talk, She is from a distant land, Where the sun shines bright, Her attitude, love and courage, makes everything right, - To my friend Grozdana

Even with the questions and worries that flooded her, Lillian was overcome with sudden exhaustion. The waking nightmare had come to a precipitate end, and it seemed that for now there was nothing more she could do. She waited docilely, her cheek resting against the steady support of Marcus’s shoulder, only half hearing the conversation that ensued. “… have to find St. Vincent…” Marcus was saying. “No,” Simon Hunt said emphatically, “I’ll find St. Vincent. You take care of Miss Bowman.” “We need privacy.” “I believe there is a small room nearby— more of a vestibule, actually…” But Hunt’s voice trailed away, and Lillian became aware of a new, ferocious tension in Marcus’s body. With a lethal shift of his muscles, he turned to glance in the direction of the staircase. St. Vincent was descending, having entered the rented room from the other side of the inn and found it empty. Stopping midway down the stairs, St. Vincent took in the curious tableau before him… the clusters of bewildered onlookers, the affronted innkeeper… and the Earl of Westcliff, who stared at him with avid bloodlust. The entire inn fell silent during that chilling moment, so that Westcliff’s quiet snarl was clearly audible. “By God, I’m going to butcher you.” Dazedly Lillian murmured, “Marcus, wait—” She was shoved unceremoniously at Simon Hunt, who caught her reflexively as Marcus ran full-bore toward the stairs. Instead of skirting around the banister, Marcus vaulted the railings and landed on the steps like a cat. There was a blur of movement as St. Vincent attempted a strategic retreat, but Marcus flung himself upward, catching his legs and dragging him down. They grappled, cursed, and exchanged punishing blows, until St. Vincent aimed a kick at Marcus’s head. Rolling to avoid the blow of his heavy boot, Marcus was forced to release him temporarily. The viscount lurched up the stairs, and Marcus sprang after him. Soon they were both out of sight. A crowd of enthusiastic men followed, shouting advice, exchanging odds, and exclaiming in excitement over the spectacle of a pair of noblemen fighting like spurred roosters. White-faced, Lillian glanced at Simon Hunt, who wore a faint smile. “Aren’t you going to help him?” she demanded. “Oh no. Westcliff would never forgive me for interrupting. It’s his first tavern brawl.” Hunt’s gaze flickered over Lillian in friendly assessment. She swayed a little, and he placed a large hand on the center of her back and guided her to the nearby grouping of chairs. A cacophony of noise drifted from upstairs. There were heavy thudding sounds that caused the entire building to shake, followed by the noises of furniture breaking and glass shattering. “Now,” Hunt said, ignoring the tumult, “if I may have a look at that remaining handcuff, I may be able to do something about it.

I will always remember my first wave this morning. The smells of paraffin wax and brine and peppy scrub. The way the swell rose beneath me like a body drawing to air. How the wave drew me forward and I sprang to my feet, skating with the wind of momentum in my ears. I leant across the wall of upstanding water and the board came with me as though it was part of my body and mind. The blur of spray. The billion shards of light. I remember the solitary watching figure on the beach and the flash of Loonies's smile as I flew by; I was intoxicated. And though I've lived to be an old man with my own share of happiness for all the mess I made, I still judge every joyous moment, every victory and revelation against those few seconds of living.

When I pointed to him his palms slipped slightly, leaving greasy sweat streaks on the wall, and he hooked his thumbs in his belt. A strange small spasm shook him, as if he heard fingernails scrape slate, but as I gazed at him in wonder the tension slowly drained from his face. His lips parted into a timid smile, and our neighbor’s image blurred with my sudden tears. “Hey, Boo,” I said.

She pushed him away from her. The rain swept over her face as she lifted her emerald eyes filled with laughter to his. “That’s it? That’s your big apology? I can see you’re not going to be a candy-and-flowers man.” She set off quickly. “Don’t talk to me, you uncivilized maniac. I don’t even want to hear the sound of your voice.” Jacques forced back the smile that seemed so ready to curve his hard mouth. Shea had a way of making even dangerous situations seem a game where laughter was always close at hand. She managed to find ways to make his madness, the terrible, unforgivable way he had treated her at their first meeting, seem casual. ”Can I put my arm around you?” Even while his eyes scanned, they held a gleam of merriment. “You’re talking. I said don’t talk to me.” Shea tried sticking her nose in the air, but it felt ridiculous, and she dissolved into undignified giggles. His arm curved around her slender waist and locked her under his shoulder. “I am sorry. I did not mean to speak when you asked me not to. Turn here. I’m going to have to carry you up.” “Don’t talk. You always get your way when you talk.” She walked with him a few more yards and stopped, staring up a sheer cliff face that seemed to go up forever. There had been no division between the forest and the rock face to warn her. “Up what? Not that.” The dark, malevolent feeling had faded away. Whoever it was no longer was watching them. She could tell. “I feel another argument coming on.” His mocking amusement might not have shown on his face, but she could feel it in her mind. Jacques simply lifted her and tossed her over his shoulder. “No way, you wild man. You aren’t Tarzan. I don’t like heights. Put me down.” “Close your eyes. Who is Tarzan? Not another male, I hope.” The wind rushed over her body, and she could feel them moving fast, so fast the world seemed to blur. She closed her eyes and clutched at him, afraid to do anything else. His laughter was happy and carefree, and it warmed her heart, dispelling any residue of fear she carried. It was a miracle to her that he could laugh, that he was happy. Tarzan is the ultimate male. He swung through trees and carries his woman off into the jungle. He patterns himself after me. She nuzzled his neck. He tries.

The starting point of all achievement is DESIRE. Keep this constantly in mind. Weak desire brings weak results, just as a small fire makes a small amount of heat.” ― Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich: The Landmark Bestseller Now Revised and Updated for the 21st Century 믿고 주문해주세요~저희는 제품판매를 고객님들과 신용과신뢰의 거래로 하고있습니다. 24시간 문의상담과 서울 경기지방은 퀵으로도 가능합니다 믿고 주문하시면 좋은인연으로 vip고객님으로 모시겠습니다. 원하시는제품있으시면 추천상으로 구입문의 도와드릴수있습니다 현재까지 많은단골분들 모시고있구요 단골분들 추천으로구입하시는분들에게는 저희가 사은품 넉넉히 챙겨드리고있습니다 Laugh, even when you feel too sick or too worn out or tired. Smile, even when you're trying not to cry and the tears are blurring your vision. Sing, even when people stare at you and tell you your voice is crappy. Trust, even when your heart begs you not to. Twirl, even when your mind makes no sense of what you see. Frolick, even when you are made fun of. Kiss, even when others are watching. Sleep, even when you're afraid of what the dreams might bring. Run, even when it feels like you can't run any more. And, always, remember, even when the memories pinch your heart. Because the pain of all your experience is what makes you the person you are now. And without your experience---you are an empty page, a blank notebook, a missing lyric. What makes you brave is your willingness to live through your terrible life and hold your head up high the next day. So don't live life in fear. Because you are stronger now, after all the crap has happened, than you ever were back before it started. ☆100%정품보장 ☆총알배송 ☆투명한 가격 ☆편한 상담 ☆끝내주는 서비스 ☆고객님 정보 보호 ☆깔끔한 거래 카톡【ACD5】 ♥경영항목♥ 수면제,여성최음제,ghb센트립,여성흥분제,남성발기부전치유제,비아그라,시알리스,88정,99정,정력제,남성성기확대제,카마그라젤,비닉스,센돔,남성조루방지제,네노마정,등많은제품판매하고있습니다 The starting point of all achievement is DESIRE. Keep this constantly in mind. Weak desire brings weak results, just as a small fire makes a small amount of heat

The starting point of all achievement is DESIRE. Keep this constantly in mind. Weak desire brings weak results, just as a small fire makes a small amount of heat.” ― Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich: The Landmark Bestseller Now Revised and Updated for the 21st Century 믿고 주문해주세요~저희는 제품판매를 고객님들과 신용과신뢰의 거래로 하고있습니다. 24시간 문의상담과 서울 경기지방은 퀵으로도 가능합니다 믿고 주문하시면 좋은인연으로 vip고객님으로 모시겠습니다. 원하시는제품있으시면 추천상으로 구입문의 도와드릴수있습니다 현재까지 많은단골분들 모시고있구요 단골분들 추천으로구입하시는분들에게는 저희가 사은품 넉넉히 챙겨드리고있습니다 Laugh, even when you feel too sick or too worn out or tired. Smile, even when you're trying not to cry and the tears are blurring your vision. Sing, even when people stare at you and tell you your voice is crappy. Trust, even when your heart begs you not to. Twirl, even when your mind makes no sense of what you see. Frolick, even when you are made fun of. Kiss, even when others are watching. Sleep, even when you're afraid of what the dreams might bring. Run, even when it feels like you can't run any more. And, always, remember, even when the memories pinch your heart. Because the pain of all your experience is what makes you the person you are now. And without your experience---you are an empty page, a blank notebook, a missing lyric. What makes you brave is your willingness to live through your terrible life and hold your head up high the next day. So don't live life in fear. Because you are stronger now, after all the crap has happened, than you ever were back before it started. ☆100%정품보장 ☆총알배송 ☆투명한 가격 ☆편한 상담 ☆끝내주는 서비스 ☆고객님 정보 보호 ☆깔끔한 거래 카톡【ACD5】텔레【KC98K】 ♥경영항목♥ 수면제,여성최음제,ghb센트립,여성흥분제,남성발기부전치유제,비아그라,시알리스,88정,99정,정력제,남성성기확대제,카마그라젤,비닉스,센돔,남성조루방지제,네노마정,등많은제품판매하고있습니다 The starting point of all achievement is DESIRE. Keep this constantly in mind. Weak desire brings weak results, just as a small fire makes a small amount of heat

I hear my father's voice faintly, over the telephone, answering for me in a soft drawl. "He's my son." He reaches out his hand, pressing it against the glass, as if trying to touch me. He smiles, and I see a tear making its way down his cheek. [...] I press my hand up against my father's and I'm suddenly close enough to the glass to see my reflection, blurred by the tears now filling my eyes. I wipe them away with my fist and take a good look at my father.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I thought of the burning crosses, the rallies, and the people we’d killed. Thought of the white race. How we were meant to lead. To reign supreme. But when I pictured Adelita’s face in my head, the lines were getting blurred. I struggled to see impurity. Adelita’s smile, lightly tanned skin, and dark eyes clouded my mind. And, fuck, to me, they were perfect . . . just like her . . . a perfect Mexican . . . I didn’t know what the fuck to do with that . . .

Love is funny thing. I don´t know if you can call it a "thing" precisely. It´s a force. An energy. A feeling. A moment. A look, a kiss, a smile. All those things in one. It sneaks up on you; you never see it coming. And when it does finally hit you, It isn´t a small little poke. It´s like a rhinoceros rammed itself against your chest. Or you just got run over by a car. It knocks the wind out of you. Slams you against wall. Kick-starts yout heart. You lose your apetite. You can´t sleep. Some can call love a sickness. Seriously, you´re sick over another human being. You belong to them. They control your feelings with the look in their eye. They change the way you see yourself, feel about yourself. You feel like your world shifted, and everything´s the same, but you aren´t. I say it´s funny because it seems to bend and twist every concept of reality you have. You can survive off nothing. The only thing sustaining you is the feeling, energy, force. You can go days without decent sleep. You´re not hungry for anything exept that one person who seems to occupy your every thought. Time slows down when you´re without them. Seconds feel like hours, minutes like days, And whenn you´re together, time moves at the spped of light. It´s alla blur, and when it´s over, you don´t remember half the things you were doing but you just remember this feeling. This bliss. And it is all over in a flash. And you´re back to counting the long, eternal minutes until you see him again.

Enough of the lessons,” Mauvin said, clearly irritated at being the illustration of a fencing mistake. “Let’s show him a real demonstration.” “Looking for a rematch?” Hadrian asked. “Curious if it was luck.” Hadrian smiled and muttered, “Pickerings.” He took off his shirt and, wiping his face and hands, threw it on the grass and raised his sword to ready position. Mauvin lunged and immediately the two began to fight. The swords sang as they cut the air so fast their movements blurred. Hadrian and Mauvin danced around on the balls of their feet, shuffling in the dirt so briskly that a small cloud rose to knee height. “By Mar!” the old farmer exclaimed. Then abruptly they stopped, both panting from the exertion. Mauvin glared at Hadrian with a look that was both amazed and irritated. “You’re playing with me.” “I thought that was the point. You don’t really want me to kill you?” “Well no, but—well, like he said—by Mar! I’ve never seen anyone fight like you do; you’re amazing.” “I thought you both were pretty amazing,” Theron remarked. “I’ve never seen anything like that.

Giving up, I admire the rose gold chain in my hand, letting it slip through my fingers like running water. It’s not a necklace, but a lanyard for my school ID badge. The delicate chain breaks every few inches with small diamond-encrusted hoops, a matching rose gold whistle hanging off a clip. My thumb rubs methodically over the words etched into the circular pendant connecting the chain to the clip. Miss Parker it says on one side. Turning it over in my palm, I smile through my quickly blurring vision at the words on the back: World’s hottest teacher. But my favorite part? The tiny hockey skate charm that dangles next to the whistle

Stay with us,” Adrian said urgently. My own vision was blurred with tears. “A little longer. Spirit’s coming back to me. I know it.“ Declan stirred in Adrian’s arms and began to cry again. Olive’s eyes open a slit, and she smiled. “So sweet,” she said softly. Her eyelids fell closed again, and all the tension went out of her body as she slumped forward. “There,” Adrian gasped out. “I’ve got it … a spark of spirit … enough to see auras …” I clutched his arm and felt tears running down my cheeks. “Adrian…” “The baby’s is so bright,” Adrian said. There were tears on his face now too. “Like a star. But in her … there’s nothing. No aura left to see…

When mastering drapery drawings in Verrocchio's studio, Leonardo also pioneered sfumato, the technique of blurring contours and edges. It is a way for artists to render objects as they appear to our eye rather than with sharp contours. This advance caused Vasari to proclaim Leonardo the inventor of the 'modern manner' in painting, and the art historian Ernst Gombrich called sfumato 'Leonardo's famous invention, the blurred outline and mellowed colors that allow one form to merge with another and always leave something to our imagination.' The term 'sfumato' derives from the Italian word for 'smoke,' or more precisely the dissipation and gradual vanishing of smoke into thin air . . . With no sharp lines, enigmatic glances and smiles can flicker mysteriously.

It took the sun a long while to come over the mountains and until it did my vision was bound to the few gray yards around the trailer. It was day but not day, dim but not night, a fugue of half-thoughts and disconnected images, pulsing with power beyond easy meaning—a crow flapping, glowing black against the gray—a shadow like a man crouched with a knife—parking lots aching with pink blur—so overwhelmed by thought I’d have to sit back, set down the pen, set down my coffee, and it goes on—glass towers gleaming out of gray cityscapes, blinding silver—an old man with a red guitar—the booming flame of rockets trailing smoke—a girl’s face, her freckled cheek downy with fine hairs, fleshy lips spread in a smile over crooked teeth. I sink in reverie—and what, what does it mean?—then scrape a few more lines with my pen. Nothing even approximate. Another failure.

If she dies, you’re all to blame,” he said, turning accusing eyes on his family and hers. “This damned feud has to stop. Here. Now. For good.” He turned his gaze to Sam and said, “I’m sorry for what happened to you. It was an accident, plain and simple. I love your sister and I am, by God, going to make her my wife.” He turned to the rest of them and said, “And we’re going to be showing up for the holidays, and you’d better damned well make us welcome.” Owen was crying, the tears streaming unashamedly town his face. “I love Bayleigh Creed. Do you hear me? I love her!” “I think everyone can hear you just fine,” Bay murmured. “Oh, God, Red,” he said, smiling down at her through the blur of tears. “I thought you were dying.” She lifted a shaky hand to her head, but he caught it before she could touch the wound. “My head hurts like hell. But I enjoyed the speech, Owe.

I’m so afraid that the treasures I long to unpack for you, that have come to me in magic ships from enchanted islands, are only, to you, the old familiar red calico & beads of the clever trader, who had dealing in every latitude, & knows just what to carry in the hold to please the simple native—I’m so afraid of this, that often & often I stuff my shining treasure back into their box, lest I should see you smiling at them! Well! And if you do? It’s your loss, after all! And if you can’t come into the room without my feeling all over me a ripple of flame, & if, wherever you touch me, a heart beats under your touch, & if, when you hold me, & I don’t speak, it’s because all the words in me seem to have become throbbing pulses, & all my thoughts are a great gold blur—why should I be afraid of your smiling at me, when I can turn the beads & calico back into such beauty—?

Then, suddenly, a shadowy flash came to me. Tiffany, taking an order, arguing with a girl. Shockingly, not me. Another flash, of Detective Toscano walking into Yummy’s minutes ago. Tiffany nervously kneading a coaster between her fingers. The coaster I held in my hands right now. Tiffany was scared. Why was she scared of the cop? “Hey! Space shot! You want your Coke or not?” I tried to ignore Tiffany’s screeching and hold on to the vision, but it blurred and disappeared. I grabbed my new glass from her outstretched hand. “I heard you got into an argument last night,” I said. Tiffany paled, which I never thought possible since her skin was so fake-and-bake tan. She nervously twirled a lock of her bleach blond hair around her finger. “Where did you hear that?” “Doesn’t matter where I heard it.” I took a chance and added, “But it was pretty juicy gossip, considering who she was.” Tiffany’s pale face turned to green and I involuntarily took a step back ,half expecting an Exorcist-style stream of vomit to shoot out of her gaping mouth. Instead, she narrowed her eyes and leaned closer. “Get away from me,” she growled. And then it became clear. My flash of her argument. Her fear of the detective. She’d argued with the girl who was murdered last night. And she did not want Detective Toscano to find out about it. I stepped away from the bar, giddy with my new knowledge. I had the upper hand on Tiffany Desposito. I could torture her with this. Drag it out. Hold it over her head for days, even weeks. “It’s too bad you’re not with Justin anymore,” she said to my back. “He’s a cutie. And such a good kisser.” And that was my limit. I spun around and dumped my brand-new Coke over her head. She shrieked and flailed her hands as the liquid streamed over her face and down between her giant boobs. She peeled her sticky hair off her eyes and snarled, “I’ll get you for this.” I merely smiled, then sauntered over to the two Toscanos, who had apparently been watching this whole display with entertained grins on their faces. “You’re the new detective?” I asked the elder Toscano. He nodded. Either his mouth was too full with French fries or he was too scared of me to speak at the moment. “Tiffany Desposito, the wet and sticky waitress over there? She had a fight with the girl who was murdered. Last night, at this restaurant. You should question her right away. I wouldn’t even give her a chance to go home and shower first. I think she’s a flight risk.” I strolled back to my booth, sat down, and tore into my pancakes, happy as a kid on Christmas. Nate and Perry stared at me in silence for a few moments. Then Perry said, “Maybe you should have let me go over.” Nate shook his head. “Nah. She did just fine.

It was some time before she heard galloping behind her, and then she did ease up, instinctively wheeling Javelin around to see the blur of horse and rider coming down the path. Arin slowed, and sidled alongside Kestrel. The horses whickered. Arin looked at her, at the smile she couldn’t hide, and his face seemed to hold equal parts frustration and amusement. “You are a bad liar,” she told him. He laughed. She found it hard to look at him then, and her gaze dropped to his stallion. Her eyes widened. “That is the horse you chose?” “He is the best,” Arin said seriously. “He is my father’s.” “I won’t hold that against the horse.” It was Kestrel’s turn to laugh. “Come.” Arin nudged the stallion forward. “Let’s not be late,” he said, and yet, without discussing it, they rode more slowly than was allowed on the path. Kestrel no longer doubted that ten years ago Arin had been in a position much like hers: one of wealth, ease, education. Although she was aware she had not won the right to ask him a question, and didn’t even want to voice her creeping worry, Kestrel couldn’t bear remaining silent. “Arin,” she said, searching his face. “Was it my house? I mean, the villa. Did you live there, before the war?” He yanked on the reins. His stallion ground to a halt. When he spoke, Arin’s voice was like the music he had asked her to play. “No,” he said. “That family is gone.” They rode on in silence until Arin said, “Kestrel.” She waited, then realized that he wasn’t speaking to her, exactly. He was simply saying her name, considering it, exploring the syllables of the Valorian word. She said, “I hope you’re not going to pretend you don’t know what it means.” He shot her a wry, sidelong look. “A kestrel is a hunting hawk.” “Yes. The perfect name for a warrior girl.” “Well.” His smile was slight, but it was there. “I suppose neither of us is the person we were believed we would become.

Preverbal, love is the smell of a known body, the touch of a recognized hand, the blurred face in a haze of light. Words come, and love sharpens. Love becomes describable, narratable, relatable. Over time, one love comes to lay atop another, a mother’s love, a father’s love, a lover’s love, a friend’s love, an enemy’s love. This promiscuous mixing of feelings and touches, of smiles and cries in the dark, of half-hushed pleasures and heart-cracking pain, of shared unutterable intimacies and guttural expressions, layer in embellished bricolage. One love coats another, like the clear pages of an anatomy textbook, drawing pictures of things we can only ever see in fractions. With the coming of words, love writes and is then overwritten; love is marginalia illegibly scrawled in your own illegible hand. In time, love becomes a dense manuscript, a palimpsest of inscrutable, epic proportions, one love overlaying another, thick and hot and stinking of beds. It’s an unreadable mess.

Two-hands,” Zak said more emphatically. Matron Malice motioned for him to continue, unable to deny the grace of her youngest son’s display. “Could you do it again?” Zak asked Drizzt. With each hand working independently, Drizzt soon had the coins stacked atop his index fingers, ready to flip. Zak stopped him there and pulled out four more coins, building each of the piles five high. Zak paused a moment to study the concentration of the young drow (and also to keep his hands over the coins and ensure that they were brightened enough by the warmth of his body heat for Drizzt to properly see them in their flight). “Catch them all, Secondboy,” he said in all seriousness. “Catch them all, or you will land in Sorcere, the school of magic. That is not where you belong!” Drizzt still had only a vague idea of what Zak was talking about, but he could tell from the weapons master’s intensity that it must be important. He took a deep breath to steady himself, then snapped the coins up. He sorted their glow quickly, discerning each individual item. The first two fell easily into his hands, but Drizzt saw that the scattering pattern of the rest would not drop them so readily in line. Drizzt exploded into action, spinning a complete circle, his hands an indecipherable blur of motion. Then he straightened suddenly and stood before Zak. His hands were in fists at his sides and a grim look lay on his face. Zak and Matron Malice exchanged glances, neither quite sure of what had happened. Drizzt held his fists out to Zak and slowly opened them, a confident smile widening across his childish face. Five coins in each hand. Zak blew a silent whistle. It had taken him, the weapons master of the house, a dozen tries to complete that maneuver with ten coins. He walked over to Matron Malice. “Two-hands,” he said a third time. “He is a fighter, and I am out of coins.” “How many could he do?” Malice breathed, obviously impressed in spite of herself. “How many could we stack?” Zaknafein shot back with a triumphant smile.

Long before I was ready to say good-bye, Hannah rose to her feet and beckoned to Andrew. “We’ve had enough excitement for one day. It’s time to leave.” After making sure Aunt Blythe wasn’t looking, Andrew pulled a leather bag out of his pocket. “She thinks you already have these,” he said. “They’re yours for keeps now.” I clasped the marbles to my heart and stared at him through a blur of tears. “Come back soon, Andrew.” He hugged me so hard he squashed my nose against his bony shoulder. “At my age, I can’t promise anything, but I’ll do my best to see you again, and that’s the truth. After all, Hannah and I aren’t that far away. With modern cars and highways, Riverview’s a sight closer than it used to be.” Reluctant to let him go, I looked him in the eye. “No matter what happens, I’ll always keep you here.” I struck my chest with my fist. “Right here in my heart as long as I live.” Andrew smiled. “I fancy you picked up that pretty notion from Hannah.” Hugging me again, he said, “I hope your heart lasts as long as mine has, Drew. I want you to have all the time in the world to do whatever you like.

We talked into the night, the room blurring around us as it had done at the dance in West Side Story when Tony and Maria first saw each other across a crowd of people. Tonight, tonight, it all began tonight. My friends giggled and sipped wine at the table where I’d abandoned them earlier in the night, oblivious to the fact that their redheaded amiga had just been struck by a lightning bolt. Before I could internally break into the second chorus of song, my version of Tony--this mysterious cowboy--announced abruptly that he had to go. Go? I thought. Go where? There’s no place on earth but this smoky bar…But there was for him: he and his brother had plans to cook Christmas turkeys for some needy folks in his small town. Mmmm. He’s nice, too, I thought as a pang stabbed my insides. “Bye,” he said with a gentle smile. And with that, his delicious boots walked right out of the J-Bar, his dark blue Wranglers cloaking a body that I was sure had to have been chiseled out of granite. My lungs felt tight, and I still smelled his scent through the bar smoke in the air. I didn’t even know his name. I prayed it wasn’t Billy Bob.

Silence of the Waves My dear, did you remember the star when the night fell to greet you? Trying to hear a whisper, who is there calling your name? God? Or any human? For decades I searched the sea only to remember the sound of the waves, and then I composed a dream palace from grains of sand on the beach. But what a pity, the wind so quickly made it pass. Miss longing for foam, scrambling to kiss your white marble legs. Once, we met on the beach. Even though it's only once. After that, all memories are peeled away like a shadow. Together with the sun, which drifted toward the evening. A blurry portrait that stammers keeps memories, clutches of the wind and a faint smile on your lips. A wound in my heart, like a trickle of rain that hardens, becomes pointed at the needle in time. Lost direction, unable to determine the wind. The silent wing flap interpreted the dream once more, in the face of my lover increasingly blurred face. In the distance. When they were busy, they worked on the waves, catching wounds that never healed all over their bodies. Limp hands stretching the pain of a heart. A broken moon that was painstakingly storing crushed flakes of a thorn. Endlessly.

I remembered how my father had once told me that on earth there were men called astronomers whose task it was to keep track of his rising and setting. They were held in highest esteem among mortals, kept in palaces as counselors of kings, but sometimes my father lingered over one thing or another and threw their calculations into despair. Then those astronomers were hauled before the kings they served and killed as frauds. My father had smiled when he told me. It was what they deserved, he said. Helios the Sun was bound to no will but his own, and none might say what he would do. “Father,” I said that day, “are we late enough to kill astronomers?” “We are,” he answered, shaking the jingling reins. The horses surged forward, and the world blurred beneath us, the shadows of night smoking from the sea’s edge. I did not look. There was a twisting feeling in my chest, like cloth being wrung dry. I was thinking of those astronomers. I imagined them, low as worms, sagging and bent. Please, they cried, on bony knees, it wasn’t our fault, the sun itself was late. The sun is never late, the kings answered from their thrones. It is blasphemy to say so, you must die! And so the axes fell and chopped those pleading men in two.

When I’m under stress,” he emphasized, sliding the magnificent emerald onto her finger, “I buy everything in sight. It took my last ounce of control not to buy one of those in every color.” Her eyes lifted from his smiling lips, dropped to the enormous jewel on her finger, and then widened in shock. “Oh, but-“ she exclaimed, staring at it and straightening in his arms. “It’s glorious. I do mean that, but I couldn’t let you-really, I couldn’t. Ian,” she burst out anxiously, sending a tremor through him when she called him by name, “I can’t let you do this. You’ve been extravagantly generous already.” She touched the huge stone almost reverently, then gave her head a practical shake. “I don’t need jewels, really I don’t. You’re doing this because of that stupid remark I made about someone offering me jewels as large as my palm, and now you’ve bought one nearly that large!” “Not quite,” he chuckled. “Why, a stone like this would pay for irrigating Havenhurst and all the servants’ wages for years and years and years, and food to-“ She reached to slide it off her finger. “Don’t!” he warned on a choked laugh, linking his hands behind her back. “I-“ he thought madly for some way to stop her objections-“I cannot possibly return it,” he said. “It’s part of a matched set.” “You don’t mean there’s more!” “I’m afraid so, though I meant to surprise you with them tonight. There’s a necklace and bracelet and earrings.” “Oh, I see,” she said, making a visible effort not to stare at her ring. “Well, I suppose…if it was a purchase of several pieces, the ring alone probably didn’t cost as much as it would have…Do not tell me,” she said severely, when his shoulders began to shake with suppressed mirth, “you actually paid full price for all of the pieces!” Laughing, Ian put his forehead against hers, and he nodded. “It’s very fortunate,” she said, protectively putting her fingers against the magnificent ring, “that I’ve agreed to marry you.” “If you hadn’t,” he laughed, “God knows what I would have bought.” “Or how much you would have paid for it,” she chuckled, cuddling in his arms-for the first time of her own volition. “Do you really do that?” she asked a moment later. “Do what?” he gasped, tears of mirth blurring his vision. “Spend money heedlessly when you’re disturbed about something?” “Yes,” he lied in a suffocated, laughing voice. “You’ll have to stop doing it.” “I’m going to try.” “I could help you.” “Please do.” “You may place yourself entirely in my hands.” “I’m very much looking forward to that.” It was the first time Ian had ever kissed a woman while he was laughing.

Alexis, come with me to Fiji,” Jason whispered, holding her body close to his, sounding just as breathless as she was. “I would love to go with you, Jason,” Alexis whispered, her smile stretching bigger with each word that registered in Jason’s eyes. “Really?” Jason asked, sounding like an excited kid with a smile to match. “Yes,” Alexis laughed. Jason flipped her onto her back so she was lying under him on the bed and kissed her fervently, grinding himself into her with his excitement. He planted kisses on every inch of her he could reach, her cheeks, her chin, nose, mouth, ears, and neck. He was everywhere, blurring himself into her with each soft placement of his lips. “You have made me the absolute happiest man in the world tonight, Alexis. You have no idea how many times I have wanted to ask you today, or how anxious I was to hear your answer. The idea of having to say goodbye to you in two days was killing me. I can’t imagine not being with you, babe,” Jason whispered into her ear as his lips and teeth grazed her lobe. Alexis had closed her eyes at Jason’s touch, but they popped open when he reminded her how soon she and her friends would have been leaving. “Was it really only two more days?” Alexis asked. “Not anymore, babe,” Jason said, holding both sides of her face and kissing her adoringly.

HER FINGERS TOYED ABSENTLY WITH HER RINGS There are fallen angels in the way you look And great bridges over silent streams at your smile. Your gestures are a lonely princess dreaming over a book At a window over a lake, on some distant isle. If I were to stretch my hand and touch yours that would be Dawn behind the turrets of a city in some East. The words hidden in my gesture would be moonlight on the sea Of your being something in my soul like gaiety in a feast. Let your silence tell me of the numberless dreams that are you. Let the drooping of your eyelids prolong landscapes far away. The jets of water return on the listening of being untrue And this is the flower I pluck, with a sound, from what you unsay. Blossoms, blossoms, blossoms along the road of your going to speak. Eighteenth century gardens, so sad in the middle of our drearning them now, Are the way you are conscious of yourself on your eyelids, by your lips, through your cheek. A sick child sees the rain blur through the window of what you allow. Do not footfall the silence that is the palace where our consciousness Is living at seeing gardens our duplicate lives of one soul. What are we, in our dream of each other, but a picture which is The masterpiece of a painter that never painted at all? Fernando Pessoa, Poesia Inglesa (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995.

Love is funny thing. I don´t kno if you can call it a "thing" precisely. It´s a force. An energy. A feeling. A moment. A look, a kiss, a smile. All those things in one. It sneaks up on you; you never see it coming. And when it does dinall< hit you, it isn´t a small little poke. It´s like a rhinoceros rammed itself against our chest. Or you just got run over by a car. It knocks the wind out of you. Slams you against wall. Kick-starts yout heart. You lose your apetite. You can´t sleep. Some can call love a sickness. Seriously, you´re sick over another human being. You belong to them. They control your feelings. with the look in their eye. They change the way you see yourself, feel about yourself. You feel like your world shifted, and everything´s the same, but you aren´t. I say it´s funny because it seems to bend and twist every concept of reality you have. You can survive off nothing. The only thing sustaining you is the feeling, energy, force. You can go days without decent sleep. You´re not hungry for anything exept that one person who seems to occupy your every thought. Time slows down when you´re without them. Seconds feel like hours, minutes like days, And whenn you´re together, time moves at the spped of light. It´s alla blur, and when it´s over, you don´t remember half the things you were doing but you just remember this feeling. This bliss. And it is all over in a flash. And you´re back to counting the long, eternal minutes until you see him again.

When I woke up a man in a green beret with a big feather poking out of it was leaning over me. I must be hallucinating, I thought. I blinked again but he didn’t go away. Then this immaculate, clipped British accent addressed me. “How are you feeling, soldier?” It was the colonel in charge of British Military Advisory Team (BMAT) in southern Africa. He was here to check on my progress. “We’ll be flying you back to the UK soon,” he said, smiling. “Hang on in there, trooper.” The colonel was exceptionally kind, and I have never forgotten that. He went beyond the call of duty to look out for me and get me repatriated as soon as possible--after all, we were in a country not known for its hospital niceties. The flight to the UK was a bit of a blur, spent sprawled across three seats in the back of a plane. I had been stretchered across the tarmac in the heat of the African sun, feeling desperate and alone. I couldn’t stop crying whenever no one was looking. Look at yourself, Bear. Look at yourself. Yep, you are screwed. And then I zonked out. An ambulance met me at Heathrow, and eventually, at my parents’ insistence, I was driven home. I had nowhere else to go. Both my mum and dad looked exhausted from worry; and on top of my physical pain I also felt gut-wrenchingly guilty for causing such grief to them. None of this was in the game plan for my life. I had been hit hard, broadside and from left field, in a way I could never have imagined. Things like this just didn’t happen to me. I was always the lucky kid. But rogue balls from left field can often be the making of us.

She told everything as quickly as she could, stringing sentences together the way she had when she was a little girl. By the end of the tale,she found herself defending her mother,angry at the world that made it necessary for her to explain.Impulsively, she grabbed a curry comb and began to brush Red Star's coat vigorously.She brushed for a long time,and tears began to blur her vision.She tried to resign herself to what seemed to be happening.Then a hand covered hers and squeezed affectionately. Mac took the curry comb away,and bent to kiss the back of her hand. "So,Miss King,will you do me the honor of accompanying me to the social next Friday evening at the Congregational Church?" Miss King embarrassed herself by saying yes! so loudly that the dozing horse in the stall next to Red Star jumped and kicked the side of his stall in fright.The two young people laughed, and MacKenzie lifted LisBeth into the air and swung her around in his arms. Sick with apprehension,Jesse had been unable to remain alone for long.She returned to the kitchen to help Augustus with meal preparations, praying earnestly for LisBeth and MacKenzie while she worked.When the two young people burst through the kitchen door together,their happy smiles told the older women all they needed to know. LisBeth was sobered when she saw her Mother. "Mother,I..." Jesse held up a hand to stop her. "It's all right,LisBeth. I'm glad everything turned out.I've been praying for you both." "Mother,all four of us know about Papa. Would you tell me a story about him while we make supper?" The culprit never came forward, but at some time that evening, the first book-burning in the State of Nebraska took place. Francis Day's Memoirs of the Savage West found its way into Augusta's cook stove.

Wave after wave of an orgasm broke over her, but soon it would be over for him. “Stop,” Livia panted. Blake paused as Livia swallowed to try to compose herself. She was here for a reason. “The mask. Take it off. I want you to kiss me.” Livia watched his eyes. He was scared. “Blake, you’re inside of me. I’ll keep you safe. You’re inside of me.” Livia squeezed him again, reminding him exactly where he was. Blake smiled at the sensation. “Do it for me, Livia. Please.” And even though they were naked and locked in the most intimate embrace, this was the striptease. Livia went slowly, rolling up the knit ski mask like a stocking. First his jaw came into the light. Livia slowed, tracing its strong line with her finger. Next, his lips lost their frame, then his eyes left their prison. He closed them. Finally, his wild, messy hair was free. Livia tossed the mask aside. And waited. Open your eyes. After a moment Blake looked around his sunny meadow. A breeze stirred the trees high up, and they released a shower of fall colors. In the silence of the day, the leaves hitting the ground sounded like applause. Quiet applause for a quiet victory. The o in sorry vanished. Blake looked at Livia beneath him. She smiled. “Five hundred ninety-eight,” he whispered. Still counting. “Yes! Yes. I knew you could do this. I knew you could do this.” Livia beamed with pride. Blake blurred as her eyes became two pools of tears. He kissed her softly, but Livia wanted the rough thrusts back. She pulled away and wiped her eyes. “Giddy up!” Livia spanked Blake playfully. He gave a little chuckle before he put her out of her misery. If she thought he was going fast and hard before, she was wrong. Blake was almost done when he let Livia’s leg slip from his shoulder. He kissed her with his clever tongue and moaned loudly into her mouth.

Ella.” The sound was so quiet, I barely heard it through the blood-rush in my ears. I turned to look down the hallway. A man was coming toward me, his lean form clad in a pair of baggy scrub pants and a loose T-shirt. His arm was bandaged with silver-gray burn wrap. I knew the set of those shoulders, the way he moved. Jack. My eyes blurred, and I felt my pulse escalate to a painful throbbing. I began to shake from the effects of trying to encompass too much feeling, too fast. “Is it you?” I choked. “Yes. Yes. God, Ella . . .” I was breaking down, every breath shattering. I gripped my elbows with my hands, crying harder as Jack drew closer. I couldn’t move. I was terrified that I was hallucinating, conjuring an image of what I wanted most, that if I reached out I would find nothing but empty space. But Jack was there, solid and real, reaching around me with hard, strong arms. The contact with him was electrifying. I flattened against him, unable to get close enough. He murmured as I sobbed against his chest. “Ella . . . sweetheart, it’s all right. Don’t cry. Don’t . . .” But the relief of touching him, being close to him, had caused me to unravel. Not too late. The thought spurred a rush of euphoria. Jack was alive, and whole, and I would take nothing for granted ever again. I fumbled beneath the hem of his T-shirt and found the warm skin of his back. My fingertips encountered the edge of another bandage. He kept his arms firmly around me as if he understood that I needed the confining pressure, the feel of him surrounding me as our bodies relayed silent messages. Don’t let go. I’m right here. Tremors kept running along my entire frame. My teeth chattered, making it hard to talk. “I th-thought you might not come back.” Jack’s mouth, usually so soft, was rough and chapped against my cheek, his jaw scratchy with bristle. “I’ll always come back to you.” His voice was hoarse. I hid my face against his neck, breathing him in. His familiar scent had been obliterated by the antiseptic pungency of antiseptic burn dressings, and heavy saltwater brine. “Where are you hurt?” Sniffling, I reached farther over his back, investigating the extent of the bandage. His fingers tangled in the smooth, soft locks of my hair. “Just a few burns and scrapes. Nothing to worry about.” I felt his cheek tauten with a smile. “All your favorite parts are still there.” We were both quiet for a moment. I realized he was trembling, too. “I love you, Jack,” I said, and that started a whole new rush of tears, because I was so unholy glad to be able to say it to him. “I thought it was too late . . . I thought you’d never know, because I was a coward, and I’m so—” “I knew.” Jack sounded shaken. He drew back to look down at me with glittering bloodshot eyes. “You did?” I sniffled. He nodded. “I figured I couldn’t love you as much as I do, without you feeling something for me, too.” He kissed me roughly, the contact between our mouths too hard for pleasure. I put my fingers to Jack’s bristled jaw and eased his face away to look at him. He was battered and scraped and sun-scorched. I couldn’t begin to imagine how dehydrated he was. I pointed an unsteady finger at the waiting room. “Your family’s in there. Why are you in the hallway?” My bewildered gaze swept down his body to his bare feet. “They’re . . . they’re letting you walk around like this?” Jack shook his head. “They parked me in a room around the corner to wait for a couple more tests. I asked if anyone had told you I was okay, and nobody knew for sure. So I came to find you.” “You just left when you’re supposed to be having more tests?” “I had to find you.” His voice was quiet but unyielding.

When I looked at him, something stirred inside me. It felt like recognition sifted through dreams; like the moment before waking--when sleep blurred the true world, when beasts with sharp teeth and beautiful, winged things flew along the edges of your mind. Amar met my gaze and his eyes were raw. Burning. “Well?” he asked. There was no rebuke in his voice, only curiosity. “I see no secrets in your gaze,” I said. I see only night and smoke, dreams and glass, embers and wings. And I would not have you any other way. “You have made your request, what about mine?” “I am not the one withholding secrets.” He smiled and I stared at him for a moment. When he smiled, his severe face softened into something beautiful. I wanted to see it again. “On the contrary, I am the one who has no choice. You, on the other hand, do.” “What do you want from me?” He reached out, fingers sliding across the length of my hair. “Some strands of your hair.” Some of the courtiers in Bharata used to tie their wives’ hair around their wrists when they traveled. It was a sign of love and faith. To remain connected to the person you love, even if it was just by a circlet of hair. “May I?” asked Amar. I nodded. With a small knife, Amar deftly clipped a number of strands. Quickly, he twirled them into a bracelet and slipped it onto his wrist. There was another bracelet on his hand that I had not noticed until now. A simple strap of black leather tied into an elegant knot. “Thank you for this,” he said, pulling his sleeve over the other strap. “It’s nothing,” I said, trying for lightness. “And yet I would trade everything for it,” he said. There was no tease in his voice. Nothing but a strange straightforwardness, like he’d never said anything more honest in his entire life. “Then you must be relieved I gave it willingly.” “Astounded,” he murmured, still tracing the circlet. He looked at me and something light fluttered in my stomach. “Not relieved. Relief is when you want something to stop.

Then Janie’s baby voice rose above the din. “Ma-ma!” My steps halted. So did my heart. The plaintive cry filled every crevice of my being. “Ma-ma!” The caterwauling ceased. I turned. Ollie’s horror-stricken face told me I’d heard right. Gripping the handle of my suitcase and clenching my teeth, I tried to hold in my own keening. Janie dropped to her pudgy knees in the middle of the road. “Ma-ma!” She fell on her face in the dirt and sobbed. My gaze rose past her to Frank, who stood at the top of the steps. His horror seemed to mirror my own. I’d thought by leaving I’d alleviate his suffering, but it seemed I’d only deepened it. He made his way across the yard, his eyes fixed on mine. He passed his frozen children as if they were merely trees in a human forest and stopped in front of me, so close I could smell Ol’ Bob on his shirt. I tilted my head back, looked into his face. My heart bumped against my chest, though I’d felt sure it had stopped beating altogether. His arms reached for me, then fell back to his side. “Please, Rebekah. Please stay. They need you. I told you that.” “I can’t.” My vision blurred as I shook my head. His thumb caught a tear on my cheek, wiped it dry. I glanced at Janie, still lying heartbroken in the dirt. I ached to go to her, but I didn’t want to make things worse. Ollie seemed to read my thoughts. She picked up her sister, but her attention remained on me. I looked back at Frank. “Can’t you see? I’m giving you your life back. Your whole life. Your house. Your family.” I tasted the salt of my tears. He grabbed my shoulders. “But don’t you understand, Rebekah? I can’t have my whole life back. When I left for the war, I knew nothing would ever be the same. And it isn’t. Clara is gone. I have to make a new life now.” He sucked in a deep breath. “And I want to make it with you.” “Me? Are you saying . . . ” I held my breath, holding the words inside me, afraid they’d meet the air and burst like a soap bubble. His lips curled into a smile that chased every trace of gray from his eyes. “Marry me?

I’ve forgotten how to pay courtly compliments,” said Amar. “For instance, etiquette demands I tell you that you look lovely and compliment your demure. But that wouldn’t be the truth.” Heat rose to my cheeks and I narrowed my eyes. “What, then, would be the truth?” “The truth,” said Amar, taking a step closer to me, “is that you look neither lovely nor demure. You look like edges and thunderstorms. And I would not have you any other way.” My breath gathered in a tight knot and I looked away, only to catch sight of the tapestry. The threads throbbed behind my eyes, sharp as any headache. My vision blurred, swallowing the room around me. I blinked rapidly, squinting at the threads. All I could see were that all the threads were out of place. Some had either skipped a stitch or poked out altogether. I walked toward the tapestry in a daze, my hands outstretched. I could feel the tapestry’s pull, sharp as hunger, dry as thirst. Nothing would sate or slake me. All I wanted was to adjust the threads, tuck them back into place. There was an order, a pattern, like a stitching trick. I could feel it like a word balancing on the tip of my tongue and all I had to do was-- Amar’s hand closed around my wrist. He moved before me, blocking the tapestry. “Stop!” I blinked, my head woolly. His hands were around my shoulders, drawing me to a wobbly stand. “Did I fall?” “That sounds ungraceful,” he said, a smile playing at his lips. He was trying to joke with me, to ward off whatever happened as though it were nothing. But his hands were tight at my shoulders and there was the slightest tremble in his fingers. “A graceful tumble, then?” I suggested, stepping out of the circle of his arms. I didn’t need any help keeping myself upright. “I should’ve explained the tapestry before showing it to you. It can be overwhelming.” Amar led me to the throne and I sank into it wearily. There was a new ache tethered inside my bones. In the haze, the pressure of Amar’s hand against my arm was warm, comforting even. I closed my eyes, concentrating on the warm pulse in his fingers. When I finally felt strong enough to speak, I opened my eyes to find Amar’s face mere inches from mine. I could count the immaculate stitching of his emerald hood, the stubble along his chin and the veins raised along his hand. His eyes, as always, lay hidden. But he was so close that if I wanted, and I did, I might be able to peek-- Amar jerked backward, his jaw tightening.

I realized something tonight when you were in the arena doing your thing.” She took another deep breath of the roses’ scent. “What was it?” “I love you, Elle.” Her eyes flared wide to search his and her heart stopped. “Do you love me?” “Yes, I love you, Chase.” Simple, sure, an indisputable fact she couldn’t’ve held on her tongue if she’d wanted to. But was she ready to love somebody who loved her back? Was she? “You had me since Spin Master,” he said, with that grin she loved. “But I didn’t know it ‘til tonight.” “Oh, well, then, I get it,” she said, smiling back. “You only loved me ‘cause I saved your life.” “I want you to save it again.” He stood up to pull something out of the front pocket of his starched jeans. He reached for her hand. “I’m asking you to marry me, Elle. Will you?” Tears blurred her vision. They caught in her throat. Oh, God, how could she ever be a wife again? But how could she ever leave Chase? She tried to buy herself a little time to think. “You said you don’t trust women.” “Only you. I trust you. I trusted you with my life the first time I ever saw you.” That made her grin. And then she felt very solemn. He was looking right into her soul, holding her hand in his big calloused one. She clung to it. “You’re in a league of your own, Elle. Not just was a bull-fighter, but in every way.” She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know what to think. She knew she loved him, but this was scary. “You’re not the marrying kind, Chase. You’ve told me that a dozen times.” “I changed my mind.” “I’ve been married, Chase. It didn’t last. I left him.” He lifted one big shoulder. “What will last is that I love you,” he said. “That’ll never change. I’ll follow you all over the country if I have to, just to get a glimpse of you. Just to hear you laugh. You can work as many rodeos as you want. You can do anything you want and even if I’m not there, wherever I am, I’ll be loving you. Until I die.” “You’re looking at me as if it’s a done deal,” she said, smiling. His grin broadened. “It is. I can convince you. I know I’m good.” She laughed. “You might as well save us some time. You know I got no quit in me.” “Yes, I do know that.” “So what do you say?” “The main problem is that you’re not the man who’ll do everything I say. I told you that’s what I have to have before I’ll marry again.” “How d’you know I’m not him? I’ve been pretty pliable here lately, wouldn’t you say?” “You are so full of it, Chase Lomax.” “You’re the one who told me I have to get a life after rodeo. Well, that’s exactly what I’m tryin’ to do, right here.

You!’ the first guard yelled. ‘Hands on your head, don’t move.’ Wing slowly put his hands on his head, showing no hint of emotion. ‘What the hell?’ the other guard said. ‘He’s just a kid.’ He pulled a pair of handcuffs from his belt and slowly moved behind Wing and grasped one of his wrists. In one fluid motion, Wing grabbed the guard’s own wrist with his free hand and twisted hard. There was a sickening crunch, the guard howling in pain as Wing stepped backwards, too close for the man to bring his gun to bear. He pulled the guard’s wounded arm further over his own shoulder, dragging the man closer, and jerked his head backwards, his skull connecting with the man’s nose with a crunch. Wing rotated around the guard, pressing the wounded arm up into the small of the man’s back and ducking behind him, giving the other guard no clean shot without hitting his associate. He pushed hard, sending the stunned guard staggering towards his partner, and delivered a sharp kick to the base of his spine. The wounded guard’s momentum sent him careering into the other man, yowling with pain and confusion. Wing took two short steps and in a blur of movement pulled the handcuffs from the wounded man’s belt and snapped them closed around both his broken wrist and the wrist of the unwounded guard’s gun hand. Wing pressed his fingers into the pressure point behind the wounded guard’s ear and he collapsed, instantly unconscious, pulling the other guard down with him and pinning his gun to the ground. The conscious guard snatched for the gun with his free hand, but Wing dropped on to him, his knee pressing into his throat hard enough to choke him but without crushing his windpipe. Wing delivered a sharp knuckle jab to the guard’s shoulder and his free arm was instantly disabled too. Wing could hear the sound of at least half a dozen more guards racing up the stairs from below. He knew there would be more than he could handle. He reached down and took a smoke grenade from the webbing on the pinned guard’s chest and pulled the pin with his teeth, tossing it through the doorway into the stairwell. There were cries of confusion from just below as the confined space filled with impenetrable clouds of white smoke. Wing pulled a flashbang stun grenade from the other side of the pinned guard’s webbing and waited a couple of seconds before tossing it into the stairwell too. He closed his eyes, the flash of the grenade clear even through his eyelids. ‘Who the hell are you?’ the guard pinned beneath Wing gasped. ‘Just a kid,’ Wing said with a slight smile and punched him unconscious.

What’ll it be?” Steve asked me, just days after our wedding. “Do we go on the honeymoon we’ve got planned, or do you want to go catch crocs?” My head was still spinning from the ceremony, the celebration, and the fact that I could now use the two words “my husband” and have them mean something real. The four months between February 2, 1992--the day Steve asked me to marry him--and our wedding day on June 4 had been a blur. Steve’s mother threw us an engagement party for Queensland friends and family, and I encountered a very common theme: “We never thought Steve would get married.” Everyone said it--relatives, old friends, and schoolmates. I’d smile and nod, but my inner response was, Well, we’ve got that in common. And something else: Wait until I get home and tell everybody I am moving to Australia. I knew what I’d have to explain. Being with Steve, running the zoo, and helping the crocs was exactly the right thing to do. I knew with all my heart and soul that this was the path I was meant to travel. My American friends--the best, closest ones--understood this perfectly. I trusted Steve with my life and loved him desperately. One of the first challenges was how to bring as many Australian friends and family as possible over to the United States for the wedding. None of us had a lot of money. Eleven people wound up making the trip from Australia, and we held the ceremony in the big Methodist church my grandmother attended. It was more than a wedding, it was saying good-bye to everyone I’d ever known. I invited everybody, even people who may not have been intimate friends. I even invited my dentist. The whole network of wildlife rehabilitators came too--four hundred people in all. The ceremony began at eight p.m., with coffee and cake afterward. I wore the same dress that my older sister Bonnie had worn at her wedding twenty-seven years earlier, and my sister Tricia wore at her wedding six years after that. The wedding cake had white frosting, but it was decorated with real flowers instead of icing ones. Steve had picked out a simple ring for me, a quarter carat, exactly what I wanted. He didn’t have a wedding ring. We were just going to borrow one for the service, but we couldn’t find anybody with fingers that were big enough. It turned out that my dad’s wedding ring fitted him, and that’s the one we used. Steve’s mother, Lyn, gave me a silk horseshoe to put around my wrist, a symbol of good luck. On our wedding day, June 4, 1992, it had been eight months since Steve and I first met. As the minister started reading the vows, I could see that Steve was nervous. His tuxedo looked like it was strangling him. For a man who was used to working in the tropics, he sure looked hot. The church was air-conditioned, but sweat drops formed on the ends of his fingers. Poor Steve, I thought. He’d never been up in front of such a big crowd before. “The scariest situation I’ve ever been in,” Steve would say later of the ceremony. This from a man who wrangled crocodiles! When the minister invited the groom to kiss the bride, I could feel all Steve’s energy, passion, and love. I realized without a doubt we were doing the right thing.

I have an-odd ability-to read very quickly.” “Oh,” Elizabeth replied, “how lucky you are. I never heard of a talent like that.” A lazy glamorous smile swept across his face, and he squeezed her hand. “It’s not nearly as uncommon as your eyes,” he said. Elizabeth thought it must be a great deal more uncommon, but she wasn’t completely certain and she let it pass. The following day, that discovery was completely eclipsed by another one. At Ian’s insistence, she’d spread the books from Havenhurst across his desk in order to go over the quarter’s accounts, and as the morning wore on, the long columns of figures she’d been adding and multiplying began to blur together and transpose themselves in her mind-due in part, she thought with a weary smile, to the fact that her husband had kept her awake half the night making love to her. For the third time, she added the same long columns of expenditures, and for the third time, she came up with a different sum. So frustrated was she that she didn’t realize Ian had come into the room, until he leaned over her from behind and put his hands on the desk on either side of her own. “Problems?” he asked, kissing the top of her head. “Yes,” she said, glancing at the clock and realizing that the business acquaintances he was expecting would be there momentarily. As she explained her problem to him, she started shoving loose papers into the books, hurriedly trying to reassemble everything and clear his desk. “For the last forty-five minutes, I’ve been adding the same four columns, so that I could divide them by eighteen servants, multiply that by forty servants which we now have there, times four quarters. Once I know that, I can forecast the real cost of food and supplies with the increased staff. I’ve gotten three different answers to those miserable columns, and I haven’t even tried the rest of the calculations. Tomorrow I’ll have to start all over again,” she finished irritably, “and it takes forever just to get all this laid out and organized.” She reached out to close the book and shove her calculations into it, but Ian stopped her. “Which columns are they?” he asked calmly, his surprised gaze studying the genuine ire on her face. “Those long ones down the left-hand side. It doesn’t matter, I’ll fight it out tomorrow,” she said. She shoved the chair back, dropped two sheets of paper, and bent over to pick them up. They’d slid beneath the kneehole of the desk, and in growing disgust Elizabeth crawled underneath to get them. Above her, Ian said, “$364.” “Pardon?” she asked when she reemerged, clutching the errant sheets of paper. He was writing it down on a scrap of paper. “$364.” “Do not make light of my wanting to know the figures,” she warned him with an exasperated smile. “Besides,” she continued, leaning up and pressing an apologetic kiss on his cheek, loving the tangy scent of his cologne, “I usually enjoy the bookwork. I’m simply a little short of sleep today, because,” she whispered, “my husband kept me awake half the night.” “Elizabeth,” he began hesitantly, “there’s something I-“ Then he shook his head and changed his mind, and since Shipley was already standing in the doorway to announce the arrival of his business acquaintances, Elizabeth thought no more of it. Until the next morning.

Taking hold of the ladder, she began to climb, stopping when she got to eye level with him. That, however, turned out to be a mistake, because the moment her eyes met his, she forgot everything—even the lines she’d just committed to memory—because nothing else mattered to her except . . . him. “You wrote a scene with a strong heroine in it, and one where the hero gets dangled by his feet.” “I did.” “Why?” “Because I couldn’t figure out a better way to let you know I love you, the real you, without dangling from my feet and letting you cut me down.” Lucetta’s eyes immediately took to turning a little misty. “You . . . love me?” “I do, but before we continue this, I have to admit that hanging upside down is far less pleasant than I imagined, so if you’d be so kind, I really do need you to get me down from here.” Realizing he was completely serious, but also realizing if she cut him down he’d go plummeting to the hard floor and most likely suffer a horrible injury—which certainly wouldn’t have the night turning out well at all—Lucetta looked to the side of the stage and caught Mr. Skukman’s eye. As he, along with a good number of backstage hands, walked across the boards, whispers began circulating around the theater, growing louder after Bram got released and rose to his feet. Smiling ever so charmingly at the audience, he presented them with a small bow right before he took center stage. “Ladies and gentlemen, I must beg your indulgence for just a few more minutes because you see . . . I am . . . Mr. Grimstone.” The whispers ceased immediately. Bram smiled. “I’m Mr. Grimstone, alias Mr. Bram Haverstein, and I’ve come here tonight, with all of you as my witnesses, to proclaim my love for Miss Lucetta Plum, and . . .” He dropped to one knee. “Ask her to do me the very great honor of becoming my wife.” He reached out and took hold of Lucetta’s hand. “Miss Lucetta Plum, I am completely and irrevocably in love with you, and just so we’re clear, I’m in love with the real you, not the person you turn into when you take to the stage. I love the idea that you’re completely oblivious to your unusual beauty, can outrun a goat, and . . . you fascinate me as no one ever has. I’m asking you, in front of all of these people who will probably never buy another one of my books again if you turn me down . . .” He stopped talking and turned his head to the audience. “And just to remind everyone, I will have another novel releasing soon, although I haven’t decided on a title just yet, something about a strong-willed lady, no doubt, or . . .” “You’re getting distracted,” Lucetta interrupted. Bram immediately returned his gaze to hers. “Quite right, but . . . I’ve lost my train of thought.” “You were just about to the part where you were going to ask her to marry you,” a voice called out, a voice that sounded remarkably like Abigail’s. “Thank you, Grandmother,” he called back. “You’re welcome, darling. And just to remind you, I’m not getting any younger, so you might want to hurry this proposal business along.” Grinning, Bram shook his head, brought Lucetta’s fingers to his lips, and then sobered as he held her gaze. “I love you, Lucetta, more than I ever imagined I could, and I would be so incredibly honored if you’d agree to be my wife.” For a second, Lucetta was unable to answer him because her heart had taken to rising in her throat, but after drawing in a deep breath, she managed to nod, ignoring the tears that had filled her eyes and were blurring her vision. “I would be honored to become your wife, especially since—I’m not sure when this happened, but—I’m in love with you as well.” Bram’s hold on her hand tightened for just a second, and then he was sliding a ring on her finger she hadn’t even realized he’d been holding. Before she could take even a second to admire what felt like an enormous rock on her hand, he was standing instead of kneeling, looking intently into her eyes, before he pulled her into his arms and kissed her. The