Comfort Herself Quotes

There is nothing more rare, nor more beautiful, than a woman being unapologetically herself; comfortable in her perfect imperfection. To me, that is the true essence of beauty.

I want to weep, she thought. I want to be comforted. I’m so tired of being strong. I want to be foolish and frightened for once. Just for a small while, that’s all …a day … an hour ... ...One day, she promised herself as she lay abed, one day she would allow herself to be less than strong. But not today. It could not be today.

Karou wished she could be the kind of girl who was complete unto herself, comfortable in solitude, serene. But she wasn't. She was lonely, and she feared the missingness within her as if it might expand and... cancel her. She craved a presence beside her, solid. Fingertips light at the nape of her neck and a voice meeting hers in the dark. Someone who would wait with an umbrella to walk her home in the rain, and smile like sunshine when he saw her coming. Who would dance with her on her balcony, keep his promises and know her secrets, and make a tiny world wherever he was, with just her and his arms and his whisper and her trust.

She surrounded herself with books at work and at home. Her living space was a testament to her first and abiding love with shelves jammed with books tables crowded with them. She saw them not only as knowledge entertainment comfort even sanity but as a kind of artful decoration.

My needs are simple and few, thought Valentine. Food. Clothing. A comfortable place to sleep. And no idiots. But of course a world with no idiots would be lonely. If she herself were even allowed there.

My gripe is not with lovers of the truth but with truth herself. What succor, what consolation is there in truth, compared to a story? What good is truth, at midnight, in the dark, when the wind is roaring like a bear in the chimney? When the lightning strikes shadows on the bedroom wall and the rain taps at the window with its long fingernails? No. When fear and cold make a statue of you in your bed, don't expect hard-boned and fleshless truth to come running to your aid. What you need are the plump comforts of a story. The soothing, rocking safety of a lie.

Seven times I have despised my soul: The first time when I saw her being meek that she might attain height. The second time when I saw her limping before the crippled. The third time when she was given to choose between the hard and the easy, and she chose the easy. The fourth time when she committed a wrong, and comforted herself that others also commit wrong. The fifth time when she forbode for weakness, and attributed her patience to strength. The sixth time when she despised the ugliness of a face, and knew not that it was one of her own masks. And the seventh time when she sang a song of praise, and deemed it a virtue.

But it was too interesting, too new, too flattering, too deeply comforting to resist, it was a liberation to be in love and say so, and she could only let herself go deeper.

If only Sam could have stayed just like the Dog, she thought. A comforting friend without the complication of romantic interest.There had to be something she could do to completely discourage him, short of throwing up, or making herself totally unattractive. "I'm thirty-five," she said at last.

When over the years someone has seen you at your worst, and knows you with all your strengths and flaws, yet commits him- or herself to you wholly, it is a consummate experience. To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us.

If a mother is mourning not for what she has lost but for what her dead child has lost, it is a comfort to believe that the child has not lost the end for which it was created. And it is a comfort to believe that she herself, in losing her chief or only natural happiness, has not lost a greater thing, that she may still hope to "glorify God and enjoy Him forever." A comfort to the God-aimed, eternal spirit within her. But not to her motherhood. The specifically maternal happiness must be written off. Never, in any place or time, will she have her son on her knees, or bathe him, or tell him a story, or plan for his future, or see her grandchild.

She loved him. But he didn’t know how to love. He could talk about love. He could see love and feel love. But he couldn’t give love. He could make love. But he couldn’t make promises. She had desperately wanted his promises. She wanted his heart, knew she couldn’t have it so she took what she could get. Temporary bliss. Passionate highs and lows. Withdrawal and manipulation. He only stayed long enough to take what he needed and keep moving. If he stopped moving, he would self-destruct. If he stopped wandering, he would have to face himself. He chose to stay in the dark where he couldn’t see. If he exposed himself and the sun came out, he’d see his shadow. He was deathly afraid of his shadow. She saw his shadow, loved it, understood it. Saw potential in it. She thought her love would change him. He pushed and he pulled, tested boundaries, thinking she would never leave. He knew he was hurting her, but didn’t know how to share anything but pain. He was only comfortable in chaos. Claiming souls before they could claim him. Her love, her body, she had given to him and he’d taken with such feigned sincerity, absorbing every drop of her. His dark heart concealed. She’d let him enter her spirit and stroke her soul where everything is love and sensation and surrender. Wide open, exposed to deception. It had never occurred to her that this desire was not love. It was blinding the way she wanted him. She couldn’t see what was really happening, only what she wanted to happen. She suspected that he would always seek to minimize the risk of being split open, his secrets revealed. He valued his soul’s privacy far more than he valued the intimacy of sincere connection so he kept his distance at any and all costs. Intimacy would lead to his undoing—in his mind, an irrational and indulgent mistake. When she discovered his indiscretions, she threw love in his face and beat him with it. Somewhere deep down, in her labyrinth, her intricacy, the darkest part of her soul, she relished the mayhem. She felt a sense of privilege for having such passion in her life. He stirred her core. The place she dared not enter. The place she could not stir for herself. But something wasn’t right. His eyes were cold and dark. His energy, unaffected. He laughed at her and her antics, told her she was a mess. Frantic, she looked for love hiding in his eyes, in his face, in his stance, and she found nothing but disdain. And her heart stopped.

Janice suddenly flopped her body down on the dusty, musty train seat and pulled herself into a fetal position. Libby stroked her shoulder, trying to comfort her. Maggie and I looked at each other. We knew Janice had more to tell us.

Claire found herself staring at his feet, which were in bunny slippers. Myrnin looked down. "What?" he asked. "They're quite comfortable." He lifted on to look at it, and the ears wobbled in the air. "Of course they are," she said. Just when she thought Myrnin was getting his mental act together, he'd do something like that. Or maybe he was just messing with her. He liked to do that, and his dark eyes were fixed on her now, assessing just how weirded-out she was. Which, on the grade scale of zero to Myrnin, wasn't much.

Helen's modest. She wanted to dress herself," Ariadne said, drizzling honey over a bowl of oatmeal and putting it down in front of Helen. "Modest? Sure she is," Hector said sarcastically as he passed Lucas the bacon. "That was YOUR SISTER'S nightgown, wasn't it?" Lucas asked without skipping a beat as he served Helen and himself. Hector wisely shut his mouth. "Yeah," Ariadne replied for him, not getting it. "So comfortable! What? What are you all laughing at?

For the briefest moment, they came face to face. Their eyes locked. Then he broke the stare, swiveled, sank into a sitting position, chains clanking, with his knees up. She watched him speechlessly as he set a cooler bag between his boots, like he was settling down to a picnic or something. An image of the contents as hospital blood bags, complete with juice straws, flashed through her mind. Unfolding her legs, she made herself as comfortable as she could on the cold outer edge of the sill. An intangible and unnameable charge electrified the space between them, and at first, neither of them said anything. [...] Finally she heard him unzip the bag and watched him pull out a small cylinder. "I thought you might like some crappy ice cream," he said.

She was a great cook, but she cooked more for herself than for other people, not because she was hungry but because she was comforted by the rituals of the kitchen.

A woman who is comfortable in her own skin and cannot be made to feel bad about herself.

The usual state of nature is recovering from the last disaster,” she said. It was a truism of ecological biologists, and she said it the way a religious person might pray. To make sense of what she saw. To comfort herself. To give the world some sense of purpose or meaning. Species rose in an environment, and that environment changed. It was the nature of the universe, as true here as it had been on Earth.

Once a woman is comfortable in her own skin, living her own life and building a foundation by herself; it takes one heck of a man to make her want to sacrifice her independence.

Why can't I solve this problem by killing someone? she though petulantly, then comforted herself with the mantra that had kept her going in prison: "Soon all the humans will be dead," she said, droning in the time-honored fashion of gurus everywhere. "And then Opal will be loved." And even if I'm not loved, she thought, at least all the humans will be dead.

Somewhere over the Atlantic, at thirty-five thousand feet, she wrapped herself around me, and my brain decided to equate her scent, the sound of her voice, the feel of her skin, with comfort. I have no idea how I’m supposed to dissuade myself of this notion, and I am not yet ready to try.

She began to burn herself again. She found release in the pain; it was comforting, familiar. It was a trade-off she was well used to. Success required sacrifice. Sacrifice meant pain. Pain meant success.

I like ass-watching.” Peabody settled herself in comfortably.“When I see one bigger than mine, it makes me feel good. When I see one smaller, it helps me resist eating a whole bunch of cookies. It’s a productive hobby, my ass-watching

You don't notice the dead leaving when they really choose to leave you. You're not meant to. At most you feel them as a whisper or the wave of a whisper undulating down. I would compare it to a woman in the back of a lecture hall or theater whom no one notices until she slips out.Then only those near the door themselves, like Grandma Lynn, notice; to the rest it is like an unexplained breeze in a closed room. Grandma Lynn died several years later, but I have yet to see her here. I imagine her tying it on in her heaven, drinking mint juleps with Tennessee Williams and Dean Martin. She'll be here in her own sweet time, I'm sure. If I'm to be honest with you, I still sneak away to watch my family sometimes. I can't help it, and sometimes they still think of me. They can't help it.... It was a suprise to everyone when Lindsey found out she was pregnant...My father dreamed that one day he might teach another child to love ships in bottles. He knew there would be both sadness and joy in it; that it would always hold an echo of me. I would like to tell you that it is beautiful here, that I am, and you will one day be, forever safe. But this heaven is not about safety just as, in its graciousness, it isn't about gritty reality. We have fun. We do things that leave humans stumped and grateful, like Buckley's garden coming up one year, all of its crazy jumble of plants blooming all at once. I did that for my mother who, having stayed, found herself facing the yard again. Marvel was what she did at all the flowers and herbs and budding weeds. Marveling was what she mostly did after she came back- at the twists life took. And my parents gave my leftover possessions to the Goodwill, along with Grandma Lynn's things. They kept sharing when they felt me. Being together, thinking and talking about the dead, became a perfectly normal part of their life. And I listened to my brother, Buckley, as he beat the drums. Ray became Dr. Singh... And he had more and more moments that he chose not to disbelieve. Even if surrounding him were the serious surgeons and scientists who ruled over a world of black and white, he maintained this possibility: that the ushering strangers that sometimes appeared to the dying were not the results of strokes, that he had called Ruth by my name, and that he had, indeed, made love to me. If he ever doubted, he called Ruth. Ruth, who graduated from a closet to a closet-sized studio on the Lower East Side. Ruth, who was still trying to find a way to write down whom she saw and what she had experienced. Ruth, who wanted everyone to believe what she knew: that the dead truly talk to us, that in the air between the living, spirits bob and weave and laugh with us. They are the oxygen we breathe. Now I am in the place I call this wide wide Heaven because it includes all my simplest desires but also the most humble and grand. The word my grandfather uses is comfort. So there are cakes and pillows and colors galore, but underneath this more obvious patchwork quilt are places like a quiet room where you can go and hold someone's hand and not have to say anything. Give no story. Make no claim. Where you can live at the edge of your skin for as long as you wish. This wide wide Heaven is about flathead nails and the soft down of new leaves, wide roller coaster rides and escaped marbles that fall then hang then take you somewhere you could never have imagined in your small-heaven dreams.

A submissive spirit might be patient, a strong understanding would supply resolution, but here was something more; here was that elasticity of mind, that disposition to be comforted, that power of turning readily from evil to good, and of finding employment which carried her out of herself, which was from nature alone. It was the choicest gift of Heaven; and Anne viewed her friend as one of those instances in which, by a merciful appointment, it seems designed to counterbalance almost every other want.

Jacin said nothing else. Neither did she. After the first ring was completed, she leaned her head against his thigh, making herself more comfortable as she picked out a sunburst orange. Overhead, Jacin sighed, and she felt the faintest brush of fingertips against her hair. A hint, a suggestion of togetherness, before he became a statue once more.

Without any outward sign or motion, in the wreckage of herself, she donned her armor, made it firm around her heart. Raise her mask: a cold discipline, a steel beneath her skin. Grow comfortable, she told herself. It will never come off.

A woman who has a sense of humor possesses no refuge from the merciless truth about herself. She cannot think herself misunderstood. She cannot revel in self-pity. She cannot comfortably damn any one who differs from her.

And it occurred to me that the reason she makes it work, probably, is because she's so comfortable with herself. And you know, that's not such a bad notion, in the whole life-lesson business. Being comfortable with yourself. Because if you're not okay with who you are, why should anyone else be?

Whatever the cause, I could not meet his sunshine with cloud. If this were my last moment with him, I would not waste it in forced, unnatural distance. I loved him well - too well not to smite out of my path even Jealousy herself, when she would have obstructed a kind farewell. A cordial word from his lips, or a gentle look from his eyes, would do me good, for all the span of life that remained to me; it would be comfort in the last strait of loneliness; I would take it - I would taste the elixir, and pride should not spill the cup.

….Nothing was inevitable. She had not chosen this way. It was her fate. It had been decided since before time began. It had been decided before she began. Nothing could be done. There was no point in trying. It was way too late. The inevitability of nothing was totally supreme, overriding everything. No way out. No way through. She could only accept the unacceptable. She could only endure the unendurable. Nothing was wrong! Nothing was wrong and the wrongness of this awesome nothing seeped from her. Some people, only a few, saw it. Some people, only a few felt it. Some people, only a few, recognised it and in recognising it for what it was, raged against it. Through the nothingness, these few reached out for her. She could not reach back. Through the nothingness, these few fought for her. She could not fight back for herself. Through the nothingness, these few cared for her. She could not care back for herself. Through the nothingness, these few spoke out for her, shattering the frozen silence over and over again. She could not speak out for herself…. “ *I hope this may give some comfort to people who need it. There are good, caring people (whether outside or within yourself, if need be) and you do deserve to be cared for and supported as much as anyone else does." From “Nothing”, one of the short stories in “Fight! Rabbit! Fight!

But dandelions were what she chiefly saw. Yellow jewels for everyday studding the patched green dress of her back yard. She liked their demure prettiness second to their everydayness; for in that latter quality she thought she saw a picture of herself, and it was comforting to find that what was common could also be a flower.

She has simply never quite learned to walk or hold herself comfortably

Watching her, I felt she was telling the truth. There was something about her that seemed deeply—almost fundamentally—comfortable inside herself, the way I think a person is when they have been loved by their parents.

Dreams, stories, art- they were, and are, instruments of divine intervention that molded you into a woman who dwells in possibility: who now feels herself serene with comfort and strength.

Her room felt wonderful to her, as usual. She looked around with satisfaction… She imagined to herself that she would always live this way, even after she had grown up and moved away from her family. She planned to have exactly the same room wherever she was, because this room was her. No matter what happened out there in the rest of the world, she felt totally comfortable once she got into this room and closed the door.

I felt like I needed to comfort both the little girl inside me and my mother, assuring them that neither of them could have prevented the rape. I didn't want my mother to blame herself and I didn't want to blame the little girl inside of me for not speaking up at the age of six.

The man needs to be firm and resolute. He needs to be confident and assured. He needs to be her rock: the one man in the world his submissive can turn to for advice, help, guidance and comfort. And he needs to be able to arouse and excite her. He needs to be able to keep her on edge and off balance. He needs to know her better than she knows herself – and he needs to be all these things to her without losing his honor, or destroying her dignity and independence. He needs to lift her up, Leticia, so that she becomes the person she wants to be, and then he needs to hold her there so she can never ever fall.” Leticia stared up at me and for a long time said

[T]he flower is made of non-flower elements. We can describe the flower as being full of everything. There is nothing that is not present in the flower. We see sunshine, we see the rain, we see clouds, we see the earth, and we also see time and space in the flower. A flower, like everything else, is made entirely of non-flower elements. The whole cosmos has come together in order to help the flower manifest herself, The flower is full of everything except one thing: a separate self, a separate identity. The flower cannot be by herself alone. The flower has to inter-be with the sunshine, the cloud and everything in the cosmos. If we understand being in terms of inter-being, then we are much closer to the truth. Inter-being is not being and it is not non-being. Inter-being means being empty of a separate identity, empty of a separate self,

Anne always contemplated them as some of the happiest creatures of her acquaintance; but still, saved as we all are, by some comfortable feeling of superiority from wishing for the possibility of exchange, she would not have given up her own more elegant and cultivated mind for all their enjoyments; and envied them nothing but that seemingly perfect good understanding and agreement together, that good-humoured mutual affection, of which she had known so little herself with either of her sisters.

There are much better ways to die than this, Little Fox.' 'Your attempts to comfort are tr-tragic,' Evangeline stuttered. 'You're still alive,' he grumbled. His fingers found her eyelids then, and with feather-soft touches, he brushed away the melting ice. Maybe he wasn't entirely hopeless. She wondered if he just hadn't had much practice at this. Comforting someone was an intimate thing, and according to the stories, intimacy didn't end well with Jacks. But he clearly knew how to be gentle. She felt herself thaw in increments as his fingers went to her cheeks, sweeping away the frozen tears.

For years she had had her back against the stone wall of Rhett's love and had taken it as much for granted as she had taken Melanie's love, flattering herself that she drew her strength from herself alone. And even as she had realized earlier in the evening that Melanie had been beside her in her bitter campaigns against life, now she knew that silent in the background, Rhett had stood, loving her, understanding her, ready to help. Rhett at the bazaar, reading her impatience in her eyes and leading her out in the reel, Rhett helping her out of the bondage of mourning, Rhett convoying her through the fire and explosion the night Atlanta fell, Rhett lending her the money that gave her her start, Rhett who comforted her when she woke in the nights crying with fright from her dreams-why, no man did such things without loving a woman to distraction!

These thoughts were as familiar to her, and as comforting, as the precise configuration of her knees, their matching but competing, symmetrical and reversible, look. A second thought always followed the first, one mystery bred another: Was everyone else really as alive as she was? For example, did her sister really matter to herself, was she as valuable to herself as Briony was? Was being Cecilia just as vivid an affair as being Briony? Did her sister also have a real self concealed behind a breaking wave, and did she spend time thinking about it, with a finger held up to her face? Did everybody, including her father, Betty, Hardman? If the answer was yes, then the world, the social world, was unbearably complicated, with two billion voices, and everyone’s thoughts striving in equal importance and everyone’s claim on life as intense, and everyone thinking they were unique, when no one was. One could drown in irrelevance. But if the answer was no, then Briony was surrounded by machines, intelligent and pleasant enough on the outside, but lacking the bright and private inside feeling she had. This was sinister and lonely, as well as unlikely. For, though it offended her sense of order, she knew it was overwhelmingly probably that everyone else had thoughts like hers. She knew this, but only in a rather arid way; she didn’t really feel it.

Fareeda knew that no matter what any woman said, culture could not be escaped. Even if it meant tragedy. Even if it meant death. At least she was able to recognize her role in their culture, own up to it, instead of sitting around saying “If only I had done things differently.” It took more than one woman to do things differently. It took a world of them. She had comforted herself with these thoughts so many times before, but tonight they only filled her with shame.

There once was a girl who found herself dead. She spent her days peering over the ledge of heaven, her chin in her palm. She was bored as a brick, hadn't adjusted yet to the slower pace of heavenly life. Her sister would look up at her and wave, and the dead girl would wave back but she was too far away for her sister to see. The dead girl thought her sister might be writing her notes, but it was too long a trip to make for a few scattered words here and there so she let them be. And then, one day, her earthbound sister finally realized she could hear music up there in heaven, so after that, everything her sister needed to tell her she did through her clarinet and each time she played, the dead girl jumped up (no matter what else she was doing), and danced.

Have the doctors checked on you yet?” She shook her head. “I asked them to come again once he’s rested a little. I’ll get back to my room soon enough.” Of course. Of course the woman who just had a heart attack could spare getting herself to a more comfortable place so her husband could take a nap. Seriously, even if I did find someone, could it ever compare to them?

Just think, she said to herself. I could be living on the Right Bank. I could be married to a senior clerk at the Treasury. I could be sitting with my feet up, embroidering a linen handkerchief with a rambling-rose design. Instead I'm on the rue des Cordeliers in pursuit of a baguette, with a three-inch blade for comfort.

They play it safe, are quick to assassinate what they do not understand. They move in packs ingesting more and more fear with every act of hate on one another. They feel most comfortable in groups, less guilt to swallow. They are us. This is what we have become. Afraid to respect the individual. A single person within a circumstance can move one to change. To love herself. To evolve

Into it all came Winnie, eyes wide, and very much amazed. It was a whole new idea to her that people could live in such disarray, but at the same time she was charmed. It was…comfortable. Climbing behind Mae up the stairs to see the loft, she thought to herself: “Maybe it’s because they think they have forever to clean it up.” And this was followed by

But Aubrey didn't look scared. She seemed comfortable in her big sweater, a hand resting on her stomach, as if to remind herself that it was still there. She wanted this baby and that was the difference: magic you wanted was a miracle, magic you didn't want was a haunting.

After slipping on a negligee and making herself comfortable on the lounge, she became conscious that she was miserable and that the tears were rolling down her cheeks. She wondered if they were the tears of self-pity, and tried resolutely not to cry, but this existence without hope, without happiness, oppressed her, and she kept shaking her head from side to side, her mouth drawn down tremulously in the corners, as though she were denying the assertion made by some one, somewhere. She did not know that this gesture of hers was years older than history, that, for a hundred generations of men, intolerable and persistent grief has offered that gesture, of denial, of protest, of bewilderment, to something more profound, more powerful than the God made in the image of man, and before which that God, did he exist, would be equally impotent. It is a truth set at the heart of tragedy that this force never explains, never answers - this force intangible as air, more definite than death.

She’d always found a deep comfort in praying. A profound sense of connection to something infinitely larger than herself. Her atheist friends called it awe in the face of an infinite cosmos. She called it God. That they might be talking about the same thing didn’t bother her at all. It was possible she was hurling her prayers at a cold and unfeeling universe that didn’t hear them, but that wasn’t how it felt. Science had given mankind many gifts, and she valued it. But the one important thing it had taken away was the value of subjective, personal experience. That had been replaced with the idea that only measurable and testable concepts had value. But humans didn’t work that way, and Anna suspected the universe didn’t either. In God’s image, after all, being a tenet of her faith. At first,

It was always the same for her when she arrived to meet the body. After she unbuckled her seat belt, after she pulled a stick pen from the rubber band on the sun visor, after her long fingers brushed her hip to feel the comfort of her service piece, what she always did was pause. Not long. Just the length of a slow deep breath. That's all it took for her to remember the one thing she will never forget. Another body waited. She drew the breath. And when she could feel the raw edges of the hole that had been blown in her life, Detective Nikki Heat was ready. She opened the car door and went to work . . . Heat could have made it easier on herself by parking closer, but this was another of her rituals: the walk up. Every crime scene was a flavor of chaos, and these two hundred feet afforded the detective her only chance to fill the clean slate with her own impressions.

She did not understand why women complicated their lives with corsets and petticoats, so she sewed herself a coarse cassock that she simply put over her and without further difficulties resolved the problem of dress, without taking away the feeling of being naked, which according to her lights was the only decent way to be when at home.

Because women tend to turn their anger inward and blame themselves, they tend to become depressed and their self-esteem is lowered. This, in turn, causes them to become more dependent and less willing to risk rejection or abandonment if they were to stand up for themselves by asserting their will, their opinions, or their needs. Men often defend themselves against hurt by putting up a wall of nonchalant indifference. This appearance of independence often adds to a woman's fear of rejection, causing her to want to reach out to achieve comfort and reconciliation. Giving in, taking the blame, and losing herself more in the relationship seem to be a small price to pay for the acceptance and love of her partner. As you can see, both extremes anger in and anger out-create potential problems. While neither sex is wrong in the way they deal with their anger, each could benefit from observing how the other sex copes with their anger. Most men, especially abusive ones, could benefit from learning to contain their anger more instead of automatically striking back, and could use the rather female ability to empathise with others and seek diplomatic resolutions to problems. Many women, on the other hand, could benefit from acknowledging their anger and giving themselves permission to act it out in constructive ways instead of automatically talking themselves out of it, blaming themselves, or allowing a man to blame them. Instead of giving in to keep the peace, it would be far healthier for most women to stand up for their needs, their opinions, and their beliefs.

She loved sinking into her bed on evenings like this, but apparently she shouldn't, because it worried her aunts, who thought she ought to be out dancing. It worried her a little bit, too, because what if they were right, and because sometimes a great loneliness welled up in her and threatened all the dams she built to hold it back. You couldn't cure loneliness by wallowing in it, up above the world, on an island removed from everything. She knew that. But she had such a hard time with all the cures. They seemed rough and brusque and brutal, as if they abused her skin with a pot scrubber . . . forcing herself into a mass of people, a stranger among strangers. . . . But it was much more tempting to curl up with a book under her thick white comforter. Still, sometimes after she curled up, she regretted her lack of courage and felt bleakly lonely. It was important to have a really good book.

You have cast her as your beautiful victim and wilfully overlook those more shaded layers of her character, because it doesn’t comfortably fit your narrative. But this is the truth: Andie Bell was a bully who used emotional blackmail to get what she wanted. She sold drugs without care or regard for how they might be used. We will never know if she knew she was facilitating drug-assisted sexual assault, but certainly when confronted with this truth by her own sister she could not find it in herself to show compassion.

It is sometimes easier to be punished for something than it is to be a victim of random cruelty. As long as Ingeth can tell herself that her voice was taken from her because she committed some sin, then she has some control of it, you understand? Otherwise it was simply a terrible thing that happened. And if terrible things are allowed to happen to people that don’t deserve them, then the world is terrible and random and cruel. Which it is,” she added, pointing the spoon in Rhea’s direction, “but there’s not much comfort in that.” There

I don’t think she let herself go Charlie, I think she just let’s herself be. I can’t expect Frances to do all that she's done in the last twenty years including simply gaining twenty years and not look different from the twenty-five year old I feel in love with. If she’s comfortable carrying extra weight, fair enough, if it bothers her enough she’ll change it. I don’t get it when guys are like ‘oh my wife isn’t like she used to be’. Why would she be? Don’t you expect to change as you get older? I mean I’ll look at the twenty-three year old as happily as the next guy. They’re pretty and their bodies are gorgeous, but what the f*** would we talk about, juice cleanses and youtube?

Here’s the truth: I am the female version of a heartbreaker. The one that everyone says is too dedicated to ballet, too self-involved to ever care about anyone else besides herself. I’m the rebel. The bad twin. I am Tally—the loner, the party of one. The love and leave ‘em prototype. Heartless. That is me. I have no time for romance, flowers, or relationships. I like one-night stands with plenty of sex and no promises of a future. I like the lies I tell. I’m comfortable in telling them…most of the time. This is me.

A young lady is supposed to be classy, kind, generous, and respectful. She is told she should not display any anger and/or badmouth her peers. A young lady is told to think ‘inside the box’ and to limit her expectations because her husband will provide for her in the future. A young lady is taught to never fuss or complain and to always keep a smile on her face. When a young lady speaks her mind, she is told that she is not acting “ladylike”. When a young lady steps out of her comfort zone to challenge herself to fight for what she wants, she is told she is not acting “ladylike”. When a young lady plays a sport, and at times she may be aggressive, she is told that she is not acting “ladylike” When a young lady is bossy, she is told to humble herself, because that is not acting “ladylike”. Maybe she isn’t bossy, maybe she is confident within herself, has high self-esteem and knows she can dare to be different.

Bookstores, invariably, are a refuge. There's one in the town where they live, and the first time Lydia ventures in, it takes her breath away. She has to steady herself against a shelf. The smell of coffee and paper and ink. It's nothing like her little shop back home. It's stocked mostly with religious books, and instead of calendars and toys, they carry rosaries, Buddha figurines, yarmulkes. Still, the upright spines of the books are bedrock. Steady. There's an international poetry section. Hafiz. Heaney. Neruda. Lydia flips past the twenty love poems and reads "The Song of Despair." She reads it desperately, hungrily, bent over the books in the aisle of the quiet shop. Her fingers ready the next page while she devours the words. The book is water in the desert.

Her arms groped forward to guide her when her tears blocked her vision in darkness. Then she couldn't run any more. She sank to her knees and began to cry in her terror. She wanted Gary. She suddenly felt strong arms around her. She bent her head to bury it in Gary's shoulder, trembling in the darkness. Whimpering like a small animal in a trap, she pushed herself closer to him and said in a choked voice, "I'm so frightened!" "I know, my love," the voice said. "I'm so sorry you were hurt." She felt herself being pulled up to him, his grip around her tight. It was a strange feeling in this pitch-black hallway, where not even the light of the moon cast any illumination. The lips she touched were cold and yet they responded to her with an unusual warmth. His hands massaged her back. Something, Melanie thought, was wrong with that. The hands were too smooth, not like a plastered wrist would feel. "Gary?" she asked, backing away. She didn't trust what she couldn't see. "My love," the voice whispered, "there is no need to fear now. I shall protect you from those who mean you harm.

Extreme anxiety, fear, exhaustion, and lack of other viable options are what cause a person to surrender everything. Desperation is also the raw material of drastic change. Crisis spurs critical, dramatic shifts in a person’s psyche. Only a person who is willing to lose everything will transform himself or herself. Only by moving outside our comfort zone of the past – letting go of a former being – will a person expand their state of conscious awareness. Now that I am desperate, I am dangerous. I am also ripe for transformation.

...in response to whatever Alice was struggling with, whatever had caused her to withdraw from him, he had chosen the arms of another woman instead of relying on his own fortitude, as if he'd somehow deserved more comfort than Alice herself had been able to give, or not. Which was part of marriage, after all, part of the vows: enduring those times. And this sense of entitlement seemed to him an even greater sin than infidelity.

If he had but a little more brains, she thought to herself, I might make something of him; but she never let him perceive the opinion she had of him; listened with indefatigable complacency to his stories of the stable and the mess; laughed at all his jokes...When he came home, she was alert and happy; when he went out she pressed him to go; when he stayed at home, she played and sang for him, made him good drinks, superintended his dinner, warmed his slippers, and steeped his soul in comfort. The best of women {I have heard my grandmother say) are hypocrites. We don't know how much they hide from us: how watchful they are when they seem most artless and confidential: how often those frank smile which they wear so easily are traps to cajole or elude or disarm--I don't mean in your mere coquettes, but your domestic models and paragons of female virute.

I came at her like a snake. "I am fully done with other people telling me what to do with my history," I said. "My past made me who I am. There is no way to wipe it clean. I am the evidence. If you look at me and see track marks and too-skinny arms and hands that know how to hold a gun and a brain that is sharper and faster than yours, then that is not my problem. Do you hear me? I have regrets, and I have made mistakes, but I am who I am. I'm done pretending that I've wholly remade myself, that I'm going to ... to hie myself away in some lecture hall for the next four years to make you all comfortable." She was backed up against the door, now, her arms wrapped around herself, and I didn't care. "If you want to stop seeing it, you'll have to stop seeing me, and I am not going to disappear.

She’d just watched Tristan McLean, her cool suave movie star dad, reduced to near insanity. Leo could barely stand to watch that, but for Piper—Wow, Leo couldn’t even imagine. He figured that would make her insecure about herself, too. If weakness was inherited, she’d be wondering, could she break down the same way her dad did? “Hey, don’t worry,” Leo said. “Piper, you’re the strongest, most powerful beauty queen I’ve ever met. You can trust yourself. For what it’s worth, you can trust me too.” The helicopter dipped in a wind shear, and Leo almost jumped out of his skin. He cursed and righted the chopper. Piper laughed nervously. “Trust you, huh?” “Ah, shut up, already.” But he grinned at her, and for a second, it felt like he was just relaxing comfortably with a friend. Then they hit the storm clouds.

The man needs to be firm and resolute. He needs to be confident and assured. He needs to be her rock: the one man in the world his submissive can turn to for advice, help, guidance and comfort. And he needs to be able to arouse and excite her. He needs to be able to keep her on edge and off balance. He needs to know her better than she knows herself – and he needs to be all these things to her without losing his honor, or destroying her dignity and independence. He needs to lift her up, Leticia, so that she becomes the person she wants to be, and then he needs to hold her there so she can never ever fall.

Mrs. Treadwell moved away again, from the threat of human nearness, of feeling. If she stayed to listen, she knew she would weaken little by little, she would warm up in spite of herself, perhaps in the end identify herself with the other, take on his griefs and wrongs, and if it came to that, feel finally guilty as if she herself had caused them; yes, and he would believe it too, and blame her freely. It had happened too often, could she not learn at last? All of it was no good, neither for confidant nor listener. There was no cure, no comfort, tears change nothing and words can never get at the truth. No, don't tell me any more about yourself, I am not listening, you cannot force my attention. I don't want to know you, and I will not know you. Don't try to come nearer.

Why read at all? Why does anyone do it in the first place? Why do I? There is the element of escape, which is real enough—that’s a real-enough comfort. But also we read as a way to come to grips with the randomness of our being alive. To read a book by an observant, sympathetic mind is to see the human landscape in all its odd detail, and the reader says to him or herself, Yes, that’s how it is, only I didn’t know it to describe it. There’s a fraternity achieved, then: we are not alone. Sometimes an author’s voice is familiar to us from the first page, first paragraph, even if the author lived in another country, in another century.” Bob held up his stack of Russians. “How can you account for this familiarity? I do believe that, at our best, there is a link connecting us.

Hate can be a deeply stimulating emotion. The world becomes easier to understand and much less terrifying if you divide everything and everyone into friends and enemies, we and they, good and evil. The easiest way to unite a group isn't through love, because love is hard, It makes demands. Hate is simple. So the first thing that happens in a conflict is that we choose a side, because that's easier than trying to hold two thoughts in our heads at the same time. The second thing that happens is that we seek out facts that confirm what we want to believe - comforting facts, ones that permit life to go on as normal. The third is that we dehumanize our enemy. There are many ways of doing that, but none is easier than taking her name away from her. So when night comes and the truths spread, no one types "Maya" on their cell phone or computer in Beartown, they type "M." Or "the young woman." Or "the slut." No one talks about "the rape," they all talk about "the allegation." Or "the lie." It starts with "nothing happened," moves on to "and if anything did happen, it was voluntary," escalates to "and if it wasn't voluntary, she only has herself to blame; what did she think was going to happen if she got drunk and went into his room with him?" It starts with "she wanted it" and ends with "she deserved it." It doesn't take long to persuade each other to stop seeing a person as a person. And when enough people are quiet for long enough, a handful of voices can give the impression that everyone is screaming.

Clara shrugged and immediately knew her betrayal of Peter. In one easy movement she'd distanced herself from his bad behavior, even thought she herself was responsible for it. Just before everyone had arrived, she'd told Peter about her adventure with Gamache. Animated and excited she'd gabbled on about her box and the woods and the exhilarating climb up the ladder to the blind. But her wall of words hid from her a growing quietude. She failed to notice his silence, his distance, until it was too late and he'd retreated all the way to his icy island. She hated that place. From it he stood and stared, judged, and lobbed shards of sarcasm. 'You and your hero solve Jane's death?' 'I thought you'd be pleased,' she half lied. She actually hadn't thought at all, and if she had, she probably could have predicted his reaction. But since he was comfortably on his Inuk island, she'd retreat to hers, equipped with righteous indignation and warmed by moral certitude. She threw great logs of 'I'm right, you're an unfeeling bastard' onto the fire and felt secure and comforted.

Oh, how awful is truth on earth! That exquisite creature, that gentle spirit, that heaven - she was a tyrant, she was the insufferable tyrant and torture of my soul! I should be unfair to myself if I didn't say so! You imagine I didn't love her? Who can say that I did not love her! Do you see, it was a case of irony, the malignant irony of fate and nature! We were under a curse, the life of men in general is under a curse! (mine in particular). Of course, I understand now that I made some mistake! Something went wrong. Everything was clear, my plan was clear as daylight: "Austere and proud, asking for no moral comfort, but suffering in silence." And that was how it was. I was not lying, I was not lying! "She will see for herself, later on, that it was heroic, only that she had not known how to see it, and when, some day, she divines, it she will prize me ten times more and will abase herself in the dust and fold her hands in homage" - that was my plan. But I forgot something or lost sight of it. There was something I failed to manage. But, enough, enough! And whose forgiveness am I to ask now? What is done is done. By bolder, man, and have some pride! It is not your fault!... Well, I will tell the truth, I am not afraid to face the truth; it was her fault, her fault!

For the time being, all you need to do is become acquainted with St. Vincent. And if you decide you don't wish to marry him, for any reason, you won't have to." They both stood. Impulsively, Pandora stepped forward and dove her face against Devon's chest and hugged him, undoubtedly surprising I'm as much as herself. She rarely sought out physical contact with anyone. "Thank you," she said in a muffled voice. "It means a great deal that my feelings matter to you." "Of course they do, sweetheart." Devon gave her a comforting squeeze before drawing back to look down at her. "Do you know the motto on the Ravenel coat of arms?" "Loyalté nous lie." Do you know what that means?" "'Never make us angry?'" Pandora guessed, and was rewarded by his deep laugh. "Actually, I do know," she said. "It means 'loyalty binds us.'" "That's right," Devon said. "Whatever happens, we Ravenels will remain loyal to each other. We'll never sacrifice one for the sake of the rest.

A Christian people doesn't mean a lot of goody-goodies. The Church has plenty of stamina, and isn't afraid of sin. On the contrary, she can look it in the face calmly and even take it upon herself, assume it at times, as Our Lord did. When a good workman's been at it for a whole week, surely he's due for a booze on Saturday night. Look: I'll define you a Christian people by the opposite. The opposite of a Christian people is a people grown sad and old. You'll be saying that isn't a very theological definition. I agree... Why does our earliest childhood always seem so soft and full of light? A kid's got plenty of troubles, like everybody else, and he's really so very helpless, quite unarmed against pain and illness. Childhood and old age should be the two greatest trials of mankind. But that very sense of powerlessness is the mainspring of a child's joy. He just leaves it all to his mother, you see. Present, past, future -- his whole life is caught up in one look, and that look is a smile. Well, lad, if only they'd let us have our way, the Church might have given men that supreme comfort. Of course they'd each have their own worries to grapple with, just the same. Hunger, thirst, poverty, jealousy -- we'd never be able to pocket the devil once and for all, you may be sure. But man would have known he was the son of God; and therein lies your miracle. He'd have lived, he'd have died with that idea in his noddle -- and not just a notion picked up in books either -- oh, no! Because we'd have made that idea the basis of everything: habits and customs, relaxation and pleasure, down to the very simplest needs. That wouldn't have stopped the labourer ploughing, or the scientist swotting at his logarithms, or even the engineer making his playthings for grown-up people. What we would have got rid of, what we would have torn from the very heart of Adam, is that sense of his own loneliness... God has entrusted the Church to keep [the soul of childhood] alive, to safeguard our candour and freshness... Joy is the gift of the Church, whatever joy is possible for this sad world to share... What would it profit you even to create life itself, when you have lost all sense of what life really is?

For a life of the kind you and I have never known and will never know— quiet, peace, the surety of love.” “There is nothing sure about love. Do you think love will protect you when the Fjerdans come to capture the Stormwitch?” She didn’t. But maybe she wanted to believe there was more to life than fear and being feared. She yanked down the shade and tapped the roof. The coach travelled on, up the cramped cart track in slow switchbacks. At last, they rattled to a stop. “Stay here,” she said, hooking his shackles to the seat. She descended from the coach, closing the door behind her. Mal and Alina stood on the sanatorium’s stairs, but when Alina saw Zoya, she smiled and raced down the steps with arms open. Zoya blinked away an embarrassing prickle of tears. She hadn’t known how Alina might greet her, given the circumstances. She let herself be hugged. As always, Ravka’s Saint smelled of paint and pine. “Is he in there?” Alina asked. “He is.” “You bring me the worst gifts.” The tabby had returned from its sojourn and was twining through Misha’s legs. It padded over to Zoya. “Hello, Oncat,” she murmured, hefting the cat into her arms and feeling the comforting rumble of its purr.

Anne was now at hand to take up her own cause, and the sincerity of her manner being soon sufficient to convince him, where conviction was at least very agreeable, he had no farther scruples as to her being left to dine alone, though he still wanted her to join them in the evening, when the child might be at rest for the night, and kindly urged her to let him come and fetch her; but she was quite unpersuadable and this being the case, she had ere long the pleasure of seeing them set off together in high spirits. They were gone, she hoped, to be happy, however oddly constructed such happiness might seem; as for herself, she was left with as many sensations of comfort, as were, perhaps ever likely to be hers. She knew herself to be of the first utility to the child; and what was it to her, if Frederick Wentworth were only half a mile distant, making himself agreeable to others!

Nature teaches us to devour each other and gives us the example of all the crimes and all the vices which the social state corrects or conceals. We should love virtue; but it is well to know that this is simply and solely a convenient expedient invented by men in order to live comfortably together. What we call morality is merely a desperate enterprise, a forlorn hope, on the part of our fellow creatures to reverse the order of the universe, which is strife and murder, the blind interplay of hostile forces. She destroys herself, and the more I think of things, the more convinced I am that the universe is mad. Theologians and philosophers, who make God the author of Nature and the architect of the universe, show Him to us as illogical and ill-conditioned. They declare Him benevolent, because they are afraid of Him, but they are forced to admit that His acts are atrocious. They attribute a malignity to him seldom to be found even in mankind. And that is how they get human beings to adore Him. For our miserable race would never lavish worship on just and benevolent deities from which they would have nothing to fear; they would feel only a barren gratitude for their benefits. Without purgatory and hell, your good God would be a mighty poor creature.

Everything went black in the shocking folds of his embrace. She was very startled and near to sobbing. 'Caw, caw,' echoed his raincoat. 'Don't be frightened,' he said. 'It is only poor Finn, who will do you no harm.' She recovered herself a little, though she was still trembling. She could see her own face reflected in little in the black pupils of his subaqueous eyes. She still looked the same. She saluted herself. He was only a little taller than she and their eyes were almost level. Remotely, she wished him three inches taller. Or four. She felt the warm breath from his wild beast's mouth softly, against her cheek. She did not move. Stiff, wooden, and unresponsive, she stood in his arms and watched herself in his eyes. It was a comfort to see herself as she thought she looked. 'Oh, get it over with, get it over with,' she urged furiously under her breath. He was grinning like Pan in a wood. He kissed her, closing his eyes so that she could not see herself any more. His lips were wet and rough, cracked. It might have been anybody, kissing her, and besides, she did not know him well, if at all. She wondered why he was doing this, putting his mouth on her own undesiring one, softly moving his body against her. What was the need? She felt a long way away from him, and superior, also.

You are sad," the Knight said in an anxious tone: "let me sing you a song to comfort you." "Is it very long?" Alice asked, for she had heard a good deal of poetry that day. "It's long," said the Knight, "but it's very, very beautiful. Everybody that hears me sing it——either it brings the tears into their eyes, or else——" "Or else what?" said Alice, for the Knight had made a sudden pause. "Or else it doesn't, you know. The name of the song is called 'Haddocks' Eyes.'" "Oh, that's the name of the song, is it?" Alice said, trying to feel interested. "No, you don't understand," the Knight said, looking a little vexed. "That's what the name is called. The name really is 'The Aged Aged Man.'" "Then I ought to have said 'That's what the song is called'?" Alice corrected herself. "No, you oughtn't: that's quite another thing! The song is called 'Ways And Means': but that's only what it's called, you know!" "Well, what is the song, then? " said Alice, who was by this time completely bewildered. "I was coming to that," the Knight said. "The song really is 'A-sitting On A Gate': and the tune's my own invention.

She had the look of someone who’d declared herself, and seeing it, my indignation collapsed and her mutinous bath turned into something else entirely. She’d immersed herself in forbidden privileges, yes, but mostly in the belief she was worthy of those privileges. What she’d done was not a revolt, it was a baptism. I saw then what I hadn’t seen before, that I was very good at despising slavery in the abstract, in the removed and anonymous masses, but in the concrete, intimate flesh of the girl beside me, I’d lost the ability to be repulsed by it. I’d grown comfortable with the particulars of evil. There’s a frightful muteness that dwells at the center of all unspeakable things, and I had found my way into it. As Handful began to shove the vessel back across the piazza, I tried to speak. “. . . . . . Wait. . . . . . I’ll. . . . . . help . . .” She turned and looked at me, and we both knew. My tongue would once again attempt its suicide.

Is there anything you do that isn't designed to take you a step closer to the other side?" (...) Do you want that for Gen and Chloe? If you're going to take yourself out, do it with flame. Burn it all away, so there's nothing left but ashes, so we can still imagine everything we valued and loved…" He swung before she anticipated him. His fist went through her sheetrock as if it wasn't there, shattering paint and substance.(…) "You'll promise me. And you'll never betray that promise, or I swear to God it will kill me. Do you understand that? Do you know how much you mean to me? Even if you don't want me, you have to give me this." "I promise, I promise." She reached up, gathered him to her. He came inch by resisting inch until his face was against her neck. Suddenly he gave, dropping to his knees, his arms surrounding her so they were pressed against each other thigh to thigh, heart to heart. He pulled her in so tightly against him she couldn't breathe, but that didn't matter. Suddenly the world was about more than herself, more than about her pain and it was easier to let go of it to hold him in her arms, to give him comfort.

Almondine To her, the scent and the memory of him were one. Where it lay strongest, the distant past came to her as if that morning: Taking a dead sparrow from her jaws, before she knew to hide such things. Guiding her to the floor, bending her knee until the arthritis made it stick, his palm hotsided on her ribs to measure her breaths and know where the pain began. And to comfort her. That had been the week before he went away. He was gone, she knew this, but something of him clung to the baseboards. At times the floor quivered under his footstep. She stood then and nosed into the kitchen and the bathroom and the bedroom-especially the closet-her intention to press her ruff against his hand, run it along his thigh, feel the heat of his body through the fabric. Places, times, weather-all these drew him up inside her. Rain, especially, falling past the double doors of the kennel, where he’d waited through so many storms, each drop throwing a dozen replicas into the air as it struck the waterlogged earth. And where the rising and falling water met, something like an expectation formed, a place where he might appear and pass in long strides, silent and gestureless. For she was not without her own selfish desires: to hold things motionless, to measure herself against them and find herself present, to know that she was alive precisely because he needn’t acknowledge her in casual passing; that utter constancy might prevail if she attended the world so carefully. And if not constancy, then only those changes she desired, not those that sapped her, undefined her. And so she searched. She’d watched his casket lowered into the ground, a box, man-made, no more like him than the trees that swayed under the winter wind. To assign him an identity outside the world was not in her thinking. The fence line where he walked and the bed where he slept-that was where he lived, and they remembered him. Yet he was gone. She knew it most keenly in the diminishment of her own self. In her life, she’d been nourished and sustained by certain things, him being one of them, Trudy another, and Edgar, the third and most important, but it was really the three of them together, intersecting in her, for each of them powered her heart a different way. Each of them bore different responsibilities to her and with her and required different things from her, and her day was the fulfillment of those responsibilities. She could not imagine that portion of her would never return. With her it was not hope, or wistful thoughts-it was her sense of being alive that thinned by the proportion of her spirit devoted to him. "ory of Edgar Sawtelle" As spring came on, his scent about the place began to fade. She stopped looking for him. Whole days she slept beside his chair, as the sunlight drifted from eastern-slant to western-slant, moving only to ease the weight of her bones against the floor. And Trudy and Edgar, encapsulated in mourning, somehow forgot to care for one another, let alone her. Or if they knew, their grief and heartache overwhelmed them. Anyway, there was so little they might have done, save to bring out a shirt of his to lie on, perhaps walk with her along the fence line, where fragments of time had snagged and hung. But if they noticed her grief, they hardly knew to do those things. And she without the language to ask.

The Song Of The Happy Shepherd The woods of Arcady are dead, And over is their antique joy; Of old the world on dreaming fed; Grey Truth is now her painted toy; Yet still she turns her restless head: But O, sick children of the world, Of all the many changing things In dreary dancing past us whirled, To the cracked tune that Chronos sings, Words alone are certain good. Where are now the warring kings, Word be-mockers?—By the Rood, Where are now the watring kings? An idle word is now their glory, By the stammering schoolboy said, Reading some entangled story: The kings of the old time are dead; The wandering earth herself may be Only a sudden flaming word, In clanging space a moment heard, Troubling the endless reverie. Then nowise worship dusty deeds, Nor seek, for this is also sooth, To hunger fiercely after truth, Lest all thy toiling only breeds New dreams, new dreams; there is no truth Saving in thine own heart. Seek, then, No learning from the starry men, Who follow with the optic glass The whirling ways of stars that pass— Seek, then, for this is also sooth, No word of theirs—the cold star-bane Has cloven and rent their hearts in twain, And dead is all their human truth. Go gather by the humming sea Some twisted, echo-harbouring shell. And to its lips thy story tell, And they thy comforters will be. Rewording in melodious guile Thy fretful words a little while, Till they shall singing fade in ruth And die a pearly brotherhood; For words alone are certain good: Sing, then, for this is also sooth. I must be gone: there is a grave Where daffodil and lily wave, And I would please the hapless faun, Buried under the sleepy ground, With mirthful songs before the dawn. His shouting days with mirth were crowned; And still I dream he treads the lawn, Walking ghostly in the dew, Pierced by my glad singing through, My songs of old earth’s dreamy youth: But ah! she dreams not now; dream thou! For fair are poppies on the brow: Dream, dream, for this is also sooth.

Stop fussing,” Legna admonished her, tapping her finger against Isabella’s absently energetic hand. “I’m getting married in a few minutes, Legna, I think I’ve a right to fuss.” Isabella felt her heart turn over as she spoke aloud, listening to herself talk about her impending marriage. “Well, brides are supposed to be blushing, as I understand it. At the moment you are no less than five shades of gray.” Legna continued with her interrupted weaving of more ribbons in Isabella’s hair. “And as much as it matches the silver of your dress, I think you would look better with a little natural color.” Legna reached to smooth down a portion of the shimmering silver fabric that draped off of the bride’s shoulders in a Grecian fashion. “You know,” she pressed, “there are only two nights in a year when Demons perform a joining ceremony. Samhain and Beltane. If you pass out tonight, you will have to wait until next spring.” “Thanks for the bulletin. You’re too kind,” Isabella retorted dryly. “Actually, purely out of kindness, I will tell you that your future husband is just shy of tossing his cookies himself, so you can take comfort in knowing he is just as nervous as you are.” “Legna!” Bella laughed. “You’re a wretch!” She turned to look at the female Demon, briefly admiring how pretty she looked in her soft white chiffon gown. “And how would you know? You’re standing too close to me to be able to sense his emotions.” “Because when I went to fetch the ribbons, he was seated next to Noah with his head between his knees.” Legna giggled. “I have never seen anything rattle Jacob before. I cannot help but find it amusing.

The door opened and the seven of them came out of the conference room. Alexander walked out last. He saw Tatiana struggle up from her chair, but she couldn’t stand without holding on to it, and she looked so alone and forsaken, he was afraid that she would break down in front of half a dozen strangers. Yet he wanted to say something to her, something to comfort her, and so slightly nodding his head, he said, “We are going home.” She inhaled, and her hand covered her mouth. And then because she was Tatiana and because she couldn’t help herself, and because he wouldn’t have it any other way, she ran to him and was in his arms, generals or no generals. She flung her arms around him, she embraced him, her wet face was in his neck. His head was bent to her, and her feet were off the ground.   Though much is taken, much abides; and though we are not now that strength which in old days moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are— Unyielding. Barrington, Leningrad, Luga, Ladoga, Lazarevo, Ellis Island, the mountains of Holy Cross, their lost families, their lost mothers and fathers, their brothers in arms and brothers are etched on their souls and their fine faces and like the mercurial moon, like Jupiter over Maui, like the Perseus galaxy with its blue, imploding stars they remain, as the stellar wind whispers over the rivers all run red, over the oceans and the seas, murmuring through the moonsilver skies… Tatiana… Alexander… But the bronze horseman is still.

Kitty made the acquaintance of Madame Stahl too, and this acquaintance, together with her friendship with Varenka, did not merely exercise a great influence on her, it also comforted her in her mental distress. She found this comfort through a completely new world being opened to her by means of this acquaintance, a world having nothing in common with her past, an exalted, noble world, from the height of which she could contemplate her past calmly. It was revealed to her that besides the instinctive life to which Kitty had given herself up hitherto there was a spiritual life. This life was disclosed in religion, but a religion having nothing in common with that one which Kitty had known from childhood, and which found expression in litanies and all-night services at the Widow's Home, where one might meet one's friends, and in learning by heart Slavonic texts with the priest. This was a lofty, mysterious religion connected with a whole series of noble thoughts and feelings, which one could do more than merely believe because one was told to, which one could love.

Pessimism is a towering skyscraper eighty stories high in the suburbs of the soul at the end of a long avenue with waste ground on either side and a few poorly-stocked little shops. Several ultra-fast staircases give access to the building, running up from the cellars to the roof-gardens. The comfort of this place leaves nothing to be desired and only the greatest luxury is acceptable, but every Friday the residents gather on the ground floor to read from a bible bound in the skin of a blind man. The psalmic words they intone rise up through the pipes, sigh in the stoves and sweep the chimneys coated inside with black grease which leaves dirt on the skin. Water runs constantly in the bathrooms and the showers beat down on the numbered bodies, peppering them with sand. On Sundays the bed linen unrolls by itself and nobody makes love. For this tower block, like an obscure phallus scraping the vulva of the sky, is usually a hive of sexual activity. The most beautiful woman lives there, but no-one has ever known her. It is said, that dressed in furs and feathers, she keeps herself shut away in a first-floor apartment as if in a white safe. Her windows are scissors which cut short both shadow and breath. Her name is AURORA.

He held no illusions. Lazarevo was not going to come again, neither for him nor for her. Tatiana held those illusions. And he thought—it was better to have them. Look at him. And look at her. Tatiana so ceaselessly and happily did for him, so constantly smiled and touched him and laughed—even as their twenty-nine moon-cycle days spun faster around the loop of grief—that Alexander had to wonder if she ever even thought about the future. He knew she sometimes thought about the past. He knew she thought about Leningrad. She had a stony sadness around her edges that she had not had before. But for the future, Tatiana seemed to harbor a rosy hope, or at the very least a sense of humming unconcern. What are you doing? she would ask him when he was sitting on the bench and smoking. Nothing, Alexander would reply. Nothing but growing my pain. He smoked and wished for her. It was like wishing for America when he was a few years younger. Wishing for a life with her, a life that was full of nothing else but her, a simple, long, married life of being able to smell her and taste her, to hear the lyre of her voice and see the honey of her hair. To feel her staggering comfort. All of it, every day. Could he find a way to turn his back on Tatiana and have her faithful face free him? Would she forgive him? For leaving her, for dying, for killing her? He felt punched in the gut when he watched her skip stark naked out of the cabin in the morning, and throw herself squealing into the river, and then get out and head across the clearing to him, sitting on his stump of a heart. Watching her nipples hard from the cold, her flawless body trembling to be held by him, Alexander gritted his teeth and smiled and thanked God that when he pressed her to him, she could not see his contorted face. Alexander smoked and watched her from his tree stump bench. What are you doing? she would ask him. Nothing, he would reply. Nothing but growing my pain into madness.

It was a relief to see his father, who'd always been an unfailing source of reassurance and comfort. They clasped hands in a firm shake, and used their free arms to pull close for a moment. Such demonstrations of affection weren't common among fathers and sons of their rank, but then, they'd never been a conventional family. After a few hearty thumps on the back, Sebastian drew back and glanced over him with the attentive concern that hearkened to Gabriel's earliest memories. Not missing the traces of weariness on his face, his father lightly tousled his hair the way he had when he was a boy. "You haven't been sleeping." "I went carousing with friends for most of last night," Gabriel admitted. "It ended when we were all too drunk to see a hole through a ladder." Sebastian grinned and removed his coat, tossing the exquisitely tailored garment to a nearby chair. "Reveling in the waning days of bachelorhood, are we?" "It would be more accurate to say I'm thrashing like a drowning rat." "Same thing." Sebastian unfastened his cuffs and began to roll up his shirtsleeves. An active life at Heron's Point, the family estate in Sussex, had kept him as fit and limber as a man half his age. Frequent exposure to the sunlight had gilded his hair and darkened his complexion, making his pale blue eyes startling in their brightness. While other men of his generation had become staid and settled, the duke was more vigorous than ever, in part because his youngest son was still only eleven. The duchess, Evie, had conceived unexpectedly long after she had assumed her childbearing years were past. As a result there were eight years between the baby's birth and that of the next oldest sibling, Seraphina. Evie had been more than a little embarrassed to find herself with child at her age, especially in the face of her husband's teasing claims that she was a walking advertisement of his potency. And indeed, there have been a hint of extra swagger in Sebastian's step all through his wife's last pregnancy. Their fifth child was a handsome boy with hair the deep auburn red of an Irish setter. He'd been christened Michael Ivo, but somehow the pugnacious middle name suited him more than his given name. Now a lively, cheerful lad, Ivo accompanied his father nearly everywhere.

Once there were three tribes. The Optimists, whose patron saints were Drake and Sagan, believed in a universe crawling with gentle intelligence—spiritual brethren vaster and more enlightened than we, a great galactic siblinghood into whose ranks we would someday ascend. Surely, said the Optimists, space travel implies enlightenment, for it requires the control of great destructive energies. Any race which can't rise above its own brutal instincts will wipe itself out long before it learns to bridge the interstellar gulf. Across from the Optimists sat the Pessimists, who genuflected before graven images of Saint Fermi and a host of lesser lightweights. The Pessimists envisioned a lonely universe full of dead rocks and prokaryotic slime. The odds are just too low, they insisted. Too many rogues, too much radiation, too much eccentricity in too many orbits. It is a surpassing miracle that even one Earth exists; to hope for many is to abandon reason and embrace religious mania. After all, the universe is fourteen billion years old: if the galaxy were alive with intelligence, wouldn't it be here by now? Equidistant to the other two tribes sat the Historians. They didn't have too many thoughts on the probable prevalence of intelligent, spacefaring extraterrestrials— but if there are any, they said, they're not just going to be smart. They're going to be mean. It might seem almost too obvious a conclusion. What is Human history, if not an ongoing succession of greater technologies grinding lesser ones beneath their boots? But the subject wasn't merely Human history, or the unfair advantage that tools gave to any given side; the oppressed snatch up advanced weaponry as readily as the oppressor, given half a chance. No, the real issue was how those tools got there in the first place. The real issue was what tools are for. To the Historians, tools existed for only one reason: to force the universe into unnatural shapes. They treated nature as an enemy, they were by definition a rebellion against the way things were. Technology is a stunted thing in benign environments, it never thrived in any culture gripped by belief in natural harmony. Why invent fusion reactors if your climate is comfortable, if your food is abundant? Why build fortresses if you have no enemies? Why force change upon a world which poses no threat? Human civilization had a lot of branches, not so long ago. Even into the twenty-first century, a few isolated tribes had barely developed stone tools. Some settled down with agriculture. Others weren't content until they had ended nature itself, still others until they'd built cities in space. We all rested eventually, though. Each new technology trampled lesser ones, climbed to some complacent asymptote, and stopped—until my own mother packed herself away like a larva in honeycomb, softened by machinery, robbed of incentive by her own contentment. But history never said that everyone had to stop where we did. It only suggested that those who had stopped no longer struggled for existence. There could be other, more hellish worlds where the best Human technology would crumble, where the environment was still the enemy, where the only survivors were those who fought back with sharper tools and stronger empires. The threats contained in those environments would not be simple ones. Harsh weather and natural disasters either kill you or they don't, and once conquered—or adapted to— they lose their relevance. No, the only environmental factors that continued to matter were those that fought back, that countered new strategies with newer ones, that forced their enemies to scale ever-greater heights just to stay alive. Ultimately, the only enemy that mattered was an intelligent one. And if the best toys do end up in the hands of those who've never forgotten that life itself is an act of war against intelligent opponents, what does that say about a race whose machines travel between the stars?

You must have traveled all night,” she heard herself say. “I had to come back early.” She felt his lips brush her tumbled hair. “I left some things unfinished. But I had a feeling you might need me. Tell me what’s happened, sweetheart.” Amelia opened her mouth to answer, but to her mortification, the only sound she could make was a sort of miserable croak. Her self-control shattered. She shook her head and choked on more sobs, and the more she tried to stop them, the worse they became. Cam gripped her firmly, deeply, into his embrace. The appalling storm of tears didn’t seem to bother him at all. He took one of Amelia’s hands and flattened it against his heart, until she could feel the strong, steady beat. In a world that was disintegrating around her, he was solid and real. “It’s all right,” she heard him murmur. “I’m here.” Alarmed by her own lack of self-discipline, Amelia made a wobbly attempt to stand on her own, but he only hugged her more closely. “No, don’t pull away. I’ve got you.” He cuddled her shaking form against his chest. Noticing Poppy’s awkward retreat, Cam sent her a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry, little sister.” “Amelia hardly ever cries,” Poppy said. “She’s fine.” Cam ran his hand along Amelia’s spine in soothing strokes. “She just needs…” As he paused, Poppy said, “A shoulder to lean on.” “Yes.” He drew Amelia to the stairs, and gestured for Poppy to sit beside them. Cradling Amelia on his lap, Cam found a handkerchief in his pocket and wiped her eyes and nose. When it became apparent that no sense could be made from her jumbled words, he hushed her gently and held her against his large, warm body while she sobbed and hid her face. Overwhelmed with relief, she let him rock her as if she were a child. As Amelia hiccupped and quieted in his arms, Cam asked a few questions of Poppy, who told him about Merripen’s condition and Leo’s disappearance, and even about the missing silverware. Finally getting control of herself, Amelia cleared her aching throat. She lifted her head from Cam’s shoulder and blinked. “Better?” he asked, holding the handkerchief up to her nose. Amelia nodded and blew obediently. “I’m sorry,” she said in a muffled voice. “I shouldn’t have turned into a watering pot. I’m finished now.” Cam seemed to look right inside her. His voice was very soft. “You don’t have to be sorry. You don’t have to be finished, either.” She realized that no matter what she did or said, no matter how long she wanted to cry, he would accept it. And he would comfort her.

It kind of freaked me out. Because I don’t know if I’m ready for that kind of thing yet.” Or maybe the problem was that I wasn’t prepared for how ready I was… “Ready for-?” He broke off, and then frowned as if it had all become clear. “Wait.” He dropped his arms from around my waist and took a step away from me. “You think I spent the night wit you?” “Didn’t you?” I blinked back at him. “There’s only the one bed. And…well, you were in it when I woke up.” Thunder boomed overhead. It wasn’t as loud as the violent cracks that had occurred in my dream. Although the rumbles were long enough-and intense enough-that the silverware on the table began to make an eerie tinkling sound. And my bird, who’d been calmly cleaning herself on the back of my chair, suddenly took off, seeing shelter on the highest bookshelf against the far wall. I realized I’d just insulted my host, and no joke was going to get me out of it this time. “For your information, Pierce,” John said, his tone almost disturbingly calm-but his eyes flashed the same shade as the stone around my neck, which had gone the color of the metal studs at his wrists-“I spent most of last night on the couch. Until one point early this morning, when I heard you call my name. You were crying in your sleep.” The salt water I’d tasted on my lips. Not due to rain from a violent hurricane, but from the tears I’d shed, watching him die in front of me. “Oh,” I said uncomfortably. “John, I’m so-“ It turned out he wasn’t finished. “I put my arms around you to try to comfort you, because I know what this place can be like, at least at first. It’s not exactly hell, but it’s the next closest place to it. You wouldn’t let go of me. You held on to me like you were drowning, and I was your only lifeline.” I swallowed, astonished at how close he’d come to describing my dream…except it had been the other way around. I’d been his lifeline; only he’d let go of me, sacrificing himself so that I could live. “Right,” I said. “Of course. I’m sorry.” I couldn’t believe how stupid I’d been, especially since my mother had always worried so much about my talking in my sleep. On the other hand, I had been upfront with him about my lack of experience when it came to men. “But this is good, see?” I reached out to take his hand. “I told you I could never hate you-“ He pulled his hand away, exactly like in my dream. Well, not exactly, because he wasn’t being sucked from my grasp by a giant ocean swell. Instead, he’d dropped my fingers because he was leaving to go sort the souls of the dead. “You will,” he assured me, bitterly. “You’re already regretting your decision to-what was it you called it? Oh, right-cohabitate with me.” “No,” I insisted. “I’m not. All I said was that I want to take things more slowly-“ That had nothing to do with him-it had to do with me and my fear of not being able to control myself when he was kissing me. It was too humiliating to admit that out loud, however.

She dropped her coat on the back of a chair and crept quietly up to Jay’s room. She did her best not to wake him as she pulled the door closed behind her. She watched him sleep, stretched out on his back, feeling herself coming back to life in his presence. “What are you doing?” he mumbled without opening his eyes. Violet startled, feeling like she’d been caught doing something she shouldn’t have been. Like when they were little and they were busted for looking at a dirty magazine one of the other kids brought to school. Jay rolled onto his side and squinted one eye open at Violet, grinning. “Come over here,” he growled, lifting the corner of his sheet up, inviting her in. He looked rumpled and messy and alluring. Violet slipped off her shoes and climbed in beside him. He wrapped his arm around her back, pulling her close. His breath was warm, his body warmer, and she felt herself thawing for the first time since she’d stepped out into the shipyard that morning. Even the heat blasting inside her car on the way home hadn’t helped. She tucked her feet between his legs. “What are you doing here so early?” His voice was rough from sleep but it sounded like soft velvet. He stroked her back lazily. “Are you feeling better today?” Neither question really needed an answer; they were just Jay’s way of letting her know he’d been worried about her. “I didn’t mean to wake you,” she whispered as she let herself get comfortable against him. She’d been cold and tired, and now that she was warm again she thought she might actually be able to fall asleep, right there in his arms. He rested his chin against the top of her head. “You didn’t,” he assured her. “I was already awake.” Violet sighed. It felt so good to be here. It was the first time she’d felt comfortable since she’d gone to Seattle yesterday with Chelsea. Jay made her feel safe—among other things—and she needed that right now. She closed her eyes; they were gritty and raw from lack of sleep. She breathed deeply, inhaling him, and relaxing as she sank further into him . . . and into the pillow beneath her head. She fell asleep like that, wrapped in warmth. Wrapped in Jay.

You have to stop letting me do this,” he bit off, half-angrily. “If you’ll stop leaning on me so that I can get my hands on a blunt object, I’ll be happy to…!” He kissed the words into oblivion. “It isn’t a joke,” he murmured into her mouth. His hips moved in a gentle, sensuous sweep against her hips. He felt her shiver. “That’s…new,” she said with a strained attempt at humor. “It isn’t,” he corrected. “I’ve just never let you feel it before.” He kissed her slowly, savoring the submission of her soft, warm lips. His hands swept under the blouse and up under her breasts in their lacy covering. He was going over the edge. If he did, he was going to take her with him, and it would damage both of them. He had to stop it, now, while he could. “Is this what Colby gets when he comes to see you?” he whispered with deliberate sarcasm. It worked. She stepped on his foot as hard as she could with her bare instep. It surprised him more than it hurt him, but while he recoiled, she pushed him and tore out of his arms. Her eyes were lividly green through her glasses, her hair in disarray. She glared at him like a female panther. “What Colby gets is none of your business! You get out of my apartment!” she raged at him. She was magnificent, he thought, watching her with helpless delight. There wasn’t a man alive who could cow her, or bend her to his will. Even her drunken, brutal stepfather hadn’t been able to force her to do something she didn’t want to do. “Oh, I hate that damned smug grin,” she threw at him, swallowing her fury. “Man, the conqueror!” “That isn’t what I was thinking at all.” He sobered little by little. “My mother was a meek little thing when she was younger,” he recalled. “But she was forever throwing herself in front of me to keep my father from killing me. It was a long time until I grew big enough to protect her.” She stared at him curiously, still shaken. “I don’t understand.” “You have a fierce spirit,” he said quietly. “I admire it, even when it exasperates me. But it wouldn’t be enough to save you from a man bent on hurting you.” He sighed heavily. “You’ve been…my responsibility…for a long time,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “No matter how old you grow, I’ll still feel protective about you. It’s the way I’m made.” He meant to comfort, but the words hurt. She smiled anyway. “I can take care of myself.” “Can you?” he said softly. He searched her eyes. “In a weak moment…” “I don’t have too many of those. Mostly, you’re responsible for them,” she said with black humor. “Will you go away? I’m supposed to try to seduce you, not the reverse. You’re breaking the rules.” His eyebrow lifted. Her sense of humor seemed to mend what was wrong between them. “You stopped trying to seduce me.” “You kept turning me down,” she pointed out. “A woman’s ego can only take so much rejection.

She sorted through the clothes. “Do you mind wearing Emilio’s underwear?” She turned back to him with the two different styles that she’d found. “You’re about the same size. And they’re clean. They were wrapped in a paper package, like from a laundry service.” Max gave her a look, because along with the very nice, very expensive pair of black silk boxers she’d pilfered from Emilio, she’d also borrowed one of his thongs. “What?” Gina said. It was definitely a man-thong. It had all that extra room for various non-female body parts. “Don’t be ridiculous.” “I’m not,” she said, trying to play it as serious. “One, it’s been a while, maybe your tastes have changed. And two, these might actually be more comfortable, considering the placement of your bandage and—” He took the boxers from her. “Apparently I was wrong.” She turned away and started sorting through the pairs of pants and Bermuda shorts she’d grabbed, trying not to be too obvious about the fact that she was watching him out of the corner of her eye. To make sure he didn’t fall over. Right. After he got the boxers on, he took off the bathrobe and . . . Okay, he definitely wasn’t as skinny as he’d been after his lengthy stint in the hospital. Emilio’s pants probably weren’t going to fit him, after all. Although, there was one pair that looked like they’d be nice and loose . . . There they were. The Kelly green Bermuda shorts. Max gave her another one of those you’ve-got-to-be-kidding glances as he put the bathrobe over the back of another chair. “Do I really look as if I’ve ever worn shorts that color in my entire life?” She tried not to smile. “I honestly don’t think you have much choice.” She let herself look at him. “You know, you could just go with the boxers. At least until your pants dry. You know what would really work with that, though? A bowtie.” She turned, as if to go back to the closet. “I’m sure Emilio has a tux. Judging from his other clothes, it’s probably polyester and chartreuse, but maybe the bowtie is—” “Gina.” Max stopped her before she reached the door. He motioned for her to come back. She held out the green shorts, but instead of taking them, he took her arm, pulled her close. “I love you,” Max said, as if he were dispatching some terrible, dire news that somehow still managed to amuse him at least a little. Gina had been hoping that he’d say it, praying even, but the fact that he’d managed to smile, even just a bit while he did, was a miracle. And then, before her heart even had a chance to start beating again, he kissed her. And oh, she was also beyond ready for that particular marvel, for the sweet softness of his mouth, for the solidness of his arms around her. There was more of him to hold her since he’d regained his fighting weight—and that was amazing, too. She skimmed her hands across the muscular smoothness of his back, his shoulders, as his kiss changed from tender to heated. And, God. That was a miracle, too. Except she couldn’t help but wonder about those words, wrenched from him, as if it cost him his soul to speak them aloud. Why tell her this right now? Yes, she’d been waiting for years for him to say that he loved her, but . . . Max laughed his surprise. “No. Why do you . . .?” He figured it out himself. “No, no, Gina, just . . . I should’ve said it before. I should have said it years ago, but I really should have said it, you know, instead of hi.” He laughed again, clearly disgusted with himself. “God, I’m an idiot. I mean, hi? I should have walked in and said, ‘Gina, I need you. I love you, don’t ever leave me again.’” She stared at him. It was probably a good thing that he hadn’t said that at the time, because she might’ve fainted. It was obvious that he wanted her to say something, but she was completely speechless.

An Act for establishing religious Freedom. Section 1 Whereas, Almighty God hath created the mind free; That all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens, or by civil incapacitations tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and therefore are a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, who being Lord, both of body and mind yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do, That the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavouring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world and through all time; That to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions, which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical; That even the forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor, whose morals he would make his pattern, and whose powers he feels most persuasive to righteousness, and is withdrawing from the Ministry those temporary rewards, which, proceeding from an approbation of their personal conduct are an additional incitement to earnest and unremitting labours for the instruction of mankind; That our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions in physics or geometry, That therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence, by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages, to which, in common with his fellow citizens, he has a natural right, That it tends only to corrupt the principles of that very Religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing with a monopoly of worldly honours and emoluments those who will externally profess and conform to it; That though indeed, these are criminal who do not withstand such temptation, yet neither are those innocent who lay the bait in their way; That to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency is a dangerous fallacy which at once destroys all religious liberty because he being of course judge of that tendency will make his opinions the rule of judgment and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square with or differ from his own; That it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government, for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order; And finally, that Truth is great, and will prevail if left to herself, that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them.

Jay came over as soon as Violet called him; she didn’t even have to give him a reason. He was there in less than ten minutes. Of course, he’d heard about what had happened to Hailey. Everyone had. Buckley was a small town, and news traveled fast . . . especially bad news. When he got there she told him what she was thinking about doing. It was nothing dangerous, at least as far as she was concerned, and she hadn’t expected Jay to disagree with her about it. So when he did, she was more than a little bit surprised by his stubborn reaction. “No way,” he insisted, and his voice left little room for argument. “There is no way you’re going to go around looking for this guy.” Violet was shocked by the tone of his voice, and by the harsh look he shot at her. She thought maybe he misunderstood her plan, so she tried to explain it to him again. “Jay, I’m only going to public places, like malls and parks, to see if I can get a feeling for who this guy is. Who knows, maybe he goes to places like that to find them, maybe he hands out there waiting to pick out a girl to . . . you know, kidnap.” She tried to make her argument sound logical, but there was a desperate edge to her voice. “I’m not going out alone . . . you can go with me. We’ll just hang out at different places to see if we can find him. And if we do, we’ll call my uncle. It’s not like we’d do anything stupid.” “’Anything stupid’ would be going out to look for a killer. I won’t let you go looking for trouble, Violet. This guy is dangerous, and you need to leave it to the cops. They know what they’re doing. And they’re armed.” He sounded like he thought she’d lost her mind, and maybe she had, but she had already made her decision. “Look, I’m doing this. I was just asking you to come along with me.” “You’re not,” he insisted. “Even if I have to tell your uncle and your parents what you’re planning. I promise you, you’re not doing it.” She could feel her temper flaring. “You can’t stop me, Jay. If you tell on me, then I’ll lie. I’ll bat my eyes innocently and promise not to go looking for this guy. But I swear to you that every chance I get, even if I have to sneak out of the house to do it, I will be trying to find him.” She stood up, meaning to glare back at him, but instead found herself craning her neck just so she could see his face. The awkward position didn’t steal nay of her thunder. She refused to back down. “I mean it, Jay. You can’t stop me.” Jay glared incredulously back at her. Emotions ranging from disbelief to frustration and back to disbelief again flashed darkly across his face. He seemed to be fighting with himself now. But when she heard him sigh, and then saw him raking his hand restlessly through his hair, she knew she’d won. His icy determination seemed to melt right before her eyes. “Damn it, Violet.” He sighed brusquely, wrapping his arms around her and holding her tightly. “What choice do I have?” he asked as he practically squeezed the life out of her. She wasn’t sure how to react to him now. It definitely wasn’t a tender hug, but the close contact made her undisclosed desires stir all the same. She couldn’t help wondering if he felt even a fraction of what she did. His arms were strong, and she felt safe in the circle of them. She’d never imaged that she could feel so comfortable and so uncomfortable at the same time. She waited within the space of his embrace to see where this was going. “So, how is this going to work?” he demanded roughly against the top of her head.