Didn't Come To Play Quotes

Isabelle snorted. 'All the boys are gay. In this truck, anyway. Well, not you, Simon.' 'You noticed' said Simon. 'I think of myself as a freewheeling bisexual,' added Magnus. 'Please never say those words in front of my parents,' said Alec. 'Especially my father.' 'I thought your parents were okay with you, you know, coming out,' Simon said, leaning around Isabelle to look at Alec, who was — as he often was — scowling, and pushing his floppy dark hair out of his eyes. Aside from the occasional exchange, Simon had never talked to Alec much. He wasn’t an easy person to get to know. But, Simon admitted to himself, his own recent estrangement from his mother made him more curious about Alec’s answer than he would have been otherwise. 'My mother seems to have accepted it,' Alec said. 'But my father — no, not really. Once he asked me what I thought had turned me gay.' Simon felt Isabelle tense next to him. 'Turned you gay?' She sounded incredulous. 'Alec, you didn’t tell me that.' 'I hope you told him you were bitten by a gay spider,' said Simon. Magnus snorted; Isabelle looked confused. 'I’ve read Magnus’s stash of comics,' said Alec, 'so I actually know what you’re talking about' A small smile played around his mouth. 'So would that give me the proportional gayness of a spider?' 'Only if it was a really gay spider,' said Magnus, and he yelled as Alec punched him in the arm. 'Ow, okay, never mind.

I don't let anyone touch me," I finally said. Why not?" Why not? Because I was tired of men. Hanging in doorways, standing too close, their smell of beer or fifteen-year-old whiskey. Men who didn't come to the emergency room with you, men who left on Christmas Eve. Men who slammed the security gates, who made you love them then changed their minds. Forests of boys, their ragged shrubs full of eyes following you, grabbing your breasts, waving their money, eyes already knocking you down, taking what they felt was theirs. (...) It was a play and I knew how it ended, I didn't want to audition for any of the roles. It was no game, no casual thrill. It was three-bullet Russian roulette.

I think there must be probably different types of suicides. I'm not one of the self-hating ones. The type of like "I'm shit and the world'd be better off without poor me" type that says that but also imagines what everybody'll say at their funeral. I've met types like that on wards. Poor-me-I-hate-me-punish-me-come-to-my-funeral. Then they show you a 20 X 25 glossy of their dead cat. It's all self-pity bullshit. It's bullshit. I didn't have any special grudges. I didn't fail an exam or get dumped by anybody. All these types. Hurt themselves. I didn't want to especially hurt myself. Or like punish. I don't hate myself. I just wanted out. I didn't want to play anymore is all. I wanted to just stop being conscious. I'm a whole different type. I wanted to stop feeling this way. If I could have just put myself in a really long coma I would have done that. Or given myself shock I would have done that. Instead.

I like storms. Thunder torrential rain, puddles, wet shoes. When the clouds roll in, I get filled with this giddy expectation. Everything is more beautiful in the rain. Don't ask me why. But it’s like this whole other realm of opportunity. I used to feel like a superhero, riding my bike over the dangerously slick roads, or maybe an Olympic athlete enduring rough trials to make it to the finish line. On sunny days, as a girl, I could still wake up to that thrilled feeling. You made me giddy with expectation, just like a symphonic rainstorm. You were a tempest in the sun, the thunder in a boring, cloudless sky. I remember I’d shovel in my breakfast as fast as I could, so I could go knock on your door. We’d play all day, only coming back for food and sleep. We played hide and seek, you’d push me on the swing, or we’d climb trees. Being your sidekick gave me a sense of home again. You see, when I was ten, my mom died. She had cancer, and I lost her before I really knew her. My world felt so insecure, and I was scared. You were the person that turned things right again. With you, I became courageous and free. It was like the part of me that died with my mom came back when I met you, and I didn’t hurt if I knew I had you. Then one day, out of the blue, I lost you, too. The hurt returned, and I felt sick when I saw you hating me. My rainstorm was gone, and you became cruel. There was no explanation. You were just gone. And my heart was ripped open. I missed you. I missed my mom. What was worse than losing you, was when you started to hurt me. Your words and actions made me hate coming to school. They made me uncomfortable in my own home. Everything still hurts, but I know none of it is my fault. There are a lot of words that I could use to describe you, but the only one that includes sad, angry, miserable, and pitiful is “coward.” I a year, I’ll be gone, and you’ll be nothing but some washout whose height of existence was in high school. You were my tempest, my thunder cloud, my tree in the downpour. I loved all those things, and I loved you. But now? You’re a fucking drought. I thought that all the assholes drove German cars, but it turns out that pricks in Mustangs can still leave scars.

True to course, he didn’t know the nature of the assignment; true to course, he didn’t ask. That was probably for the best. Preparation for the Iranian hostage extraction had been difficult, and its execution life-threatening, but that was child’s play compared to what was coming.

The role played by time at the beginning of the universe is, I believe, the final key to removing the need for a Grand Designer, and revealing how the universe created itself. … Time itself must come to a stop. You can’t get to a time before the big bang, because there was no time before the big bang. We have finally found something that does not have a cause because there was no time for a cause to exist in. For me this means there is no possibility of a creator because there is no time for a creator to have existed. Since time itself began at the moment of the Big Bang, it was an event that could not have been caused or created by anyone or anything. … So when people ask me if a god created the universe, I tell them the question itself makes no sense. Time didn’t exist before the Big Bang, so there is no time for God to make the universe in. It’s like asking for directions to the edge of the Earth. The Earth is a sphere. It does not have an edge, so looking for it is a futile exercise.

I want you to tell me about every person you’ve ever been in love with. Tell me why you loved them, then tell me why they loved you. Tell me about a day in your life you didn’t think you’d live through. Tell me what the word home means to you and tell me in a way that I’ll know your mother’s name just by the way you describe your bedroom when you were eight. See, I want to know the first time you felt the weight of hate, and if that day still trembles beneath your bones. Do you prefer to play in puddles of rain or bounce in the bellies of snow? And if you were to build a snowman, would you rip two branches from a tree to build your snowman arms or would leave your snowman armless for the sake of being harmless to the tree? And if you would, would you notice how that tree weeps for you because your snowman has no arms to hug you every time you kiss him on the cheek? Do you kiss your friends on the cheek? Do you sleep beside them when they’re sad even if it makes your lover mad? Do you think that anger is a sincere emotion or just the timid motion of a fragile heart trying to beat away its pain? See, I wanna know what you think of your first name, and if you often lie awake at night and imagine your mother’s joy when she spoke it for the very first time. I want you to tell me all the ways you’ve been unkind. Tell me all the ways you’ve been cruel. Tell me, knowing I often picture Gandhi at ten years old beating up little boys at school. If you were walking by a chemical plant where smokestacks were filling the sky with dark black clouds would you holler “Poison! Poison! Poison!” really loud or would you whisper “That cloud looks like a fish, and that cloud looks like a fairy!” Do you believe that Mary was really a virgin? Do you believe that Moses really parted the sea? And if you don’t believe in miracles, tell me — how would you explain the miracle of my life to me? See, I wanna know if you believe in any god or if you believe in many gods or better yet what gods believe in you. And for all the times that you’ve knelt before the temple of yourself, have the prayers you asked come true? And if they didn’t, did you feel denied? And if you felt denied, denied by who? I wanna know what you see when you look in the mirror on a day you’re feeling good. I wanna know what you see when you look in the mirror on a day you’re feeling bad. I wanna know the first person who taught you your beauty could ever be reflected on a lousy piece of glass. If you ever reach enlightenment will you remember how to laugh? Have you ever been a song? Would you think less of me if I told you I’ve lived my entire life a little off-key? And I’m not nearly as smart as my poetry I just plagiarize the thoughts of the people around me who have learned the wisdom of silence. Do you believe that concrete perpetuates violence? And if you do — I want you to tell me of a meadow where my skateboard will soar. See, I wanna know more than what you do for a living. I wanna know how much of your life you spend just giving, and if you love yourself enough to also receive sometimes. I wanna know if you bleed sometimes from other people’s wounds, and if you dream sometimes that this life is just a balloon — that if you wanted to, you could pop, but you never would ‘cause you’d never want it to stop. If a tree fell in the forest and you were the only one there to hear — if its fall to the ground didn’t make a sound, would you panic in fear that you didn’t exist, or would you bask in the bliss of your nothingness? And lastly, let me ask you this: If you and I went for a walk and the entire walk, we didn’t talk — do you think eventually, we’d… kiss? No, wait. That’s asking too much — after all, this is only our first date.

Dear Human: You've got it all wrong. You didn't come here to master unconditional love. This is where you came from and where you'll return. You came here to learn personal love. Universal love. Messy love. Sweaty Love. Crazy love. Broken love. Whole love. Infused with divinity. Lived through the grace of stumbling. Demonstrated through the beauty of... messing up. Often. You didn't come here to be perfect, you already are. You came here to be gorgeously human. Flawed and fabulous. And rising again into remembering. But unconditional love? Stop telling that story. Love in truth doesn't need any adjectives. It doesn't require modifiers. It doesn't require the condition of perfection. It only asks you to show up. And do your best. That you stay present and feel fully. That you shine and fly and laugh and cry and hurt and heal and fall and get back up and play and work and live and die as YOU. Its enough. It's Plenty.

Kishan spoke intently, "Kelsey is all that a man could ask for. She's perfect for you. She loves poetry and sits endlessly content while listening to you sing and play your guitar. She waited months for you to come after her, and she has risked her life repeatedly to save your mangy white hide. She's sweet and loving and warm and beautiful and would make you immeasurably happy." There was a pause. Then I heard Ren say incredulously, "You love her." Kishan didn't answer right away, but then said softly, almost so I couldn't hear it, "No man in his right mind wouldn't, which proves you aren't in your right mind.

Frodo: 'It's a pity Bilbo didn't kill Gollum when he had the chance.' Gandalf: 'Pity? It's a pity that stayed Bilbo's hand. Many that live deserve death. Some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them, Frodo? Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. Even the very wise cannot see all ends. My heart tells me that Gollum has some part to play in it, for good or evil, before this is over. The pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many.' Frodo: 'I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.' Gandalf: 'So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world, Frodo, besides that of evil. Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, in which case you were also meant to have it. And that is an encouraging thought.

Apparently she was beyond words so she pushed the card into his hands. He looked down. Blinked. Blinked again before stumbling back into a chair. Did he just wet himself? Ah, who cared? He was holding four tickets to the Yankees vs. Red Sox at Yankee Stadium for this Friday and they were without a doubt the best seats in the stadium. His eyes shifted from Haley to the tickets and back again before he made a split second decision and made a run for it. He didn’t make it five feet before his little grasshopper tackled him to the ground and ripped the card from his hands. He spit grass out of his mouth. “Fine. You can come with me I guess,” he said, earning a knee to the ribs.

But sleep didn't come. She could hear Jace's soft piano playing through the walls, but that wasn't what was keeping her awake. She was thinking of Simon, leaving for a house that no longer felt like home to him, of the despair in Jace's voice as he said 'I want to hate you', and of Magnus, not telling Jace the truth: that Alec did not want Jace to know about his relationship because he was still in love with him. She thought of the satisfaction it would have brought Magnus to say the words out loud, to acknowledge what the truth was, and the fact that he hadn't said them - had let Alec go on lying and pretending - because that was what Alec wanted, and Magnus cared about Alec enough to give him that. Maybe it was true what the Seelie Queen had said, after all: Love made you a liar.

You didn't see me on television, you didn't see news stories about me. The kind of role that I tried to play was to pick up pieces or put together pieces out of which I hoped organization might come. My theory is, strong people don't need strong leaders.

I remember one time - it might have been a couple times - at the Fillmore East in 1970, I was opening for this sorry-ass cat named Steve Miller. Steve Miller didn't have his shit going for him, so I'm pissed because I got to open for this non-playing motherfucker just because he had one or two sorry-ass records out. So I would come late and he would have to go on first and then we got there we smoked the motherfucking place, everybody dug it.

For Jenn At 12 years old I started bleeding with the moon and beating up boys who dreamed of becoming astronauts. I fought with my knuckles white as stars, and left bruises the shape of Salem. There are things we know by heart, and things we don't. At 13 my friend Jen tried to teach me how to blow rings of smoke. I'd watch the nicotine rising from her lips like halos, but I could never make dying beautiful. The sky didn't fill with colors the night I convinced myself veins are kite strings you can only cut free. I suppose I love this life, in spite of my clenched fist. I open my palm and my lifelines look like branches from an Aspen tree, and there are songbirds perched on the tips of my fingers, and I wonder if Beethoven held his breath the first time his fingers touched the keys the same way a soldier holds his breath the first time his finger clicks the trigger. We all have different reasons for forgetting to breathe. But my lungs remember the day my mother took my hand and placed it on her belly and told me the symphony beneath was my baby sister's heartbeat. And I knew life would tremble like the first tear on a prison guard's hardened cheek, like a prayer on a dying man's lips, like a vet holding a full bottle of whisky like an empty gun in a war zone… just take me just take me Sometimes the scales themselves weigh far too much, the heaviness of forever balancing blue sky with red blood. We were all born on days when too many people died in terrible ways, but you still have to call it a birthday. You still have to fall for the prettiest girl on the playground at recess and hope she knows you can hit a baseball further than any boy in the whole third grade and I've been running for home through the windpipe of a man who sings while his hands playing washboard with a spoon on a street corner in New Orleans where every boarded up window is still painted with the words We're Coming Back like a promise to the ocean that we will always keep moving towards the music, the way Basquait slept in a cardboard box to be closer to the rain. Beauty, catch me on your tongue. Thunder, clap us open. The pupils in our eyes were not born to hide beneath their desks. Tonight lay us down to rest in the Arizona desert, then wake us washing the feet of pregnant women who climbed across the border with their bellies aimed towards the sun. I know a thousand things louder than a soldier's gun. I know the heartbeat of his mother. Don't cover your ears, Love. Don't cover your ears, Life. There is a boy writing poems in Central Park and as he writes he moves and his bones become the bars of Mandela's jail cell stretching apart, and there are men playing chess in the December cold who can't tell if the breath rising from the board is their opponents or their own, and there's a woman on the stairwell of the subway swearing she can hear Niagara Falls from her rooftop in Brooklyn, and I'm remembering how Niagara Falls is a city overrun with strip malls and traffic and vendors and one incredibly brave river that makes it all worth it. Ya'll, I know this world is far from perfect. I am not the type to mistake a streetlight for the moon. I know our wounds are deep as the Atlantic. But every ocean has a shoreline and every shoreline has a tide that is constantly returning to wake the songbirds in our hands, to wake the music in our bones, to place one fearless kiss on the mouth of that brave river that has to run through the center of our hearts to find its way home.

She's got so many azalea bushes, her yard's going to look like Gone With the Wind come spring. I don't like azaleas and I sure didn't like that movie, the way they made slavery look like a big happy tea party. If I'd played Mammy, I'd of told Scarlett to stick those green draperies up her white little pooper. Maker her own damn man-catching dress.

It's obvious to me that you don't want to be here," Robert told his daughter. "What gave it away? The fact that I told you a million times that I didn't want to come? That I didn't want to play your stupid game? That I thought it was cruel and manipulative and a total waste of time?" "Yes," Robert said. "That.

Huck [Finn] and Tom [Sawyer] represent two viable models of the American Character. They exist side by side in every American and every American action. America is, and always has been, undecided about whether it will be the United States of Tom or the United States of Huck. The United States of Tom looks at misery and says: Hey, I didn't do it. It looks at inequity and says: All my life I have busted my butt to get where I am, so don't come crying to me. Tom likes kings, codified nobility, unquestioned privilege. Huck likes people, fair play, spreading the truck around. Whereas Tom knows, Huck wonders. Whereas Huck hopes, Tom presumes. Whereas Huck cares, Tom denies. These two parts of the American Psyche have been at war since the beginning of the nation, and come to think of it, these two parts of the World Psyche have been at war since the beginning of the world, and the hope of the nation and of the world is to embrace the Huck part and send the Tom part back up the river, where it belongs.

The Top Ten Reasons Why Virgin Val Sucks 10. She called me a one-hit-wonder. 9. She doesn’t appreciate the endearing nickname I gave her. 8. She makes me write stupid blogs about her at four in the morning. 7. She’s encouraging people not to have sex. 6. She blew me off when I asked her out. 5. She has a crush on a douche bag. 4. She won’t answer any of my calls. 3. She’s such a tease with her look-but-don’t-touch policy. 2. I played a whole effing concert just for her and she didn’t come even though she told me she would. (You’re such a liar!) And the #1 reason why Virgin Val sucks? I still want her anyway.

Can I help you with something?" he asks. His lips twitch, fighting a losing battle against a wretched, playful grin. I try to look cross with him, if only to keep up appearances. "You're supposed to be training." "Worried I'm not getting enough exercise? I assure you, Mare," he says, winking, "we are." It makes sense. Farley and Shade have been inseparable for a long while. Still, I gasp aloud, and swat his arm. "Shade Barrow!" "Oh, come on, everyone knows. Not my fault you didn't figure it out.

Hello Ra," he said in a kindly voice. "It's been a long time." A feeble voice from behind the chair said,"Can't play. Go away." "would you like a treat?" Apophis asked. "we used to play so nicely together. Every night, trying to kill each other. Don't you remember?" Ra poked his head above the throne. "Treat?" "How about a stuffed date?" Apophis pulled one out of the air. "You used to love stuffed dates, didn't you? All you have to do is come out and let me devour— I mean entertain you." " Want a cookie," Ra said. "What kind?" "Weasel cookie." I'm here to tell you, that comment about weasel cookies probably saved the known universe.

A floorboard cracked; knuckles tapped once on the open door. Adam looked up to see Niall Lynch standing in the doorway. No, it was Ronan, face lit bright on one side, in stark shadow on the other, looking powerful and at ease with his thumbs tucked in the pockets of his jeans, leather bracelets looped over his wrist, feet bare. He wordlessly crossed the floor and sat beside Adam on the mattress. When he held out his hand, Adam put the model into it. “This old thing,” Ronan said. He turned the front tyre, and again the music played out of it. They sat like that for a few minutes, as Ronan examined the car and turned each wheel to play a different tune. Adam watched how intently Ronan studied the seams, his eyelashes low over his light eyes. Ronan let out a breath, put the model down on the bed beside him, and kissed Adam. Once, when Adam had still lived in the trailer park, he had been pushing the lawn mower around the scraggly side yard when he realized that it was raining a mile away. He could smell it, the earthy scent of rain on dirt, but also the electric, restless smell of ozone. And he could see it: a hazy gray sheet of water blocking his view of the mountains. He could track the line of rain travelling across the vast dry field towards him. It was heavy and dark, and he knew he would get drenched if he stayed outside. It was coming from so far away that he had plenty of time to put the mower away and get under cover. Instead, though, he just stood there and watched it approach. Even at the last minute, as he heard the rain pounding the grass flat, he just stood there. He closed his eyes and let the storm soak him. That was this kiss. They kissed again. Adam felt it in more than his lips. Ronan sat back, his eyes closed, swallowing. Adam watched his chest rise and fall, his eyebrows furrow. He felt as bright and dreamy and imaginary as the light through the window. He did not understand anything. It was a long moment before Ronan opened his eyes, and when he did, his expression was complicated. He stood up. He was still looking at Adam, and Adam was looking back, but neither said anything. Probably Ronan wanted something from him, but Adam didn’t know what to say. He was a magician, Persephone had said, and his magic was making connections between disparate things. Only now he was too full of white, fuzzy light to make any sort of logical connections. He knew that of all the options in the world, Ronan Lynch was the most difficult version of any of them. He knew that Ronan was not a thing to be experimented with. He knew his mouth still felt warm. He knew he had started his entire time at Aglionby certain that all he wanted to do was get as far away from this state and everything in it as possible. He was pretty sure he had just been Ronan’s first kiss. “I’m gonna go downstairs,” Ronan said.

Once there was a boy,” said Jace. Clary interrupted immediately. “A Shadowhunter boy?” “Of course.” For a moment a bleak amusement colored his voice. Then it was gone. “When the boy was six years old, his father gave him a falcon to train. Falcons are raptors – killing birds, his father told him, the Shadowhunters of the sky. “The falcon didn’t like the boy, and the boy didn’t like it, either. Its sharp beak made him nervous, and its bright eyes always seemed to be watching him. It would slash at him with beak and talons when he came near: For weeks his wrists and hands were always bleeding. He didn’t know it, but his father had selected a falcon that had lived in the wild for over a year, and thus was nearly impossible to tame. But the boy tried, because his father told him to make the falcon obedient, and he wanted to please his father. “He stayed with the falcon constantly, keeping it awake by talking to it and even playing music to it, because a tired bird was meant to be easier to tame. He learned the equipment: the jesses, the hood, the brail, the leash that bound the bird to his wrist. He was meant to keep the falcon blind, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it – instead he tried to sit where the bird could see him as he touched and stroked its wings, willing it to trust him. Hee fed it from his hand, and at first it would not eat. Later it ate so savagely that its beak cut the skin of his palm. But the boy was glad, because it was progress, and because he wanted the bird to know him, even if the bird had to consume his blood to make that happen. “He began to see that the falcon was beautiful, that its slim wings were built for the speed of flight, that it was strong and swift, fierce and gentle. When it dived to the ground, it moved like likght. When it learned to circle and come to his wrist, he neary shouted with delight Sometimes the bird would hope to his shoulder and put its beak in his hair. He knew his falcon loved him, and when he was certain it was not just tamed but perfectly tamed, he went to his father and showed him what he had done, expecting him to be proud. “Instead his father took the bird, now tame and trusting, in his hands and broke its neck. ‘I told you to make it obedient,’ his father said, and dropped the falcon’s lifeless body to the ground. ‘Instead, you taught it to love you. Falcons are not meant to be loving pets: They are fierce and wild, savage and cruel. This bird was not tamed; it was broken.’ “Later, when his father left him, the boy cried over his pet, until eventually his father sent a servant to take the body of the bird away and bury it. The boy never cried again, and he never forgot what he’d learned: that to love is to destroy, and that to be loved is to be the one destroyed.

Do you play video games, Liv?’ he asked congenially. ‘Uh, yes.’ ‘Well, stop cleaning up the dishes and come play with us,’ he teased. I chuckled. ‘Are you asking me on a playdate?’ As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them. I wasn’t being flirty. I didn’t know how to be flirty! That was just my sense of humor, and now this guy was going to think I was coming on – Nate laughed, cutting me off. ‘Only because you got the Star Trek reference. Otherwise, girls aren’t allowed to play with us. They’re icky.’ Deadpan, I crossed my arms over my chest. ‘Well, boys are icky too.’ He grinned huge. ‘Ain’t that the truth.

She’d come to the hospital. In his clothes. Did she realize tears were spilling down her cheeks and she was shaking, head to toe? No, she didn’t. Based on her flirty shoulder shrugs and attempts to wink, she thought she was playing it cool, and it made his chest burn. This girl. He’d be keeping her. There was no way around it.

God! I hated this business of being grown-up. I hated having to make decisions where I didn't know what was behind the door. I wanted a world where heroes and villains were clearly labeled. Where ominous music comes on-screen so you can't possibly mistake him. Where someone asks you to choose between playing with the beautiful princess in the fragrant garden and being eaten by the hideous monster in the foul-smelling pit. Not exactly a difficult one, now is it? Not something that you would agonize over, or that would make you lose a night's sleep?

When you got captured, I didn't know..." He trailed off, had to chug whiskey before he could continue. "If it'd be like..." "What?" "Like it was with Clotile." "Oh, Jackson, no. I was okay. I'm unharmed." "Didn't know if I'd get there too late," he said with a shudder. Then he crossed over to me, until we stood toe-to-toe. "Evie, if you ever get taken from me again, you better know that I'll be coming for you." He cupped my face with a bloodstained hand. "So you stay the hell alive! You don't do like Clotile, you doan take that way out. You and me can get through anything, just give me a chance."--his voice broke lower "just give me a chance to get to you." He buried his face in my hair, inhaling deeply. "There is nothing that can happen to you that we can't get past." ... "When you say we...?" He pulled back, gazing down at me, his eyes blazing. "I'm goan to lay it all out there for you. Laugh in my face--I don't care. But I'm goan to get this off my chest." "I won't laugh. I'm listening." "Evie, I've wanted you from the first time I saw you. Even when I hated you, I wanted you." He raked his fingers through his hair. "I got it bad, me." My heart felt like it'd stopped--so that I could hear him better. "For as long as you've been looking down your nose at me, I've been craving you, an envie like I've never known." "I don't look down at you! I'm too busy looking up to you." ... "The corners of his lips curled for an instant before he grew serious again. "You asked me if I had that phone with your pictures, if I'd looked at it. Damn right, I did! I saw you playing with a dog at the beach, and doing a crazy-ass flip off a high dive, and making faces for the camera. I learned about you"- his voice grew hoarse -"and I wanted more of you. To see you every day." With a humourless laugh, he admitted, "After the Flash, I was constantly sourcing ways to charge a goddamned phone--that would never make a call." I murmured, "I didn't know...I couldn't be sure." "It's you for me, peekon.

It's 'If a body meet a body coming through the rye'!" old Phoebe said. "It's a poem. By Robert Burns." "I know it's a poem by Robert Burns." She was right, though. It is "If a body meet a body coming through the rye." I didn't know it then, though. "I thought it was 'If a body catch a body,'" I said. "Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around — nobody big, I mean — except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff — I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be. I know it's crazy.

It made me shiver. And I about made up my mind to pray, and see if I couldn't try to quit being the kind of a boy I was and be better. So I kneeled down. But the words wouldn't come. Why wouldn't they? It warn't no use to try and hide it from Him. Nor from ME, neither. I knowed very well why they wouldn't come. It was because my heart warn't right; it was because I warn't square; it was because I was playing double. I was letting ON to give up sin, but away inside of me I was holding on to the biggest one of all. I was trying to make my mouth SAY I would do the right thing and the clean thing, and go and write to that nigger's owner and tell where he was; but deep down in me I knowed it was a lie, and He knowed it. You can't pray a lie--I found that out. So I was full of trouble, full as I could be; and didn't know what to do. At last I had an idea; and I says, I'll go and write the letter--and then see if I can pray. Why, it was astonishing, the way I felt as light as a feather right straight off, and my troubles all gone. So I got a piece of paper and a pencil, all glad and excited, and set down and wrote: Miss Watson, your runaway nigger Jim is down here two mile below Pikesville, and Mr. Phelps has got him and he will give him up for the reward if you send. HUCK FINN. I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray now. But I didn't do it straight off, but laid the paper down and set there thinking--thinking how good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost and going to hell. And went on thinking. And got to thinking over our trip down the river; and I see Jim before me all the time: in the day and in the night-time, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we a-floating along, talking and singing and laughing. But somehow I couldn't seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only the other kind. I'd see him standing my watch on top of his'n, 'stead of calling me, so I could go on sleeping; and see him how glad he was when I come back out of the fog; and when I come to him again in the swamp, up there where the feud was; and such-like times; and would always call me honey, and pet me and do everything he could think of for me, and how good he always was; and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling the men we had small-pox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was the best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the ONLY one he's got now; and then I happened to look around and see that paper. It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a-trembling, because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself: "All right, then, I'll GO to hell"--and tore it up.

I don’t volunteer. I don’t participate in organized religion. I don’t play team sports. Where do selfish, godless, lazy people go to make friends? That’s where I need to be.

Hufflepuff is my favorite house in some ways. There comes a point in the book where each house has a chance to rise up to a certain challenge. The Slytherins decided they’d rather not play, the Ravenclaws – some play, some won’t, but the Hufflepuffs stay to fight. The Gryffindors – compromised of lots of full hearty and show off people. The Hufflepuffs stayed for a different reason. They didn’t want to show off, they weren’t being wreckless, that’s the essence of Hufflepuff. My daughter Jessica said to me recently, who wasn’t sorted into Hufflepuff, ‘I think we should all want to be Hufflepuffs.’ I can only say to you, I would not be disappointed at all to be in Hufflepuff. I’m a little upset anyone does feel that way.

Hmm…’ Ciri bit her lower lip, then leaned over and put her eye closer to the hole. ‘Madam Yennefer is standing by a willow… She’s plucking leaves and playing with her star. She isn’t saying anything and isn’t even looking at Geralt… And Geralt’s standing beside her. He’s looking down and he’s saying something. No, he isn’t. Oh, he’s pulling a face… What a strange expression…’ ‘Childishly simple,’ said Dandelion, finding an apple in the grass, wiping it on his trousers and examining it critically. ‘He’s asking her to forgive him for his various foolish words and deeds. He’s apologising to her for his impatience, for his lack of faith and hope, for his obstinacy, doggedness. For his sulking and posing; which are unworthy of a man. He’s apologising to her for things he didn’t understand and for things he hadn’t wanted to understand—’ ‘That’s the falsest lie!’ said Ciri, straightening up and tossing the fringe away from her forehead with a sudden movement. ‘You’re making it all up!’ ‘He’s apologising for things he’s only now understood,’ said Dandelion, staring at the sky, and he began to speak with the rhythm of a balladeer. ‘For what he’d like to understand, but is afraid he won’t have time for… And for what he will never understand. He’s apologising and asking for forgiveness… Hmm, hmm… Meaning, conscience, destiny? Everything’s so bloody banal…’ ‘That’s not true!’ Ciri stamped. ‘Geralt isn’t saying anything like that! He’s not even speaking. I saw for myself. He’s standing with her and saying nothing…’ ‘That’s the role of poetry, Ciri. To say what others cannot utter.’ ‘It’s a stupid role. And you’re making everything up!’ ‘That is also the role of poetry. Hey, I hear some raised voices coming from the pond. Have a quick look, and see what’s happening there.’ ‘Geralt,’ said Ciri, putting her eye once more to the hole in the wall, ‘is standing with his head bowed. And Yennefer’s yelling at him. She’s screaming and waving her arms. Oh dear… What can it mean?’ ‘It’s childishly simple.’ Dandelion stared at the clouds scudding across the sky. ‘Now she’s saying sorry to him.

I wanted to play ball," he stated in a way that my body got very still and my eyes, already locked to his, became glued there. "It wasn't the money. It wasn't the fame. It was the game. The goddamned game. I didn't feel like I was breathin' right if I wasn't playin' or practicin'. Felt like life was still, someone hit pause, then I'd put on my pads and jersey and walk on the field and then everything would come alive. Dad and I were Eagles fans since I could remember. Puttin' that fuckin' jersey on, Christ, Laurie...Christ.

He walked straight out of college into the waiting arms of the Navy. They gave him an intelligence test. The first question on the math part had to do with boats on a river: Port Smith is 100 miles upstream of Port Jones. The river flows at 5 miles per hour. The boat goes through water at 10 miles per hour. How long does it take to go from Port Smith to Port Jones? How long to come back? Lawrence immediately saw that it was a trick question. You would have to be some kind of idiot to make the facile assumption that the current would add or subtract 5 miles per hour to or from the speed of the boat. Clearly, 5 miles per hour was nothing more than the average speed. The current would be faster in the middle of the river and slower at the banks. More complicated variations could be expected at bends in the river. Basically it was a question of hydrodynamics, which could be tackled using certain well-known systems of differential equations. Lawrence dove into the problem, rapidly (or so he thought) covering both sides of ten sheets of paper with calculations. Along the way, he realized that one of his assumptions, in combination with the simplified Navier Stokes equations, had led him into an exploration of a particularly interesting family of partial differential equations. Before he knew it, he had proved a new theorem. If that didn't prove his intelligence, what would? Then the time bell rang and the papers were collected. Lawrence managed to hang onto his scratch paper. He took it back to his dorm, typed it up, and mailed it to one of the more approachable math professors at Princeton, who promptly arranged for it to be published in a Parisian mathematics journal. Lawrence received two free, freshly printed copies of the journal a few months later, in San Diego, California, during mail call on board a large ship called the U.S.S. Nevada. The ship had a band, and the Navy had given Lawrence the job of playing the glockenspiel in it, because their testing procedures had proven that he was not intelligent enough to do anything else.

we went to a church that had missionaries who'd come back once a year from Fiji & give talks. I remember one of them saying it was very hard work telling people they were going to lose their everlasting souls if they didn't shape up. I pictured people sitting on the beach listening to this sweaty man all dressed in black telling them they were going to burn in hell & them thinking this was good fun, these scary stories this guy was telling them & afterwards, they'd all go home & eat mango & fish & they'd play Monopoly & laugh & laugh & they'd go to bed & wake up the next day & do it all again.

Live or die, but don't poison everything... Well, death's been here for a long time -- it has a hell of a lot to do with hell and suspicion of the eye and the religious objects and how I mourned them when they were made obscene by my dwarf-heart's doodle. The chief ingredient is mutilation. And mud, day after day, mud like a ritual, and the baby on the platter, cooked but still human, cooked also with little maggots, sewn onto it maybe by somebody's mother, the damn bitch! Even so, I kept right on going on, a sort of human statement, lugging myself as if I were a sawed-off body in the trunk, the steamer trunk. This became perjury of the soul. It became an outright lie and even though I dressed the body it was still naked, still killed. It was caught in the first place at birth, like a fish. But I play it, dressed it up, dressed it up like somebody's doll. Is life something you play? And all the time wanting to get rid of it? And further, everyone yelling at you to shut up. And no wonder! People don't like to be told that you're sick and then be forced to watch you come down with the hammer. Today life opened inside me like an egg and there inside after considerable digging I found the answer. What a bargain! There was the sun, her yolk moving feverishly, tumbling her prize -- and you realize she does this daily! I'd known she was a purifier but I hadn't thought she was solid, hadn't known she was an answer. God! It's a dream, lovers sprouting in the yard like celery stalks and better, a husband straight as a redwood, two daughters, two sea urchings, picking roses off my hackles. If I'm on fire they dance around it and cook marshmallows. And if I'm ice they simply skate on me in little ballet costumes. Here, all along, thinking I was a killer, anointing myself daily with my little poisons. But no. I'm an empress. I wear an apron. My typewriter writes. It didn't break the way it warned. Even crazy, I'm as nice as a chocolate bar. Even with the witches' gymnastics they trust my incalculable city, my corruptible bed. O dearest three, I make a soft reply. The witch comes on and you paint her pink. I come with kisses in my hood and the sun, the smart one, rolling in my arms. So I say Live and turn my shadow three times round to feed our puppies as they come, the eight Dalmatians we didn't drown, despite the warnings: The abort! The destroy! Despite the pails of water that waited, to drown them, to pull them down like stones, they came, each one headfirst, blowing bubbles the color of cataract-blue and fumbling for the tiny tits. Just last week, eight Dalmatians, 3/4 of a lb., lined up like cord wood each like a birch tree. I promise to love more if they come, because in spite of cruelty and the stuffed railroad cars for the ovens, I am not what I expected. Not an Eichmann. The poison just didn't take. So I won't hang around in my hospital shift, repeating The Black Mass and all of it. I say Live, Live because of the sun, the dream, the excitable gift.

I'm just a candy corn farmer. My only part in this play was loving your mother and raising you, and I did both of them as well as I could, but that didn't make me worldly, and it didn't make me wise. It made me a man with a hero for a wife and a daughter who was going to do something great someday, and that was all I wanted to be. I never saved the day. I never challenged the gods. I was the person you could come home to when the quest was over, and I'd greet you with a warm fudge pie and a how was your day, and I'd never feel like I was being left out just because I was forever left behind.

We didn't come to the world just to entertain, we came to play remarkable roles, and our reward is to see you doing more than us.

I had a dream about you. It's been a while since I could remember any of my dreams, and still, this one has left me with such strong impression. Even now, when I am fully awake, your face flashes before my eyes. It's a face I can totally relate to, as if it wasn't any more yours than it is mine. Terrifying thing, you know? I can't say I've felt that sort of intimacy with anyone. For a moment you knew all my secrets, without me even having to tell them. For a moment I even knew them myself… While I was looking into your eyes, I suddenly started to realize things about myself that were unspoken for years, like fragments of my inner life that were deeply repressed. It’s hard to distinguish if they were buried inside because dealing with them was such a dirty work, or if leaving them unnamed meant that it was not possible to define them precisely enough, so they would keep their true meaning. Perhaps, all this life that I've known so far was in fact no more but a dream about living. The only thing that has kept me in touch with reality was you… I know it comes as a surprise, and you may be wondering why it took me so long to come clean. You also may be wondering how come you've never noticed before. I've tricked you on purpose, yes, and you must realize it really has nothing to do with you. It’s always been me. This is why, seeing you in my dream like that, came out as a shock. You also must forgive me. You must forgive me because I know how it looks like, that everything we ever shared was a lie, and it wasn't… I am more of an illusionist that a deceiver, but it all comes from being in fact, a very private person. Even if it was true that you knew me better than anyone, I’d never admit it. I’d rather dig my own heart out, with a rotten spoon, than admitting it. I may let people in my own little world occasionally, but I would never let them be aware of it. I don’t throw my intimacy in front of others, especially when I care. The more I care, the less I give away, and this is something for you to understand, and grant me your forgiveness. I didn't play my tricks on you in order to deceive you, but rather to save myself, and maybe even deceive myself as well. I’ve had hidden my feelings for you so deeply that I've learned to live with them, as if any other casualty. I have done wrong to myself as much as I did to you, and I don’t know if I can forgive myself. So now I wonder, could you forgive me without feeling sorry for me? I certainly don’t deserve your pity. Especially not now that I am awake.

He nodded to my fiddle case. "Why didn't you come play with me?" Immediately he rolled his eyes at himself. "That's not what I meant." I didn't point out that if he was constantly hearing double entendres in his own words, he had a dirtier mind than he wanted to let on. Sam having a dirty mind was okay with me. It was adorable, actually, as long as his mind was on me.

The Circle had been less than thrilled by its choice, but we'd finally come to terms. As in, they were no longer trying to play Whac-A-Mole with my head. Only now they seemed to think they had the right to make sure that nobody else did, either. That was a problem, because the vampires felt the same way and the Senate didn't share well.

Em, you have a soul.” “How can you be so sure of that, Hayden? How many people die and come back?” “No one dies and comes back. You did because of your sister, and you have a gift. Maybe that played a role in your coming back, but you have a soul. You aren’t evil. There’s nothing you can say that will make me think that.” I looked up and our gazes locked. “And there’s nothing you can say to make me feel differently.” He lowered his eyes. Thick lashes fanned his cheeks. “I know you do, because I wouldn’t want to… to kiss you if you didn’t have a soul.” I froze. “You… you want to kiss me?

He had never met a girl like this before - she would never seem quite the same again. He didn't at all feel like a character in a play, the appropriate feeling in an unconventional situation - instead, he had a sense of coming home.

This has been her life for the past fifty years, this striving to help save the world a little bit, to push it just a bit farther into the right. This action was the only thing that sustained her during the hard times [when] only her purposeful life propped her up from total collapse, and she thought how strange that she had taught the morality play Everyman all those years but didn’t fully understand its central lesson or how true it was: We are our good deeds, and they alone will come with us into the afterlife.

Ove was, well, Ove was Ove. Something the people around her also kept telling Sonja. He’d been a grumpy old man since he started elementary school, they insisted. And she could have someone so much better. Maybe he didn’t write her poems or serenade her with songs or come home with expensive gifts. But he believed so strongly in things: justice and fair play and hard work and a world where right just had to be right. Not so one could get a medal or a diploma or a slap on the back for it, but just because that was how it was supposed to be. Not many men of his kind were made anymore, Sonja had understood. So she was holding on to this one.

Damien has died and gone straight to boy heaven,' Shaunee said as soon as we were out of earshot 'Hey it's about time those kid stop acting like ignorant rednecks and behaved like they had some sense,' I said. 'She doesn't mean that, even though we agree with you,' Erin said 'She means Mr Jack the cute-gay-new-kid Twist. 'Now why in the world would you think he's gay?' Stevie Ray asked. 'Stevie Rae, I swear you have got to broaden your horizons, girl,' Shaunee said. 'Okay, I'm lost too. Why do you think Jack's gay?' I asked. Shaunee and Erin shared a long-suffering look, then Erin explained. Jack Twist is yummy Jake Gyllenhaal's totally gay cowboy character from Brokeback Mountain.' 'And please just please! Anyone who chooses that name and who looks all geeky like that is totally, completely playing for Damian's team.' 'Huh' I said. 'Well, I'll be 'Stevie Rae said 'you know i never did see that movie. It didn't come to the Cinema 8 in Henrietta.' 'You don't say?' Shaunee said. 'Please. I'm so shocked,' Erin said. 'Do guys kiss in it?' 'Deliciously' Shaunee and Erin said together. I tried, but failed miserably not laugh at the look on Stevie Rae’s Face.

At the Unitarian Universalist Christmas pageant in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it didn't matter that Mary insisted on keeping her nails painted black or that Joseph had come out of the closet. On December 25 at seven and nine p.m., three wise women would follow the men down the aisle -- one wearing a kimono and another, African garb; instead of myrrh they would bring chicken soup, instead of frankincense they'd play lullabies. The shepherds had a line on protecting the environment and the innkeeper held a foreclosure sign. No one quite believed in God and no one quite didn't -- so they made it about the songs and the candles and the pressing together of bodies on lacquered wooden pews.

I didn't ask for this role, but I'll play it. Now go do your best. Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid. Goethe said that. It's not too late for you to become a person of substance, Russell. Please get my son home safely. You know, I'm glad we spoke.

She was going to come very soon at this rate, orgasming in public, unable to control herself. Who knew what she’d do next in her frenzied state. I’m sorry, officer, I didn’t mean to fellate this minotaur in the middle of the dining room, but you see, he’s been playing so fucking hard to get that I snapped.

But there was a discipline, it was just that we didn't understand. We thought he was formless, but I think now he was tormented by order, what was outside it. He tore apart the plot - see his music was immediately on top of his own life. Echoing. As if, when he was playing he was lost and hunting for the right accidental notes. Listening to him was like talking to Coleman. You were both changing direction with every sentence, sometimes in the middle, using each other as a springboard through the dark. You were moving so fast it was unimportant to finish and clear everything. He would be describing something in 27 ways. There was pain and gentleness everything jammed into each number.

The flow. Yeah. Knowing you could step on the court and make it happen. You practiced, sure. But then, when you walked out there, you could just go. You could flow, that was it: you created and you didn't totally know how. You just knew you could, so you did. It wasn't thinking and it wasn't imitating somebody else's moves, though you always looked carefully when you watched good players play. But when you played... it was something you couldn't explain. Neal used to know. It didn't come from thinking about it.

You didn't succeed. Well, what of that? There's nothing to prove, you know, and the revolution's not a question of virtue but of effectiveness. There is no heaven. There's work to be done, that's all. And you must do what you're cut out for; all the better if it comes easy to you. The best work is not the work that takes the most sacrifice. It's the work in which you can best succeed.

We are not our own any more than what we possess is our own. We did not make ourselves, we cannot be supreme over ourselves. We are not our own masters. We are God's property. Is it not our happiness thus to view the matter? Is it any happiness or any comfort, to consider that we are our own? It may be thought so by the young and prosperous. These may think it a great thing to have everything, as they suppose, their own way–to depend on no one–to have to think of nothing out of sight, to be without the irksomeness of continual acknowledgment, continual prayer, continual reference of what they do to the will of another. But as time goes on, they, as all men, will find that independence was not made for man–that it is an unnatural state–will do for a while, but will not carry us on safely to the end …'" Mustapha Mond paused, put down the first book and, picking up the other, turned over the pages. "Take this, for example," he said, and in his deep voice once more began to read: "'A man grows old; he feels in himself that radical sense of weakness, of listlessness, of discomfort, which accompanies the advance of age; and, feeling thus, imagines himself merely sick, lulling his fears with the notion that this distressing condition is due to some particular cause, from which, as from an illness, he hopes to recover. Vain imaginings! That sickness is old age; and a horrible disease it is. They say that it is the fear of death and of what comes after death that makes men turn to religion as they advance in years. But my own experience has given me the conviction that, quite apart from any such terrors or imaginings, the religious sentiment tends to develop as we grow older; to develop because, as the passions grow calm, as the fancy and sensibilities are less excited and less excitable, our reason becomes less troubled in its working, less obscured by the images, desires and distractions, in which it used to be absorbed; whereupon God emerges as from behind a cloud; our soul feels, sees, turns towards the source of all light; turns naturally and inevitably; for now that all that gave to the world of sensations its life and charms has begun to leak away from us, now that phenomenal existence is no more bolstered up by impressions from within or from without, we feel the need to lean on something that abides, something that will never play us false–a reality, an absolute and everlasting truth. Yes, we inevitably turn to God; for this religious sentiment is of its nature so pure, so delightful to the soul that experiences it, that it makes up to us for all our other losses.'" Mustapha Mond shut the book and leaned back in his chair. "One of the numerous things in heaven and earth that these philosophers didn't dream about was this" (he waved his hand), "us, the modern world. 'You can only be independent of God while you've got youth and prosperity; independence won't take you safely to the end.' Well, we've now got youth and prosperity right up to the end. What follows? Evidently, that we can be independent of God. 'The religious sentiment will compensate us for all our losses.' But there aren't any losses for us to compensate; religious sentiment is superfluous. And why should we go hunting for a substitute for youthful desires, when youthful desires never fail? A substitute for distractions, when we go on enjoying all the old fooleries to the very last? What need have we of repose when our minds and bodies continue to delight in activity? of consolation, when we have soma? of something immovable, when there is the social order?

Fancy that! What fun! Coming all this way just to see me!" "Well -- we didn't exactly," began Moomintroll, clambering ashore. "Never mind!" answered Snufkin. "The main thing is that you're here. You'll stay the night, won't you?" "We should love to," said Moomintroll. "We haven't seen a soul since we left home, and that was ages ago. Why in the world do you live here in this desert?" "I'm a tramp, and I live all over the place," answered Snufkin. "I wander about, and when I find a place that I like I put up my tent and play my mouth-organ.

What is happening here?” Her voice is unsteady as she says a line that’s not in the script. “You tell me,” I say, and I’m not even sure where my own voice is coming from. Then she turns around, uncrosses her legs, and mirrors me, kneeling. “You wrote that scene for me, didn’t you?” I nod. My throat is dry. I can barely speak. “That day you saw me with Shelby outside the theater, right?” “Yes.” I swallow. I’m an open book now. “Did you write it because it makes the show better? Or did you write it for me?

No, I thought, growing more rebellious, life has its own laws and it is for me to defend myself against whatever comes along, without going snivelling to God about sin, my own or other people's. How would it profit a man if he got into a tight place, to call he people who put him there miserable sinners? Or himself a miserable sinner? I disliked the levelling aspect of this sinnerdom, it was like a cricket match played in a drizzle, where everybody had an excuse - and what a dull excuse! - for playing badly. Life was meant to test a man, bring out his courage, initiative, resource; and I longed, I thought, to be tested: I didn't want to fall on my knees and call myself a miserable sinner. But the idea of goodness did attract me, for I did not regard it as the opposite of sin. I saw it as something bright and positive and sustaining, like the sunshine, something to be adored, but from afar.

They either come back or they don’t. That’s what you tell yourself. That’s what you learn. As you go through mundane days with so much of pain beating in your chest that you feel it will explode. You strike days off your calendar, waiting, going for a run, picking up a new hobby, while trying to numb that part of your brain that refuses to forget the little details of your skin. Soon, you start sleeping in the middle of the bed, learn how to get through the evenings alone, go to cafes and cities alone, you learn how to cook enough dinner for yourself and just make do without the kisses on your neck. You learn…Adjust..Accept.. The tumor of pain already exploded one lonely night when you played his voice recording by mistake.. by mistake.. But you didn’t die.. Did you? They either come back.. or they don’t.. You survive..

Exactly, I repeated myself. I believe we do it all the time. We always take up certain elements again. How can it be avoided? An actor’s voice always has the same timbre and, consequently, he repeats himself. It is the same for a singer, a painter…There are always certain things that come back, for they are part of one’s personality, of one’s style. If these things didn’t come into play, a personality would be so complex that it would become impossible to identify it. It is not my intention to repeat myself, but in my work there should certainly be references to what I have done in the past. Say what you will, but The Trial is the best film I ever made…I have never been so happy as when I made this film. (talking about directing, The Trial (1962) - from Orson Welles: Interviews (book))

At least I’ve got football . It’s been my life since I was seven, but sometimes Henry says I need to spend less time focusing and start “living life like I’m going to hell tomorrow.” But I feel like a normal teenager. Wel , as normal as I can be. I mean, obviously I think Justin Timberlake is a mega-hunk, but I’m also over six feet tal and can launch a footbal fifty yards. Other ways I’m not normal? A girl who hangs with an entire football team must hook up all the time, right? Nope. I’ve never had a boyfriend. Hell , I’ve never even kissed a guy. The closest I’ve ever come to a kiss happened just this past summer, but it was a joke. At a party, one of those cheerleaders suggested we all play a game of seven minutes in heaven, you know, the game where you go into a closet and kiss? Somehow Henry and I got sent into the closet together, and of course we didn’t kiss, but we ended up in a mad thumb-wrestling match. Which turned into a shoving match. Which turned into everyone thinking we’d hooked up in the closet. Yeah, right. He’s like my brother.

And with a relentlessness that comes from the world's depths, with a persistence that strikes the keys metaphysically, the scales of a piano student keep playing over and over, up and down the physical backbone of my memory. It's the old streets with other people, the same streets that today are different; it's dead people speaking to me through the transparency of their absence; it's remorse for what I did or didn't do; it's the rippling of streams in the night, noises from below in the quiet building. I feel like screaming inside my head. I want to stop, to break, to smash this impossible phonograph record that keeps playing inside me, where it doesn't belong, an intangible torturer. I want my soul, a vehicle taken over by others, to let me off and go on without me. I'm going crazy from having to hear. And in the end it is I – in my odiously impressionable brain, in my thin skin, in my hypersensitive nerves – who am the keys played in scales, O horrible and personal piano of our memory.

Now let’s take up the minorities in our civilization, shall we? Bigger the population, the more minorities. Don’t step on the toes of the dog-lovers, the cat-lovers, doctors, lawyers, merchants, chiefs, Mormons, Baptists, Unitarians, second-generation Chinese, Swedes, Italians, Germans, Texans, Brooklynites, Irishmen, people from Oregon or Mexico. The people in this book, this play, this TV serial are not meant to represent any actual painters, cartographers, mechanics anywhere. The bigger your market, Montag, the less you handle controversy, remember that! All the minor minor minorities with their navels to be kept clean. Authors, full of evil thoughts, lock up your typewriters. They did. Magazines became a nice blend of vanilla tapioca. Books, so the damned snobbish critics said, were dishwater. No wonder books stopped selling, the critics said. But the public, knowing what it wanted, spinning happily, let the comic books survive. And the three-dimensional sex magazines, of course. There you have it, Montag. It didn’t come from the Government down. There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no! Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick, thank God. Today, thanks to them, you can stay happy all the time, you are allowed to read comics, the good old confessions, or trade journals.

Stabby McStabbed is like ten feet that way. I didn’t stab him well enough to kill him either, so I’m sure he’ll have something to say about seeing my face if I come waltzing up playing the innocent party member.

Eliot didn’t say anything. For all the years of his life he’d spent with Janet, he’d never really known her, not deep down. Sometimes he looked at her and thought, Gosh, I wonder what’s underneath all that anger, all that hard glossy armor? Maybe there’s just an innocent, wounded little girl in there who wants to come out and play and be loved and get happy. But now he wondered if maybe that little girl was long gone, or if she’d ever been there at all. What was under all that armor, all that anger? More anger, and more armor. Anger and armor, all the way down.

O VENENO ARDENTE DO DESGOSTO. THE WHITE HOT POISON OF ANGER. When others make us angry at them- at their shamelessness, injustice, inconsideration- then they exercise power over us, they proliferate and gnaw at our soul, then anger is like a white-hot poison that corrods all mild, noble and balanced feelings and robs us of sleep. Sleepless, we turn on the light and are angry at the anger that has lodged like a succubus who sucks us dry and debilitates us. We are not only furious at the damage, but also that it develops in us all by itself, for while we sit on the edge of the bed with aching temples, the distant catalyst remains untouched by the corrosive force of the anger that eats at us. On the empty internal stage bathed in the harsh light of mute rage, we perform all by ourselves a drama with shadow figures and shadow words we hurl against enemies in helpless rage we feel as icy blazing fire in our bowels. And the greater our despair that is only a shadow play and not a real discussion with the possibility of hurting the other and producing a balance of suffering, the wilder the poisonous shadows dance and haunt us even in the darkest catacombs of our dreams. (We will turn the tables, we think grimly, and all night long forge words that will produce in the other the effect of a fire bomb so that now he will be the one with the flames of indignation raging inside while we, soothed by schadenfreude, will drink our coffee in cheerful calm.) What could it mean to deal appropriately with anger? We really don't want to be soulless creatures who remain thoroughly indifferent to what they come across, creatures whose appraisals consist only of cool, anemic judgments and nothing can shake them up because nothing really bothers them. Therefore, we can't seriously wish not to know the experience of anger and instead persist in an equanimity that wouldn't be distinguished from tedious insensibility. Anger also teaches us something about who we are. Therefore this is what I'd like to know: What can it mean to train ourselves in anger and imagine that we take advantage of its knowledge without being addicted to its poison? We can be sure that we will hold on to the deathbed as part of the last balance sheet- and this part will taste bitter as cyanide- that we have wasted too much, much too much strength and time on getting angry and getting even with others in a helpless shadow theater, which only we, who suffered impotently, knew anything about. What can we do to improve this balance sheet? Why did our parents, teachers and other instructors never talk to us about it? Why didn't they tell something of this enormous significance? Not give us in this case any compass that could have helped us avoid wasting our soul on useless, self-destructive anger?

Are you all right?" A crease appears between his eyebrows, and he touches my cheek gently.I bat his hand away. "Well," I say, "first I got reamed out in front of everyone,and then I had to chat with the woman who's trying to destroy my old faction,and then Eric almost tossed my friends out of Dauntless,so yeah,it's shaping up to be a pretty great day,Four." He shakes his head and looks at the dilapidated building to his right, which is made of brick and barely resembles the sleek glass spire behind me. It must be ancient.No one builds with brick anymore. "Why do you care,anyway?" I say. "You can be either cruel instructor or concerned boyfriend." I tense up at the word "boyfriend." I didn't mean to use it so flippantly,but it's too late now. "You can't play both parts at the same time." "I am not cruel." He scowls at me. "I was protecting you this morning. How do you think Peter and his idiot friends would have reacted if they discovered that you and I were..." He sighs. "You would never win. They would always call your ranking a result of my favoritism rather than your skill." I open my mouth to object,but I can't. A few smart remarks come to mind, but I dismiss them. He's right. My cheeks warm, and I cool them with my hands. "You didn't have to insult me to prove something to them," I say finally. "And you didn't have to run off to your brother just because I hurt you," he says. He rubs at the back of his neck. "Besides-it worked,didn't it?" "At my expense." "I didn't think it would affect you this way." Then he looks down and shrugs. "Sometimes I forget that I can hurt you.That you are capable of being hurt." I slide my hands into my pockets and rock back on my heels.A strange feeling goes through me-a sweet,aching weakness. He did what he did because he believed in my strength. At home it was Caleb who was strong,because he could forget himself,because all the characteristics my parents valued came naturally to him. No one has ever been so convinced of my strength. I stand on my tiptoes, lift my head, and kiss him.Only our lips touch. "You're brilliant,you know that?" I shake my head. "You always know exactly what to do." "Only because I've been thinking about this for a long time," he says, kissing my briefly. "How I would handle it, if you and I..." He pulls back and smiles. "Did I hear you call me your boyfriend,Tris?" "Not exactly." I shrug. "Why? Do you want me to?" He slips his hands over my neck and presses his thumbs under my chin, tilting my head back so his forehead meets mine. For a moment he stands there, his eyes closed, breathing my air. I feel the pulse in his fingertips. I feel the quickness of his breath. He seems nervous. "Yes," he finally says. Then his smile fades. "You think we convinced him you're just a silly girl?" "I hope so," I say.

A hedgehog flies from the safety of a bush, startling me. It darts past us in a terrible hurry. Kartik nods toward the furry little thing. "Don't mind him. He's off to meet his lady friend." "How can you be sure?" "He has on his best hedgehog suit." "Ah, I should have noticed." I say, happy to be playing this game-any game-with him. I put my hand on the tree's trunk and swing myself around it slowly, letting my body feel gravity's pull. "And why has he worn his best?" "He's been away in London, you see, and now he has returned to her," Kartik continues. "And what if she is angry with him for being away so long?" Kartik circles just behind me. "She will forgive him." "Will she?" I say pointedly. "It is his hope that she will, for he didn't mean to upset her." Kartik answers, and I am no longer sure we speak of the hedgehog. "And is he happy to see her again?" "Yes," Kartik says. "He should like to stay longer, but he cannot." The bark chafes against my hand. "Why is that?" "He has his reasons, and hopes his lady will understand them one day." Kartik has changed direction. He comes around the other side of the tree. We are face to face. A palm of moonglow reaches through the branches to caress his face. "Oh," I say, heart beating fast. "And what would the lady hedgehog say to that?" he asks. His voice soft and low. "She would say..." I swallow hard. Kartik steps closer. "Yes?" "She would say," I whisper, "'If you please, I am not a hedgehog. I am a woodchuck.'" A small smile plays at Kartik's lips. "He is fortunate to have so witty a lady friend," he says, and I wish I could have the moment back again to play differently.

I’d always thought it was a silly question, why I wanted to stay here, in this house. This house was everything I’d ever wanted. Sure, it wasn’t perfect, but sometimes it actually was. Or at least as close as anything could come to perfect in this life, which admittedly was not very close. It wasn’t horrible every single day—so few things ever are—and when it wasn’t horrible, it was almost lovely. I knew how to survive here, and I always had the sense that if I just survived long enough, if I just played by the rules well enough, I could make it into a perfect home once and for all. I just needed to work a little harder. I loved this house. And you didn’t give up on the things you loved.

Ringo: [On the 'Two Virgins' cover] 'The cover was the mind-blower - I remember to this day the moment when they came in and showed me. I don't really remember the music, I'd have to play it now. But he showed me the cover and I pointed to the 'Times': 'Oh, you've even got the Times in it...' as if he didn't have his dick hanging out. I said, 'Ah, come on, John. You're doing all this stuff and it may be cool for you, but you know we all have to answer. It doesn't matter; whichever one of us does something, we all have to answer for it.' He said, 'Oh, Ringo, you only have to answer the phone.' I said, 'OK, fine,' because it was true. The press would be calling up, and just at that point I didn't want to be bothered - but in the end that's all I had to do: answer the phone. It was fine. Two or three people phoned and I said: 'See, he's got the Times on the cover.

One day, as Sarita tended to the wash, Gemma played in the garden. She was a knight, you see, with a sword fashioned out of wood. Most formidable, she was, though I didn't quite know how formidable. As I sat in my study, I heard screaming from outside. I ran to see what the commotion was. Sarita called to me, wide-eyed with fear, "Oh, Mr. Doyle, look- over there!" The tiger had entered the garden and was making his way toward where our Gemma frolicked with her wooden sword. Beside me, our house servant, Raj, drew his blade so stealthily it seemed to simply appear in his hand by magic. But Sarita stayed his hand. "If you run for him with your life, you will provoke the tiger," she advised. "We must wait."... I must tell you that it was the longest moment of my life. No one dared move. No one dared draw a breath. And all the while, Gemma played on, taking no notice until the great cat was upon her. She stood and faced him. They stared at one another as if each wondered what to make of the other, as if they sensed a kindred spirit. At last, Gemma placed her sword upon the ground. "Dear tiger," she said. "You may pass if you are peaceful." The tiger looked at the sword and back at Gemma, and without a sound, it passed on, dissappearing into the jungle." ... "The tiger had gone. He did not come around a gain. But I was a man possessed. The tiger had come too close, you see. I no longer felt safe. I hired the best tracker in Bombay. We hunted for days, tracking the tiger to the mountains there. We found him taking water from a small watering hole. He looked up but he did not charge. He took no notice of us at all but continued to drink. "Sahib, let us go," the boy said. "This tiger means you no harm." He was right, of course. But we had come all that way. The gun was in my hand. The tiger was before us. I took aim and shot it dead on the spot. I sold the tiger's skin for a fortune to a man in Bombay, and he called me brave for it. But it was not courage that brought me to that; it was fear..."But you," he says, smiling with a mix of sadness and pride, "you faced the tiger and survived." ... "The time has come for me to face my tiger, to look him in the eye and see which of us survives." - Mr. Doyle

Western culture prefers us not to believe we're defined or limited. It wants us to buy the fiction that the self is open, free, nothing but pure, bright possibility; that we're all born with the same suite of potential abilities, as neural 'blank slates', as if all human brains come off the production line at Foxconn. This seduces us into accepting the cultural lie that says we can do anything we set our minds to, that we can be whoever we want to be. This false idea is of immense value to our neoliberal economy. The game it compels us to play can best be justified morally if all the contestants start out with an equal shot at winning. Moreover, if we believe we're all the same, this legitimizes calls for deregulated corporation and smaller government: it means that men and women who lose simply didn't want it badly enough, that they just didn't believe - in which case, why should anyone else catch their fall?

She’s got so many azalea bushes, her yard’s going to look like Gone With the Wind come spring. I don’t like azaleas and I sure didn’t like that movie, the way they made slavery look like a big happy tea party. If I’d played Mammy, I’d of told Scarlett to stick those green draperies up her white little pooper. Make her own damn man-catching dress.

While play-acting grim scenarios day in and day out may sound like a good recipe for clinical depression, it’s actually weirdly uplifting. Rehearsing for catastrophe has made me positive that I have the problem-solving skills to deal with tough situations and come out the other side smiling. For me, this has greatly reduced the mental and emotional clutter that unchecked worrying produces, those random thoughts that hijack your brain at three o’clock in the morning. While I very much hoped not to die in space, I didn’t live in fear of it, largely because I’d been made to think through the practicalities: how I’d want my family to get the news, for instance, and which astronaut I should recruit to help my wife cut through the red tape at NASA and the CSA. Before my last space flight (as with each of the earlier ones) I reviewed my will, made sure my financial affairs and taxes were in order, and did all the other things you’d do if you knew you were going to die. But that didn’t make me feel like I had one foot in the grave. It actually put my mind at ease and reduced my anxiety about what my family’s future would look like if something happened to me. Which meant that when the engines lit up at launch, I was able to focus entirely on the task at hand: arriving alive.

When you come across something that’s hard to discard, consider carefully why you have that specific item in the first place. When did you get it and what meaning did it have for you then? Reassess the role it plays in your life. If, for example, you have some clothes that you bought but never wear, examine them one at a time. Where did you buy that particular outfit and why? If you bought it because you thought it looked cool in the shop, it has fulfilled the function of giving you a thrill when you bought it. Then why did you never wear it? Was it because you realized that it didn’t suit you when you tried it on at home? If so, and if you no longer buy clothes of the same style or color, it has fulfilled another important function—it has taught you what doesn’t suit you. In fact, that particular article of clothing has already completed its role in your life, and you are free to say, “Thank you for giving me joy when I bought you,” or “Thank you for teaching me what

But to Sonja, Ove was never dour and awkward and sharp-edged. To her, he was the slightly disheveled pink flowers at their first dinner. He was his father’s slightly too tight-fitting brown suit across his broad, sad shoulders. He believed so strongly in things: justice and fair play and hard work and a world where right just had to be right. Not so one could get a medal or a diploma or a slap on the back for it, but just because that was how it was supposed to be. Not many men of his kind were made anymore, Sonja had understood. So she was holding on to this one. Maybe he didn’t write her poems or serenade her with songs or come home with expensive gifts. But no other boy had gone the wrong way on the train for hours every day just because he liked sitting next to her while she spoke.

He was just a rich city boy who enjoyed playing pirates and had never expected anyone to stand up to him. He’d come looking for a fight, and now that a fight had found him he didn’t know what to do with it.

There have been complaints?' said Miss Susan. 'Er, no ... er ... although Miss Smith has told me that the children coming up from your class are, er, restless. Their reading ability is, she says, rather unfortunately advanced ...' 'Miss Smith thinks a good book is about a boy and his dog chasing a big red ball,' said Miss Susan. 'My children have learned to expect a plot. No wonder they get impatient. We're reading Grim Fairy Tales at the moment.' 'That is rather rude of you, Susan.' 'No, madam. That is rather polite of me. It would have been rude of me to say that there is a circle of Hell reserved for teachers like Miss Smith.' 'But that's a dreadf---' Madam Frout stopped, and began again. 'You should not be teaching them to read at all yet!' she snapped. [...] 'I mean,' the headmistress mumbled, 'childhood is a time for play and---' 'Learning,' said Miss Susan. 'Learning through play,' said Madam Frout, grateful to find familiar territory. 'After all, kittens and puppies---' '---grow up to be cats and dogs, which are even less interesting,' said Miss Susan, 'whereas children should grow up to be adults.'" [...] 'What precisely was it you wanted, madam?' she said. It's just that I've left the class doing algebra, and they get restless when they've finished.' 'Algebra?' said Madam Frout [...] 'But that's far too difficult for seven-year-olds!' 'Yes, but I didn't tell them that and so far they haven't found out,' said Susan.

I can't see," she whispered. "You're blockin' my view." And because he didn't want her to know how shaken he was by her nearness, by her touch, he decided to play it cool. Play it smart. Give her exactly what she'd come to expect from him. "Babe" - he turned and flashed her an exaggerated wink - "I am the view.

Because I questioned myself and my sanity and what I was doing wrong in this situation. Because of course I feared that I might be overreacting, overemotional, oversensitive, weak, playing victim, crying wolf, blowing things out of proportion, making things up. Because generations of women have heard that they’re irrational, melodramatic, neurotic, hysterical, hormonal, psycho, fragile, and bossy. Because girls are coached out of the womb to be nonconfrontational, solicitous, deferential, demure, nurturing, to be tuned in to others, and to shrink and shut up. Because speaking up for myself was not how I learned English. Because I’m fluent in Apology, in Question Mark, in Giggle, in Bowing Down, in Self-Sacrifice. Because slightly more than half of the population is regularly told that what happens doesn’t or that it isn’t the big deal we’re making it into. Because your mothers, sisters, and daughters are routinely second-guessed, blown off, discredited, denigrated, besmirched, belittled, patronized, mocked, shamed, gaslit, insulted, bullied, harassed, threatened, punished, propositioned, and groped, and challenged on what they say. Because when a woman challenges a man, then the facts are automatically in dispute, as is the speaker, and the speaker’s license to speak. Because as women we are told to view and value ourselves in terms of how men view and value us, which is to say, for our sexuality and agreeability. Because it was drilled in until it turned subconscious and became unbearable need: don’t make it about you; put yourself second or last; disregard your feelings but not another’s; disbelieve your perceptions whenever the opportunity presents itself; run and rerun everything by yourself before verbalizing it—put it in perspective, interrogate it: Do you sound nuts? Does this make you look bad? Are you holding his interest? Are you being considerate? Fair? Sweet? Because stifling trauma is just good manners. Because when others serially talk down to you, assume authority over you, try to talk you out of your own feelings and tell you who you are; when you’re not taken seriously or listened to in countless daily interactions—then you may learn to accept it, to expect it, to agree with the critics and the haters and the beloveds, and to sign off on it with total silence. Because they’re coming from a good place. Because everywhere from late-night TV talk shows to thought-leading periodicals to Hollywood to Silicon Valley to Wall Street to Congress and the current administration, women are drastically underrepresented or absent, missing from the popular imagination and public heart. Because although I questioned myself, I didn’t question who controls the narrative, the show, the engineering, or the fantasy, nor to whom it’s catered. Because to mention certain things, like “patriarchy,” is to be dubbed a “feminazi,” which discourages its mention, and whatever goes unmentioned gets a pass, a pass that condones what it isn’t nice to mention, lest we come off as reactionary or shrill.

One of the few things that August didn't know about her was that sometimes when she looked at her collection of pictures she tried to imagine and place herself in that other, shadow life. You walk into a room and flip a switch and the room fills with light. You leave your garbage in bags on the curb, and a truck comes and transports it to some invisible place. When you're in danger, you call for the police. Hot water pours from faucets. Lift a receiver or press a button on a telephone, and you can speak to anyone. All of the information in the world is on the Internet, and the Internet is all around you, drifting through the air like pollen on a summer breeze. There is money, slips of paper that can be traded for anything: houses, boats, perfect teeth. There are dentists. She tried to imagine this life playing out somewhere at the present moment. Some parallel Kirsten in an air-conditioned room, waking from an unsettling dream of walking through an empty landscape.

He wordlessly crossed the floor and sat beside Adam on the mattress. When he held out his hand, Adam put the model into it. “This old thing,” Ronan said. He turned the front tyre, and again the music played out of it. They sat like that for a few minutes, as Ronan examined the car and turned each wheel to play a different tune. Adam watched how intently Ronan studied the seams, his eyelashes low over his light eyes. Ronan let out a breath, put the model down on the bed beside him, and kissed Adam. Once, when Adam had still lived in the trailer park, he had been pushing the lawn mower around the scraggly side yard when he realized that it was raining a mile away. He could smell it, the earthy scent of rain on dirt, but also the electric, restless smell of ozone. And he could see it: a hazy gray sheet of water blocking his view of the mountains. He could track the line of rain travelling across the vast dry field towards him. It was heavy and dark, and he knew he would get drenched if he stayed outside. It was coming from so far away that he had plenty of time to put the mower away and get under cover. Instead, though, he just stood there and watched it approach. Even at the last minute, as he heard the rain pounding the grass flat, he just stood there. He closed his eyes and let the storm soak him. That was this kiss. They kissed again. Adam felt it in more than his lips. Ronan sat back, his eyes closed, swallowing. Adam watched his chest rise and fall, his eyebrows furrow. He felt as bright and dreamy and imaginary as the light through the window. He did not understand anything. It was a long moment before Ronan opened his eyes, and when he did, his expression was complicated. He stood up. He was still looking at Adam, and Adam was looking back, but neither said anything. Probably Ronan wanted something from him, but Adam didn’t know what to say. He was a magician, Persephone had said, and his magic was making connections between disparate things. Only now he was too full of white, fuzzy light to make any sort of logical connections. He knew that of all the options in the world, Ronan Lynch was the most difficult version of any of them. He knew that Ronan was not a thing to be experimented with. He knew his mouth still felt warm. He knew he had started his entire time at Aglionby certain that all he wanted to do was get as far away from this state and everything in it as possible. He was pretty sure he had just been Ronan’s first kiss.

Look at you, suddenly a model Catholic, concerned about right and wrong. With all due respect, my dear, you wouldn’t know right from wrong if it fucked you up the ass.” She shakes her head, sickened by him, disgusted with herself for not knowing better. She stands. “I didn’t come here to be abused by you.” “Oh, there you go, carting out that word.

This striving to help save the world a little bit, to push it just a bit farther into the right—this action was the only thing that sustained her during the hard times [when] only her purposeful life propped her up from total collapse, and she thought how strange that she had taught the morality play Everyman all those years but didn’t fully understand its central lesson or how true it was: We are our good deeds, and they alone will come with us into the afterlife.

They were supposed to be the ones who would help us eighteen-year-olds to make the transition, who would guide us into adult life, into a world of work, of responsibilities, of civilized behaviour and progress – into the future. Quite often we ridiculed them and played tricks on them, but basically we believed in them. In our minds the idea of authority – which is what they represented – implied deeper insights and a more humane wisdom. But the first dead man that we saw shattered this conviction. We were forced to recognize that our generation was more honourable than theirs; they only had the advantage of us in phrase-making and in cleverness. Our first experience of heavy artillery fire showed us our mistake, and the view of life that their teaching had given us fell to pieces under that bombardment. While they went on writing and making speeches, we saw field hospitals and men dying: while they preached the service of the state as the greatest thing, we already knew that the fear of death is even greater. This didn’t make us into rebels or deserters, or turn us into cowards – and they were more than ready to use all of those words – because we loved our country just as much as they did, and so we went bravely into every attack. But now we were able to distinguish things clearly, all at once our eyes had been opened. And we saw that there was nothing left of their world. Suddenly we found ourselves horribly alone – and we had to come to terms with it alone as well.

The little kids by the water threw their hands in the air and squealed, chasing each other in circles. It was hard to believe that I’d ever been that small. That young. That happy and clueless. They had pain ahead. Heartbreak. Loss. They didn’t know and I didn’t want them to – but at the same time, I hated that I hadn’t known. I’d taken everything for granted – my mother, my friends in Alexandria, playing hockey. I dreamed about the future because that’s what people persuade you to do when you’re a kid, but that’s the biggest lie of all – that you can plan. Reality is, you have no fucking clue what’s coming and neither do they

I can’t describe to you how it feels to go from thinking you have a true partner, true best friend, and true soul mate to seeing that person become your abuser—and then seeing them cheat on you and see that maybe you were a mark all along, a pawn in a game you didn’t see coming that played out exactly the way they intended. I’ve experienced so many shades of this before, and all I can say is this: If you see a woman who is working super hard to become who she’s meant to be and to achieve the things she wants to achieve, and you have nothing to add to her life or to give back to her in any way, please just leave her the fuck alone.

I want you to forget what i told you earlier, I... I couldn’t love someone like you. I hate you. I thought it the second i saw you in the park. You were just poison! Drinking beer in the morning, quoting some stupid Tanka to me! You listening to other people talking all day just so you never have to reveal a thing about yourself! You knew who I was, I was just a kid! What were you thinking what’s wrong with you?! If I’d know who you were I wouldn’t have told you a thing about me or my dreams. You don’t think I can do it! You don’t think I’ll ever amount to anything! What is that why you didn’t say anything to me? You thought maybe you'd humor the little kid? Indulge his fantasies for a little while! Just string him along? Just say it I’ll never measure up to my dreams! You knew from the beginning you could have just admitted it! But you played along. So tell me god damn it! Tell me that little kids should run along to school! Tell me that you hate me! Say it! Come on listener say something for a change! You loser! Its because you act like that. You never say what's important! You act like it's none of your business! You've been living your whole life alone!

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

What was I thinking? I thought him sitting across from me would make it easier. Stupid me! Now I have to stare right at the warrior archangel and try to stay focused. I closed my eyes for a minute. Come on, Kells. Focus. Focus. You can do this! “Okay, Ren, there really is something that we need to discuss.” “Alright. Go ahead.” I blew out a breath. “You see, I can’t…reciprocate your feelings. Or your, umm, affections.” He laughed. “What are you talking about?” “Well, what I mean is, I-“ He leaned forward and spoke in a low voice, full of meaning. “Kelsey, I know you reciprocate my feelings. Don’t pretend anymore that you don’t have them.” When did he figure all this out? Maybe when you were kissing him like an idiot, Kells. I’d hoped that I’d fooled him, but he could see right through me. I decided to play dumb and pretend I didn’t know what he was talking about. I waved my hand in the air. “Okay! Yes! I admit that I’m attracted to you.” Who wouldn’t be? “But it won’t work out,” I finished. There, it was out. Ren looked confused. “Why not?” “Because I’m too attracted to you.” “I don’t understand what you’re saying. How can your being attracted to me be a problem? I would think that’s a good thing.” “For normal people…it is,” I stated. “So I’m not normal?” “No. Let me explain it this way. It’s like this…a starving man would gladly eat a radish, right? In fact, a radish would be a feast if that’s all he had. But if he had a buffet in front of him, the radish would never be chosen.” Ren paused a moment. “I don’t get it. What are you saying?” “I’m saying…I’m the radish.” “And what am I? The buffet??” I tried to explain it further. “No…you’re the man. Now…I don’t really want to be the radish. I mean, who does? But I’m grounded enough to know what I am, and I am not a buffet. I mean, you could be having chocolate eclairs, for heaven’s sake.” “But not radishes.” “No.” “What…” Ren paused thoughtfully, “if I like radishes?” “You don’t. You don’t know any better.

You go to school so you can keep going to school so you can make enough money to hire the people who didn’t like school to come and do all the shit on your to-do list you never figured out how to do yourself because you were always in goddam school, eating school food while the deer you could be eating belongs to a herd that’s getting so goddam big they’re eating everybody’s pea crop and crapping all over the playing fields.

Nesta,' he said into her ear. 'Nesta, open your hand and come back.' Her breathing sharpened. The cold deepened. 'Nesta,' he snarled- And the cold halted. It didn't vanish, but rather... stopped. Nesta's eyes flicked open. Silver fire burned within. Nothing Fae looked out through them. Rhys shoved Feyre behind him. She shoved her way back to his side. But Nesta's hand continued to squeeze Cassian's. He squeezed back, let his Siphons send a bite of power into her skin. She turned her head so slowly it was like watching a puppet move. Her eyes met his. Death watched him. But Death had walked beside him every day of his life. So Cassian stroked his thumb along her palm and said, 'Hello, Nes.' Nesta blinked, and he let his Siphons bite her with his power again. The fire flickered. He nodded to the map, 'Let go of the stones and bones.' He didn't let her scent his fear. Here was the being the Bone Carver had whispered about, exalted and feared. 'Let go of the stones and bones, and then you and I can play.

Burton had sent Timmy to collect a debt, Timmy had killed the man instead, and Burton hadn’t cut him loose. Two points defined a line, but three defined the playing field. Burton didn’t always have need of boys like Timmy, but sometimes he did. Right now, he did. Lydia sighed. The churn was coming.

Elli." "Shea," she gasped as he bit softly. "Show me your undies." Elli broke out in a fit of giggles as Shea smiled against her neck. "No way." "What if a get a goal just for you-then can I see your undies?" "Do they have to be on me?" she asked, playing along. There was no way in hell he would see her in her undies. "Yes, they do." "Hmm...no." "Come on, two goals." "No." "Three." "Okay. Three, and y'all gotta win." "Deal. Now kiss me." "That I will do," she said with a grin as she leaned up on her tippy toes to kiss him deeply. It was probably the first time Elanor Fisher hoped Shea didn't score.

You sound more like them every day," Andrew said. Neil guessed he meant their more optimistic teammates. "You're going to have to come up with something of your own to hold onto. I'm safe, Kevin doesn't need your protection anymore, Nicky's going back to Erik eventually, and Aaron's got Katelyn. What are you going to live for if you're not playing sheepdog for us?" "Aaron doesn't have Katelyn." "Denial doesn't suit you. We talked about this." "You talked," Andrew said. "I didn't listen." "Choose us," Neil said. It was enough to shut Andrew up—maybe only for a second, but Neil would take any opening he could get. "Kevin's going to retake his spot on Court before he graduates. He thinks I can make the cut with enough practice and time. Come with us. Let's all play in the Olympics together one day. We'd be unstoppable." "That's your obsession, not mine." "Borrow it until you have something of your own.

Right near the corner was a picture Neil didn't recognize at all: a shot of Neil and Andrew standing alone. They were bundled up in their matching coats and staring each other down barely a breath apart. It took Neil a moment to place it; the people packed into the background didn't look like a game crowd. The windows finally gave it away. Dan had taken this at Upstate Regional Airport on their way to play against Texas. Neil hadn't even realized she'd been watching them. Neil had gotten caught in a couple of her group pictures, but this was the only one up that had Neil's natural looks. Dan had even caught Neil on his right side, so the bandage over his tattoo wasn't showing. This was a picture of Nathaniel Wesninski; this was the moment Neil gave Andrew his name. Neil reached out to tear the picture down but stopped as soon as he caught hold of the edge. He'd come to Palmetto State to play, but he'd also come because Kevin was proof that a real person existed behind all of his lies. In May both Nathaniel and Neil would be gone, but in June this picture would still be here. He'd be a tiny part of the Foxhole Court for years to come. It was comforting, or it should be. Neil didn't think comfort should feel like such a sick knot in his stomach.

What is wrong with you?” I say in lieu of greeting. “You went to Morris’s dorm and declared your intentions?” He offers a faint smile. “Of course. It was the noble thing to do. I can’t be chasing after another guy’s girl without his knowledge.” “I’m not his girl,” I snap. “We went on one date! And now I’m never going to be his girl, because he doesn’t want to go out with me again.” “What the hell?” Logan looks startled. “I’m disappointed in him. I thought he had more of a competitive spirit than that.” “Seriously? You’re going to pretend to be surprised? He won’t see me again because your jackass self told him he couldn’t.” Astonishment fills his eyes. “No, I didn’t.” “Yes, you did.” “Is that what he told you?” Logan demands. “Not in so many words.” “I see. Well, what words did he actually use?” I grit my teeth so hard my jaw aches. “He said he’s backing off because he doesn’t want to get in the middle of something so complicated. I pointed out that there’s nothing complicated about it, seeing as you and I are not together.” My aggravation heightens. “And then he insisted that I need to give you a chance, because you’re a—” I angrily air-quote Morris’s words “—‘stand-up guy who deserves another shot.’” Logan breaks out in a grin. I stab the air with my finger. “Don’t you dare smile. Obviously you put those words in his mouth. And what the hell was he jabbering about when he told me you and him were ‘family’?” All the disbelief I’d felt during my talk with Morris comes spiraling back, making me pace the bedroom in hurried strides. “What did you say to him, Logan? Did you brainwash him or something? How are you guys family? You don’t even know each other!” Strangled laughter sounds from Logan’s direction. I spin around and level a dark glower at him. “He’s talking about the joint family we created in Mob Boss. It’s this role-playing game where you’re the Don of a mob family and you’re fighting a bunch of other mafia bosses for territory and rackets and stuff. We played it when I went over there, and I ended up staying until four in the morning. Seriously, it was intense.” He shrugs. “We’re the Lorris crime syndicate.” I’m dumbfounded. Oh my God. Lorris? As in Logan and Morris? They fucking Brangelina’d themselves? “What is happening?” I burst out. “You guys are best friends now?” “He’s a cool guy. Actually, he’s even cooler in my book now for stepping down like that. I didn’t ask him to, but clearly he grasps what you refuse to see.” “Yeah, and what’s that?” I mutter. “That you and I are perfect for each other.” No words. There are no words to accurately convey what I’m feeling right now. Horror maybe? Absolute insanity? I mean, it’s not like I’m madly in love with Morris or anything, but if I’d known that kissing Logan at the party would lead to…this, I would have strapped on a frickin’ chastity gag.

Bruce nodded, "This is what we call classical music --- the music performed in the Crescent City Ballet. This is from a ballet called the Glass Coffin." Bryce hit play again, and the violins began. Again Nesta was silent, knees now clutched to her chest, staring into the darkness. As if she was dedicating every inch of herself to listening. Bryce tapped her foot along to the melody, reading the expressions stealing across Nesta's face as the music played. Wonder and curiosity, joy and --- longing. Nesta seemed to be thrumming with the music, though she didn't move at all. Like she was coming alive merely listening to the sound.

You son of a bitch. She was dying and you just stood there! And don't even tell me it was shock. You would know, Jamie, about standing there and watching someone die. Emily. it always comes back to Emily with you. You know what I think Gray? I think the whole martyr act was a lie you told yourself. I think you need an excuse to draw a line so you could stay safe on the other side. You don't know what you're talking about. You can't let go. You couldn't when Emily was alive, no matter what she did, and you can't now. Are you done? Avery was dying, and you couldn't run toward her. What do you want from me, Jamie? You think I didn't fight the same fight? I halfway convinced myself that as long as Avery was just a riddle or a puzzle, as long as I was just playing, I'd be fine. Well, jokes on me, because somewhere along the way, I stopped playing. What do you want from me? Look at her Gray. Look at her, damn it! Est unus ex nobis. Nos defendant eius. -She's one of us. We protect her-

Just about everyone I've ever interviewed has told me that by doing something or other--recovering from cancer, climbing a mountain, playing the part of a serial killer in a movie--they have learned something about themselves. And I always nod and smile thoughtfully, when really I want to pin them down: What did you learn from the cancer, actually? That you don't like being sick? That you don't want to die? That wigs make your scalp itch? Come on, be specific. I suspect it's something they tell themselves in order to turn the experience into something that might appear valuable, rather than a complete and utter waste of time. In the last few months, I have been to prison, lost every last molecule of self-respect, become estranged from my children, and thought very seriously about killing myself. I mean, that little lot has got to be the psychological equivalent of cancer, right? And it's certainly a bigger deal than acting in a bloody film. So how come I've learned absolutley bugger all? What was I supposed to learn? I've found out that prison and poverty aren't really me. But, you know, I could have had a wild stab in the dark about both of those things beforehand. Call me literal-minded, but I suspect people might learn more about themselves if they didn't get cancer. They'd have more time, and a lot more energy.

Why do you care, anyway?" I say. "You can be either cruel instructor or concerned boyfriend." I tense up at the word "boyfriend." I didn’t mean to use it so flippantly, but it’s too late now. "You can’t play both parts at the same time." "I am not cruel." He scowls at me "I was protecting you this morning. How do you think Peter and his idiot friends would have reacted if they discovered that you and I were..." He sighs. "You would never win. They would always call you ranking a result of my favoritism rather than your skill." I open my mouth to object, but I can't. A few smart remarks come to mind, but I dismiss them. He's right. My cheeks warm, and I cool them with my hands. "You didn't have to insult me to prove something to them," I say finally. "And you didn't have to run off to your brother just because I hurt you," he says. He rubs at the back of his neck. "Besides- it worked, didn't it?" "At my expense." "I didn't think it would affect you this way." Then he looks down and shrugs. "Sometimes I forget that I can hurt you. That you are capable of being hurt." I slide my hands into my pockets and rock back on my heels. A strange feeling goes through me- a sweet, aching weakness. He did what he did because he believed in my strength. At home it was Caleb who was strong, because he could forget himself, because all the characteristics my parents valued came naturally to him. No one has ever been so convinced of my strength. I stand on my tiptoes, lift my head, and kiss him. Only our lips touch. "You're brilliant. You know that?" I shake my head. "You always know exactly what to do." "Only because I've been thinking about his for a long time," he says, kissing me briefly. "How I would handle it, if you and I..." He pulls back and smiles. "Did I hear you call me your boyfriend, Tris?" "Not exactly." I shrug. "Why? Do you want me to?" He slips his hands over my neck and presses his thumbs under my chin, tilting my head back so his forehead meets mine. For a moment he stands there, his eyes closed, breathing my air. I feel the pulse in his fingertips. I feel the quickness of his breath. He seems nervous. "Yes," he finally says.

José What now, José? The party’s over, the lights are off, the crowd’s gone, the night’s gone cold, what now, José? what now, you? you without a name, who mocks the others, you who write poetry who love, protest? what now, José? You have no wife, you have no speech you have no affection, you can’t drink, you can’t smoke, you can’t even spit, the night’s gone cold, the day didn’t come, the tram didn’t come, laughter didn’t come utopia didn’t come and everything ended and everything fled and everything rotted what now, José? what now, José? Your sweet words, your instance of fever, your feasting and fasting, your library, your gold mine, your glass suit, your incoherence, your hate—what now? Key in hand you want to open the door, but no door exists; you want to die in the sea, but the sea has dried; you want to go to Minas but Minas is no longer there. José, what now? If you screamed, if you moaned, if you played a Viennese waltz, if you slept, if you tired, if you died… But you don’t die, you’re stubborn, José! Alone in the dark like a wild animal, without tradition, without a naked wall to lean against, without a black horse that flees galloping, you march, José! José, where to?

But that's the thing," I say. My voice shakes. "Nothing makes me happy. Not really. It's not even that I don't like hockey, it's just... I don't like anything. Not enough to matter. All I ever wanted with hockey was a choice. I wanted to come with you when you moved. I didn’t care about the best opportunities. I was ten. I wanted my family. You could've retired in Buffalo, but you chose to come here and keep playing. You chose to leave me. And when you did finaly retire, instead of coming back, you stayed here.

The story of the rapper and the story of the hustler are like rap itself, two kinds of rhythm working together, having a conversation with each other, doing more together than they could do apart. It's been said that the thing that makes rap special, that makes it different both from pop music and from written poetry, is that it's built around two kinds of rhythm. The first kind of rhythm is the meter. In poetry, the meter is abstract, but in rap, the meter is something you literally hear: it's the beat. The beat in a song never stops, it never varies. No matter what other sounds are on the track, even if it's a Timbaland production with all kinds of offbeat fills and electronics, a rap song is usually built bar by bar, four-beat measure by four-beat measure. It's like time itself, ticking off relentlessly in a rhythm that never varies and never stops. When you think about it like that, you realize the beat is everywhere, you just have to tap into it. You can bang it out on a project wall or an 808 drum machine or just use your hands. You can beatbox it with your mouth. But the beat is only one half of a rap song's rhythm. The other is the flow. When a rapper jumps on a beat, he adds his own rhythm. Sometimes you stay in the pocket of the beat and just let the rhymes land on the square so that the beat and flow become one. But sometimes the flow cops up the beat, breaks the beat into smaller units, forces in multiple syllables and repeated sounds and internal rhymes, or hangs a drunken leg over the last bap and keeps going, sneaks out of that bitch. The flow isn't like time, it's like life. It's like a heartbeat or the way you breathe, it can jump, speed up, slow down, stop, or pound right through like a machine. If the beat is time, flow is what we do with that time, how we live through it. The beat is everywhere, but every life has to find its own flow. Just like beats and flows work together, rapping and hustling, for me at least, live through each other. Those early raps were beautiful in their way and a whole generation of us felt represented for the first time when we heard them. But there's a reason the culture evolved beyond that playful, partying lyrical style. Even when we recognized the voices, and recognized the style, and even personally knew the cats who were on the records, the content didn't always reflect the lives we were leading. There was a distance between what was becoming rap's signature style - the relentlessness, the swagger, the complex wordplay - and the substance of the songs. The culture had to go somewhere else to grow. It had to come home.

Love rarely comes up; why would it? But it comes up here, in this for-profit exhibition. Here it is the ultimate message, the final solution. That the Holocaust drives home the importance of love is an idea, like the idea that Holocaust education prevents antisemitism, that seems entirely unobjectionable. It is entirely objectionable. The Holocaust didn’t happen because of a lack of love. It happened because entire societies abdicated responsibility for their own problems, and instead blamed them on the people who represented—have always represented, since they first introduced the idea of commandedness to the world—the thing they were most afraid of: responsibility. Then as now, Jews were cast in the role of civilization’s nagging mothers, loathed in life, and loved only once they are safely dead. In the years since I walked through Auschwitz at fifteen, I have become a nagging mother. And I find myself furious, being lectured by this exhibition about love—as if the murder of millions of people was actually a morality play, a bumper sticker, a metaphor. I do not want my children to be someone else’s metaphor. (Of course, they already are.) My husband’s grandfather once owned a bus company in Poland. Like my husband

I think I hate Capaldi because deep down I suspect he may be right. That what he claims is true. That science has now proved beyond doubt there’s nothing so unique about my daughter, nothing there our modern tools can’t excavate, copy, transfer. That people have been living with one another all this time, centuries, loving and hating each other, and all on a mistaken premise. A kind of superstition we kept going while we didn’t know better. That’s how Capaldi sees it, and there’s a part of me that fears he’s right. Chrissie, on the other hand, isn’t like me. She may not know it yet, but she’ll never let herself be persuaded. If the moment ever comes, never mind how well you play your part, Klara, never mind how much she wishes it to work, Chrissie just won’t be able to accept it. She’s too … old-fashioned. Even if she knows she’s going against the science and the math, she still won’t be able to do it. She just won’t stretch that far. But I’m different. I have … a kind of coldness inside me she lacks. Perhaps it’s because I’m an expert engineer, as you put it. This is why I find it so hard to be civil around people like Capaldi. When they do what they do, say what they say, it feels like they’re taking from me what I hold most precious in this life. Am I making sense?

I groaned my good humor beginning to fade. Nothing good could come from such a wager. If I lost I’d have to drive for the entire five-and-a-half-hour trip home. But if I won Marc would drive which was much much worse. With him in the driver’s seat I’d be afraid to blink much less sleep. Marc’s favourite travel game was highway tag which he played by getting just close enough to passing semi trucks to reach out his window and touch their rear bumpers. Seriously. The man thought the inevitability of death didn’t apply to him simply because it hadn’t happened yet. Marc laughed at my horrified expression and sank his shovel into the earth at the end of the black plastic cocoon. With a sigh I joined him trying to decide whether I’d rather risk falling asleep at the wheel or falling asleep with Marc at the wheel. It was a tough call. Thankfully I had three solid hours of digging during which to decide. Lucky me.

I've been living like this for a long time - about twenty years. I'm forty now. I used to be in the civil service; I no longer am. I was a wicked official. I was rude, and took pleasure in it. After all, I didn't accept bribes, so I had to reward myself at least with that. (A bad witticism, but I won't cross it out. I wrote it thinking it would come out very witty; but now, seeing for myself that I simply had a vile wish to swagger - I purposely won't cross it out!) When petitioners would come for information to the desk where I sat - I'd gnash my teeth at them, and felt an inexhaustible delight when I managed to upset someone. I almost always managed. They were timid people for the most part: petitioners, you know. But among the fops there was one officer I especially could not stand. He simply refused to submit and kept rattling his sabre disgustingly. I was at war with him over that sabre for a year and a half. In the end, I prevailed. He stopped rattling. However, that was still in my youth. But do you know, gentlemen, what was the main point about my wickedness? The whole thing precisely was, the greatest nastiness precisely lay in my being shamefully conscious every moment, even in moments of the greatest bile, that I was not only not a wicked but was not even an embittered man, that I was simply frightening sparrows in vain, and pleasing myself with it. I’m foaming at the mouth, but bring me some little doll, give me some tea with a bit of suger, and maybe I’ll calm down. I’ll even wax tenderhearted, though afterwards I’ll certainly gnash my teeth at myself and suffer from insomnia for a few months out of shame. Such is my custom. And I lied about myself just now when I said I was a wicked official. I lied out of wickedness. I was simply playing around both with the petitioners and with the officer, but as a matter of fact I was never able to become wicked.

Fame requires every kind of excess. I mean true fame, a devouring neon, not the somber renown of waning statesmen or chinless kings. I mean long journeys across gray space. I mean danger, the edge of every void, the circumstance of one man imparting an erotic terror to the dreams of the republic. Understand the man who must inhabit these extreme regions, monstrous and vulval, damp with memories of violation. Even if half-mad he is absorbed into the public's total madness; even if fully rational, a bureaucrat in hell, a secret genius of survival, he is sure to be destroyed by the public's contempt for survivors. Fame, this special kind, feeds itself on outrage, on what the counselors of lesser men would consider bad publicity-hysteria in limousines, knife fights in the audience, bizarre litigation, treachery, pandemonium and drugs. Perhaps the only natural law attaching to true fame is that the famous man is compelled, eventually, to commit suicide. (Is it clear I was a hero of rock'n'roll?) Toward the end of the final tour it became apparent that our audience wanted more than music, more even than its own reduplicated noise. It's possible the culture had reached its limit, a point of severe tension. There was less sense of simple visceral abandon at our concerts during these last weeks. Few cases of arson and vandalism. Fewer still of rape. No smoke bombs or threats of worse explosives. Our followers, in their isolation, were not concerned with precedent now. They were free of old saints and martyrs, but fearfully so, left with their own unlabeled flesh. Those without tickets didn't storm the barricades, and during a performance the boys and girls directly below us, scratching at the stage, were less murderous in their love of me, as if realizing finally that my death, to be authentic, must be self-willed- a succesful piece of instruction only if it occured by my own hand, preferrably ina foreign city. I began to think their education would not be complete until they outdid me as a teacher, until one day they merely pantomimed the kind of massive response the group was used to getting. As we performed they would dance, collapse, clutch each other, wave their arms, all the while making absolutely no sound. We would stand in the incandescent pit of a huge stadium filled with wildly rippling bodies, all totally silent. Our recent music, deprived of people's screams, was next to meaningless, and there would have been no choice but to stop playing. A profound joke it would have been. A lesson in something or other. In Houston I left the group, saying nothing, and boarded a plane for New York City, that contaminated shrine, place of my birth. I knew Azarian would assume leadership of the band, his body being prettiest. As to the rest, I left them to their respective uproars- news media, promotion people, agents, accountants, various members of the managerial peerage. The public would come closer to understanding my disappearance than anyone else. It was not quite as total as the act they needed and nobody could be sure whether I was gone for good. For my closest followers, it foreshadowed a period of waiting. Either I'd return with a new language for them to speak or they'd seek a divine silence attendant to my own. I took a taxi past the cemetaries toward Manhattan, tides of ash-light breaking across the spires. new York seemed older than the cities of Europe, a sadistic gift of the sixteenth century, ever on the verge of plague. The cab driver was young, however, a freckled kid with a moderate orange Afro. I told him to take the tunnel. Is there a tunnel?" he said.

Dear Pen Pal, I know it’s been a few years since I last wrote you. I hope you’re still there. I’m not sure you ever were. I never got any letters back from you when I was a kid. But in a way it was always therapeutic. Everyone else judges everything I say. And here you are: some anonymous person who never says “boo.” Maybe you just read my letters and laughed or maybe you didn’t read my letters or maybe you don’t even exist. It was pretty frustrating when I was young, but now I’m glad that you won’t respond. Just listen. That’s what I want. My dog died. I don’t know if you remember, but I had a beagle. He was a good dog. My best friend. I’d had him as far back as I could remember, but one day last month he didn’t come bounding out of his red doghouse like usual. I called his name. But no response. I knelt down and called out his name. Still nothing. I looked in his doghouse. There was blood everywhere. Cowering in the corner was my dog. His eyes were wild and there was an excessive amount of saliva coming out of his mouth. He was unrecognizable. Both frightened and frightening at the same time. The blood belonged to a little yellow bird that had always been around. My dog and the bird used to play together. In a strange way, it was almost like they were best friends. I know that sounds stupid, but… Anyway, the bird had been mangled. Ripped apart. By my dog. When he saw that I could see what he’d done, his face changed to sadness and he let out a sound that felt like the word ‘help.’ I reached my hand into his doghouse. I know it was a dumb thing to do, but he looked like he needed me. His jaws snapped. I jerked my hand away before he could bite me. My parents called a center and they came and took him away. Later that day, they put him to sleep. They gave me his corpse in a cardboard box. When my dog died, that was when the rain cloud came back and everything went to hell…

The only thing that could soothe and calm me during this era was music. That's continued to be true throughout my life. My mother would put my sister and me to bed and turn on the radio to sing us to sleep. There was something very comforting about being in a dark, cold room with Prince, Tina Turner, Cyndi Lauper, or Madonna playing quietly. I didn't have to think about anything - the music took me away from myself and I got lost in it. I needed it like a drug. I felt disconnected and alone, and I realized around this time that things would never get better. It got so bad that I would pretend to be sick at school just so I could come home and lie in bed listening to music. It was like being adrift on the ocean at night. I still have trouble falling asleep without music now.

Evans turned away, did something with his left eyelid for the benefit of the other two. "It's got him," he smirked. "He's tuned-in from now on." Time started to slow up and act crazy. Minutes took much longer to pass than they had before. It was hard for him to adjust himself to the new ratio, he got all balled-up. When it seemed like half an hour had gone by, the radio would still be playing only the first chorus of the same selection that had begun a good thirty minutes before. Otherwise, nothing much happened. Vinnie was doing a good deal of muffled giggling over there on the divan. The stranger who had been sitting reading the paper got up, yawned, stretched ponderously, and strolled out into the hall, with a muttered "Happy landing!" by way of leave-taking. He didn't come back again any more. Turner looked down one time and a quarter of an inch of charred paper was all that was left between his fingers. Then the next time he looked there was a full length cigarette again.

Once, a young man lost his wife and went to the Land of Dead to find her. He said his life wasn't worth living without her, and played the loveliest song to prove it. The song was so moving, the Lord of the Dead granted his request, though he had never done it before. He said the young man could go, and his wife would follow him, she would be right behind him. But he couldn't look back at her, he had to trust she was there. But he didn't. He didn't trust, he looked back, and so the woman had to stay. Obviously, he didn't love her the way he said he did. But then, I have found that people never love the way they say they do. They can't. They are just people. Full of lies and sentiment and fear. There is no reason for you to leave here, and no way for you to go. No one will come for you, and even if they did, I am not the sentimental sort.

Things I Used to Get Hit For: Talking back. Being smart. Acting stupid. Not listening. Not answering the first time. Not doing what I’m told. Not doing it the second time I’m told. Running, jumping, yelling, laughing, falling down, skipping stairs, lying in the snow, rolling in the grass, playing in the dirt, walking in mud, not wiping my feet, not taking my shoes off. Sliding down the banister, acting like a wild Indian in the hallway. Making a mess and leaving it. Pissing my pants, just a little. Peeing the bed, hardly at all. Sleeping with a butter knife under my pillow. Shitting the bed because I was sick and it just ran out of me, but still my fault because I’m old enough to know better. Saying shit instead of crap or poop or number two. Not knowing better. Knowing something and doing it wrong anyway. Lying. Not confessing the truth even when I don’t know it. Telling white lies, even little ones, because fibbing isn’t fooling and not the least bit funny. Laughing at anything that’s not funny, especially cripples and retards. Covering up my white lies with more lies, black lies. Not coming the exact second I’m called. Getting out of bed too early, sometimes before the birds, and turning on the TV, which is one reason the picture tube died. Wearing out the cheap plastic hole on the channel selector by turning it so fast it sounds like a machine gun. Playing flip-and-catch with the TV’s volume button then losing it down the hole next to the radiator pipe. Vomiting. Gagging like I’m going to vomit. Saying puke instead of vomit. Throwing up anyplace but in the toilet or in a designated throw-up bucket. Using scissors on my hair. Cutting Kelly’s doll’s hair really short. Pinching Kelly. Punching Kelly even though she kicked me first. Tickling her too hard. Taking food without asking. Eating sugar from the sugar bowl. Not sharing. Not remembering to say please and thank you. Mumbling like an idiot. Using the emergency flashlight to read a comic book in bed because batteries don’t grow on trees. Splashing in puddles, even the puddles I don’t see until it’s too late. Giving my mother’s good rhinestone earrings to the teacher for Valentine’s Day. Splashing in the bathtub and getting the floor wet. Using the good towels. Leaving the good towels on the floor, though sometimes they fall all by themselves. Eating crackers in bed. Staining my shirt, tearing the knee in my pants, ruining my good clothes. Not changing into old clothes that don’t fit the minute I get home. Wasting food. Not eating everything on my plate. Hiding lumpy mashed potatoes and butternut squash and rubbery string beans or any food I don’t like under the vinyl seat cushions Mom bought for the wooden kitchen chairs. Leaving the butter dish out in summer and ruining the tablecloth. Making bubbles in my milk. Using a straw like a pee shooter. Throwing tooth picks at my sister. Wasting toothpicks and glue making junky little things that no one wants. School papers. Notes from the teacher. Report cards. Whispering in church. Sleeping in church. Notes from the assistant principal. Being late for anything. Walking out of Woolworth’s eating a candy bar I didn’t pay for. Riding my bike in the street. Leaving my bike out in the rain. Getting my bike stolen while visiting Grandpa Rudy at the hospital because I didn’t put a lock on it. Not washing my feet. Spitting. Getting a nosebleed in church. Embarrassing my mother in any way, anywhere, anytime, especially in public. Being a jerk. Acting shy. Being impolite. Forgetting what good manners are for. Being alive in all the wrong places with all the wrong people at all the wrong times.

Filth, filth, filth, from morning to night. I know they're poor but they could wash. Water is free and soap is cheap. Just look at that arm, nurse.' The nurse looked and clucked in horror. Francie stood there with the hot flamepoints of shame burning her face. The doctor was a Harvard man, interning at the neighborhood hospital. Once a week, he was obliged to put in a few hours at one of the free clinics. He was going into a smart practice in Boston when his internship was over. Adopting the phraseology of the neighborhood, he referred to his Brooklyn internship as going through Purgatory, when he wrote to his socially prominent fiancee in Boston. The nurse was as Williamsburg girl... The child of poor Polish immigrants, she had been ambitious, worked days in a sweatshop and gone to school at night. Somehow she had gotten her training... She didn't want anyone to know she had come from the slums. After the doctor's outburst, Francie stood hanging her head. She was a dirty girl. That's what the doctor meant. He was talking more quietly now asking the nurse how that kind of people could survive; that it would be a better world if they were all sterilized and couldn't breed anymore. Did that mean he wanted her to die? Would he do something to make her die because her hands and arms were dirty from the mud pies? She looked at the nurse... She thought the nurse might say something like: Maybe this little girl's mother works and didn't have time to wash her good this morning,' or, 'You know how it is, Doctor, children will play in the dirt.' But what the nurse actuallly said was, 'I know, Isn't it terrible? I sympathize with you, Doctor. There is no excuse for these people living in filth.' A person who pulls himself up from a low environment via the bootstrap route has two choices. Having risen above his environment, he can forget it; or, he can rise above it and never forget it and keep compassion and understanding in his heart for those he has left behind him in the cruel upclimb. The nurse had chosen the forgetting way. Yet, as she stood there, she knew that years later she would be haunted by the sorrow in the face of that starveling child and that she would wish bitterly that she had said a comforting word then and done something towards the saving of her immortal soul. She had the knowledge that she was small but she lacked the courage to be otherwise. When the needle jabbed, Francie never felt it. The waves of hurt started by the doctor's words were racking her body and drove out all other feeling. While the nurse was expertly tying a strip of gauze around her arm and the doctor was putting his instrument in the sterilizer and taking out a fresh needle, Francie spoke up. My brother is next. His arm is just as dirty as mine so don't be suprised. And you don't have to tell him. You told me.' They stared at this bit of humanity who had become so strangely articulate. Francie's voice went ragged with a sob. 'You don't have to tell him. Besides it won't do no godd. He's a boy and he don't care if he is dirty.'... As the door closed, she heard the doctor's suprised voice. I had no idea she'd understand what I was saying.' She heard the nurse say, 'Oh, well,' on a sighing note.

Answering the question 'How would you like to smell?' by saying 'I'd rather I didn't' is also no longer acceptable. It's not playing the game. Men are expected to put some cash into the cosmetic pot too - it's seen as almost un-feminist not to. What a uniquely capitalist response to that gender inequality: women have been forced by convention for generations - millennia - to spend money on expensive clothes and agonising shoes, to daub themselves with reality-concealing slap, to smell expensively inhuman, to self-mutilate in pursuit of eternal youth; and this, quite rightly, has come to be deemed unfair. But how do we end this hell? We make men do it too. Well done everyone.

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

We entered the cool cave of the practice space with all the long-haired, goateed boys stoned on clouds of pot and playing with power tools. I tossed my fluffy coat into the hollow of my bass drum and lay on the carpet with my worn newspaper. A shirtless boy came in and told us he had to cut the power for a minute, and I thought about being along in the cool black room with Joey. Let's go smoke, she said, and I grabbed the cigarettes off the amp. She started talking to me about Wonder Woman. I feel like something big is happening, but I don't know what to do about it. With The Straight Girl? I asked in the blankest voice possible. With everything. Back in the sun we walked to the edge of the parking lot where a black Impala convertible sat, rusted and rotting, looking like it just got dredged from a swamp. Rainwater pooling on the floor. We climbed up onto it and sat our butts backward on the edge of the windshield, feet stretched into the front seat. Before she even joined the band, I would think of her each time I passed the car, the little round medallions with the red and black racing flags affixed to the dash. On the rusting Chevy, Joey told me about her date the other night with a girl she used to like who she maybe liked again. How her heart was shut off and it felt pretty good. How she just wanted to play around with this girl and that girl and this girl and I smoked my cigarette and went Uh-Huh. The sun made me feel like a restless country girl even though I'd never been on a farm. I knew what I stood for, even if nobody else did. I knew the piece of me on the inside, truer than all the rest, that never comes out. Doesn't everyone have one? Some kind of grand inner princess waiting to toss her hair down, forever waiting at the tower window. Some jungle animal so noble and fierce you had to crawl on your belly through dangerous grasses to get a glimpse. I gave Joey my cigarette so I could unlace the ratty green laces of my boots, pull them off, tug the linty wool tights off my legs. I stretched them pale over the car, the hair springing like weeds and my big toenail looking cracked and ugly. I knew exactly who I was when the sun came back and the air turned warm. Joey climbed over the hood of the car, dusty black, and said Let's lie down, I love lying in the sun, but there wasn't any sun there. We moved across the street onto the shining white sidewalk and she stretched out, eyes closed. I smoked my cigarette, tossed it into the gutter and lay down beside her. She said she was sick of all the people who thought she felt too much, who wanted her to be calm and contained. Who? I asked. All the flowers, the superheroes. I thought about how she had kissed me the other night, quick and hard, before taking off on a date in her leather chaps, hankies flying, and I sat on the couch and cried at everything she didn't know about how much I liked her, and someone put an arm around me and said, You're feeling things, that's good. Yeah, I said to Joey on the sidewalk, I Feel Like I Could Calm Down Some. Awww, you're perfect. She flipped her hand over and touched my head. Listen, we're barely here at all, I wanted to tell her, rolling over, looking into her face, we're barely here at all and everything goes so fast can't you just kiss me? My eyes were shut and the cars sounded close when they passed. The sun was weak but it baked the grime on my skin and made it smell delicious. A little kid smell. We sat up to pop some candy into our mouths, and then Joey lay her head on my lap, spent from sugar and coffee. Her arm curled back around me and my fingers fell into her slippery hair. On the February sidewalk that felt like spring.

Has Stalin understood correctly?’ asked Stalin. ‘You were on Franco’s side, you have fought against Comrade Mao, you have… saved the life of the pig in London and you have put the deadliest weapon in the world in the hands of the arch-capitalists in the USA. ‘I might have known,’ Stalin mumbled and in his anger forgot to talk in the third person. ‘And now you are here to sell yourself to Soviet socialism? One hundred thousand dollars, is that the price for your soul? Or has the price gone up during the course of the evening?’ Allan no longer wanted to help. Of course, Yury was still a good man and he was the one who actually needed the help. But you couldn’t get away from the fact that the results of Yury’s work would end up in the hands of Comrade Stalin, and he was not exactly Allan’s idea of a real comrade. On the contrary, he seemed unstable, and it would probably be best for all concerned if he didn’t get the bomb to play with. ‘Not exactly,’ said Allan. ‘This was never about money…’ He didn’t get any further before Stalin exploded again. ‘Who do you think you are, you damned rat? Do you think that you, a representative of fascism, of horrid American capitalism, of everything on this Earth that Stalin despises, that you, you, can come to the Kremlin, to the Kremlin, and bargain with Stalin, and bargain with Stalin?’ ‘Why do you say everything twice?’ Allan wondered, while Stalin went on: ‘The Soviet Union is prepared to go to war again, I’ll tell you that! There will be war, there will inevitably be war until American imperialism is wiped out.’ ‘Is that what you think?’ asked Allan. ‘To do battle and to win, we don’t need your damned atom bomb! What we need is socialist souls and hearts! He who knows he can never be defeated, can never be defeated!’ ‘Unless of course somebody drops an atom bomb on him,’ said Allan. ‘I shall destroy capitalism! Do you hear! I shall destroy every single capitalist! And I shall start with you, you dog, if you don’t help us with the bomb!’ Allan noted that he had managed to be both a rat and a dog in the course of a minute or so. And that Stalin was being rather inconsistent, because now he wanted to use Allan’s services after all. But Allan wasn’t going to sit there and listen to this abuse any longer. He had come to Moscow to help them out, not to be shouted at. Stalin would have to manage on his own. ‘I’ve been thinking,’ said Allan. ‘What,’ said Stalin angrily. ‘Why don’t you shave off that moustache?’ With that the dinner was over, because the interpreter fainted

Why didn't you tell me?" "I know you won't believe it, but I thought it would be best for you. You were doing so well until I came back. I thought you could go back to how it was. You still can." "Don't say that,Becks.We're going to figure something out." "I know.Even so,I understand that it would've been easier for you if I'd never come back.Maybe you and Jules..." His grip on my arm tightened,and when he spoke,his voice wavered. "Becks. I crashed when you left.Jules held together the pieces,and I will love her forever for that.But if I was with her, it wouldn't be right." He grimaced. "She told me so herself, right before I left with Will. She knew." Jack pushed my hair out of my eyes and off my forehead. "Um,she knew what?" I could barely hear my own voice. "It's always been you,Becks. Nothing will change that,no matter how much time has passed." He glanced down. "No matter if you feel the same way or not. You know what,right?" I shook my head slowly,wanting desperately to believe him, but not sure if I could. "How can you not see that? Everyone sees it." He slid his hand down my arm and grabbed my fingers, holding them in his lip,tracing them. Staring at them. "Remember freshman year? How Bozeman asked you to the Spring Fling?" Bozeman. He was two years older than me. Played offensive lineman. His first name was Zachary, but nobody had called him that since the third grade. I'd been surprised he even knew my name, let alone asked me to the dance. "Of course I remember.You came with me to answer him." We doorbell-ditched Bozeman's house, leaving a two-liter bottle of Coke and a note that said I'd pop to go to the dance with you, or something like that. Bozeman had a reputation for fast hands, but he didn't try anything with me. In fact,he barely touched me at all, even at the fling.And he never asked me out again.Or even talked to me, really.It was weird. "Yeah,well,I didn't tell you, but Bozeman actually asked my permission." "Why?" "Because it was obvious to everyone, except you,how I felt about you.And then that night with the Coke on the porch...after I dropped you off at home, I paid Bozeman a visit." His cheeks went pink and he lowered his eyes. "And?" "Let's just say I rescinded my permission. I didn't realize how much it would bother me." His eyes met mine. I could only imagine what was said between Jack and the lineman, who was twice his size. "Don't be mad," Jack said. Like I'd be angry after everything we'd been through. "I...I'm telling you this because you have to know that it's always been you. And it will always be you.

There's no way around it. Motherhood is hard. And you young moms put more pressure on yourselves than we ever did, with your crafts and your activities. Do you know what we called crafts when David was young? Chores. We didn't play with our kids, we sent them outside. All day. They'd only come back in when the streetlights came on. You moms have it different. You're expected to be on 24/7 and look good doing it. My advice is this. Stop being so hard on yourself. And drink more vodka.

He did atrocious things, but it was him I wanted. Always, only him. Troy stopped when we were nose to nose. Toe to toe. I loved watching those eyes from up-close. They were so ocean blue, no wonder they made my head swim. “I love you, Red. I love you determined, tough, innocent, resilient…” His brows furrowed as he drank me in, stroking the curve of my face with his calloused fingertips. “I love you broken, insecure, scared, furious and pissed off…” He let a small smile loose. I actually felt it, even though it was on his lips. “I love every part of you, the good and the bad, the hopeless and the assertive. We don’t just love. We heal each other with every touch and complete each other with ever kiss. And fuck, I know it’s corny as hell, but that’s what I need. You’re what I need.” My eyes fluttered shut, a lone tear hanging from the tip of my eyelash. “We don’t have ordinary words between us. You always set my fucking brain on fire when you talk to me. We don’t even have ordinary moments of silence. I always feel like I’m playing with you or being played by you when you’re around. And I refuse to let you walk out on this, on us.” He cupped my cheeks and I locked his palms in place, tightening my grip. I never wanted him to let go. He dipped his head down, tilting his forehead against mine. I knew he was right. Knew that I’d already forgiven him. Probably before I even knew what he did, when we were still living together. Hell, probably on that dance floor, when I was nine. My capturer. My monster. My savior. “I’m an asshole, was an asshole, and have every intention of staying an asshole. It’s the makeup of my fucking DNA. But I want to be your asshole. To you, I can be good. Maybe even great. For you, I’ll stop the rain from falling and the thunder from cracking and the wind from fucking blowing. And yes, I sure as hell knew you’d come back. You came straight back into my arms, flew back to your nest, lovebird. Now why would you do that if you didn’t love the shit out of me?” My eyes roamed his face. His hands felt delicious on my skin. It was like he was pumping life into me with his fingertips. Like he made me whole before I even knew parts of me were missing.

Did Grandma cry?” Ma flicked off the wipers. “I don’t know, maybe. Not in front of me.” “She didn’t even cry for her own kid?” “She was angry about it—did a lot of slamming, I remember. Pot lids, kitchen cabinets. Eddie was kind of wild. He always took chances.” “Risks,” I said. I hated Grandma, that cold bitch. “Julie Andrews played a good part in that movie today, didn’t she?” Ma said. “She seems so sweet.” “She’s probably a big spoiled snot in real life.” I clicked the radio back on and twisted the knob until I found W-EAS. A song ended and Jack came on. I turned it up loud; his voice filled the car. “The eyebrows, maybe,” Ma said. “What?” “He resembles Eddie a little around the eyebrows. Those blue eyes that look like they’re cooking up trouble.

Anyone who knows baseball knows Ted Williams. He played professionally from 1939 to 1960 and is one of the undisputed greatest hitters of all time, right up there with Babe Ruth. But whether you’re familiar with him or not, I have news for you: Ted Williams never played baseball. Nope, he never did. The problem there is the verb: Williams wasn’t playing. To him, hitting a baseball wasn’t a game. He always took it very, very seriously. In a 1988 interview he said as a child he literally wished on a falling star that he would become the greatest hitter to ever live. But he didn’t sit around and wait for the dream to come true. His obsessive, perfectionist work ethic would bring him more success than any descending celestial body would. Williams said, “I . . . insist that regardless of physical assets, I would never have gained a headline for hitting if I [had not] kept everlastingly at it and thought of nothing else the year round . . . I only lived for my next time at bat.” Ten thousand hours to achieve expertise? Williams probably did that a few times over. He was obsessed. After school, he’d go to a local field and practice hitting until nine P.M., only stopping because that’s when they turned the lights out. Then he’d go home and practice in the backyard until his parents made him go to bed. He’d get to school early so he could fit in more swings before classes started. He’d bring his bat to class. He picked courses that had less homework, not because he was lazy but so he’d have more time for hitting.

You stand there all tan and glowing and wonder why I use Voice on you?” he bellowed. “Where the hell do you get off? You’ve been with V’lane again. How many slaps in the face do you think I’m going to take, Ms. Lane?” He grabbed my fist and held it when I tried to punch him again. I swung at him with the other. He caught that, too. “I warned you not to play us against each other.” “I’m not playing you! I’m trying to survive. And I don’t slap you when I go off with V’lane!” I tried to yank my fists from his hands. “It doesn’t have anything to do with you. I’m trying to get answers, and since you won’t give me any, you can’t blame me for going somewhere else.” “So, the man who doesn’t get laid at home has the right to go off and cheat?” “Huh?” “Which word didn’t you understand?” he sneered. “You’re the one who’s crippled by illogic. This isn’t home, it never will be, and nobody’s getting laid!” I practically shouted. “You think I don’t know that?” He shifted his body beneath me, making me painfully aware of something. Two somethings, in fact, one of which was how far up my short skirt was. The other wasn’t my problem. I wriggled, to shimmy my hem down, but his expression perished the thought. When Barrons looks at me like that, it rattles me. Lust, in those ancient, obsidian eyes, offers no trace of humanity. Doesn’t even bother trying. Savage Mac wants to invite it to come out and play. I think she’s nuts. Nuts, I tell you. “Let go of my hands.” “Make me,” he taunted. “Voice me, Ms. Lane. Come on, little girl, show me some power.” Little girl, my ass.

Lots of people tried to be like Sly. Take Rick James: more than half of the shit he did was in direct imitation. But there were only two people who were capable of that kind of cool: Miles Davis and Sly. I didn’t know Miles as well, but watching Sly was a strange experience, both educational and disorienting. To me, crazy is a prerequisite for greatness. But it doesn’t have to be actual craziness. I play crazy, when in reality, I’m pretty close to sane. Sly wasn’t playing. He believed in his own abilities, but he also believed in his own legend. And while he was a real nice guy in most ways, he wouldn’t hesitate to misuse you when it came to money and drugs. Of course, he was so ahead of the game that he wouldn’t try to trick you. He’d come right out and ask you if he could misuse you.

Women are like goats. It's like . . . Well, reasoning with a woman is like sitting down to a friendly game of dice. Only the woman refuses to acknowledge the basic bloody rules of the game. A man, he'll cheat you - but he'll do it honestly. He'll use loaded dice, so that you think you're losing by chance. And if you aren't clever enough to spot what he's doing, then maybe he deserves to take your coin. And that's that. A woman, though, she'll sit down to that same game and she'll smile, and act like she's going to play. Only when it's her turn to throw, she'll toss a pair of her own dice that are blank on all six sides. Not a single pip showing. She'll inspect the throw, then she'll look up at you and say, 'clearly I just won.' Now, you'll scratch your head and look at the dice. Then you'll look up at her, then down at the dice again 'But there aren't any pips on these dice' you'll say." 'Yes there are,' she'll say. 'And both dice rolled a one.' 'That's exactly the number you need to win,' you'll say. 'What a coincidence,' she'll reply, then begin to scoop up your coins. And you'll sit there, trying to wrap your head 'bout what just happened. And you'll realise something. A pair of ones isn't the winning throw! Not when you threw a six on your turn. That means she needed a pair of twos instead! Excitedly you'll explain what you've discovered. Only then do you know what she'll do?" "No idea, Mat." "Then she'll reach over and rub the blank faces of her dice. And then, with a perfectly straight face, she'll say, 'I'm sorry. There was a spot of dirt on the dice. Clearly you'll see they actually came up as twos!' And she'll believe it. She'll bloody believe it!" "Incredible." "Only that's not the end of it!" "I had presumed it wouldn't be Mat." "She scoops up all of your coins. And then every other wonam in the room will come over and congratulate her on throwing that pair of twos! The more you complain, the more those bloody women will join in the argument. You'll be outnumbered in a moment, and each of those women will explain to you how those dice clearly read twos, and how you really need to stop behaving like a child. Every single flaming one of them will see the twos! even the prudish woman who has hated your woman from birth - since your woman's granny stole the other woman's granny's honeycake recipe when they were both maids - that woman will side against you." "They're nefarious creatures indeed." "By the time they're done, you'll be left with no coin, several lists worth of errands to run and what clothing to wear and a splitting headache. You'll sit there and stare at the table and begin to wonder, just maybe, if those dice didn't read twos after all. If only to preserve what's left of your sanity. That's what it's like to reason with a woman, I tell you.

Figure it out, Luna. I don’t wanna be sixty when you decide.” I pressed my lips together. Don’t do it, Luna. Everything is not fine and dandy. Don’t do it. Don’t— Let it go. Let it— I didn’t. “So I have… two years… before then?” I whispered, grimacing at the joke that I shouldn’t have made so that we could focus on the serious topic of our conversation. So I could hold on to the distance I was supposed to put between us because he was my boss. What I got was silence. Freaking silence. The sigh that came out of him reminded me of what I figured a hot air balloon would sound like if it deflated. “I should’ve fired you the other day.” I sucked in a breath, and my entire upper body turned to him. He was smirking. He thought he was being funny. He was… joking. These mocking, laughing eyes I had never seen before slid over to me, and the second they spotted my expression, they changed. My name came out a grumble. “I was playing.” Sure, he’d been. His mouth went so tight, it was edged in white. “I was messing with you,” he insisted, seriously. He was messing with me. Those long fingers flexed again. “You that mad at me?” he asked. “I’m not mad at you.” “Upset with me?” I didn’t look at him as I said, “No.” I wasn’t. I wasn’t. “I just…” What could I say? “You don’t ever joke around with me. I’m just surprised.” I started to crack my knuckles but stopped. “Okay, maybe I am a little upset with you, but I’m almost over it.” Out of the corner of my eye, I watched him glance at me again, and I could barely hear his voice when he spoke again. “I joke around outside of work,” he said softly. I wasn’t going to overthink it. Did that come out defensively, or was it my imagination? “That’s good.” I was such a sucker. I really was.

THE COUNCIL WAS NOTHING LIKE Jason imagined. For one thing, it was in the Big House rec room, around a Ping-Pong table, and one of the satyrs was serving nachos and sodas. Somebody had brought Seymour the leopard head in from the living room and hung him on the wall. Every once in a while, a counselor would toss him a Snausage. Jason looked around the room and tried to remember everyone’s name. Thankfully, Leo and Piper were sitting next to him—it was their first meeting as senior counselors. Clarisse, leader of the Ares cabin, had her boots on the table, but nobody seemed to care. Clovis from Hypnos cabin was snoring in the corner while Butch from Iris cabin was seeing how many pencils he could fit in Clovis’s nostrils. Travis Stoll from Hermes was holding a lighter under a Ping-Pong ball to see if it would burn, and Will Solace from Apollo was absently wrapping and unwrapping an Ace bandage around his wrist. The counselor from Hecate cabin, Lou Ellen something-or-other, was playing “got-your-nose” with Miranda Gardiner from Demeter, except that Lou Ellen really had magically disconnected Miranda’s nose, and Miranda was trying to get it back. Jason had hoped Thalia would show. She’d promised, after all—but she was nowhere to be seen. Chiron had told him not to worry about it. Thalia often got sidetracked fighting monsters or running quests for Artemis, and she would probably arrive soon. But still, Jason worried. Rachel Dare, the oracle, sat next to Chiron at the head of the table. She was wearing her Clarion Academy school uniform dress, which seemed a bit odd, but she smiled at Jason. Annabeth didn’t look so relaxed. She wore armor over her camp clothes, with her knife at her side and her blond hair pulled back in a ponytail. As soon as Jason walked in, she fixed him with an expectant look, as if she were trying to extract information out of him by sheer willpower. “Let’s come to order,” Chiron said. “Lou Ellen, please give Miranda her nose back. Travis, if you’d kindly extinguish the flaming Ping-Pong ball, and Butch, I think twenty pencils is really too many for any human nostril. Thank you. Now, as you can see, Jason, Piper, and Leo have returned successfully…more or less. Some of you have heard parts of their story, but I will let them fill you in.” Everyone looked at Jason. He cleared his throat and began the story. Piper and Leo chimed in from time to time, filling in the details he forgot. It only took a few minutes, but it seemed like longer with everyone watching him. The silence was heavy, and for so many ADHD demigods to sit still listening for that long, Jason knew the story must have sounded pretty wild. He ended with Hera’s visit right before the meeting.

The bookshop of Kipps is on the left-hand side of the Hythe High Street coming from Folkestone, between the yard of the livery stable and the shop-window full of old silver and such like things—it is quite easy to find—and there you may see him for yourself and speak to him and buy this book of him if you like. He has it in stock, I know. Very delicately I've seen to that. His name is not Kipps, of course, you must understand that, but everything else is exactly as I have told you. You can talk to him about books, about politics, about going to Boulogne, about life, and the ups and downs of life. Perhaps he will quote you Buggins—from whom, by the bye, one can now buy everything a gentleman's wardrobe should contain at the little shop in Rendezvous Street, Folkestone. If you are fortunate to find Kipps in a good mood he may even let you know how he inherited a fortune "once." "Run froo it," he'll say with a not unhappy smile. "Got another afterwards—speckylating in plays. Needn't keep this shop if I didn't like. But it's something to do."... Or he may be even more intimate. "I seen some things," he said to me once. "Raver! Life! Why! once I—I 'loped! I did—reely!" (Of course you will not tell Kipps that he is "Kipps," or that I have put him in this book. He does not know. And you know, one never knows how people are going to take that sort of thing. I am an old and trusted customer now, and for many amiable reasons I should prefer that things remained exactly on their present footing.)

The parlour is as I remember it from Council meetings. It carries the scent of smoke and verbena and clover. Cardan himself lounges, his booted feet resting on a stone table carved in the shape of a griffin, claws raised to strike. He gives me a quicksilver conspiratorial grin that seems completely at odds with the way he spoke to me from the throne. 'Well,' he says, patting the couch beside him. 'Didn't you get my letters?' 'What?' I am confused enough that the word comes out like a croak. 'You never replied to a one,' he goes on. 'I began to wonder if you'd misplaced your ambition in the mortal world.' This must be a test. This must be a trap. 'Your Majesty,' I say stiffly. 'I thought you brought me here to assure yourself I had neither charm nor amulet.' A single eyebrow rises, and his smile deepens. 'I will if you like. Shall I command you to remove your clothes? I don't mind.' 'What are you doing?' I say finally, desperately. 'What are you playing at?' He's looking at me as though somehow I am the one who's behaving strangely. 'Jude, you can't really think I don't know it's you. I knew you from the moment you walked into the brugh.' I shake my head, reeling. 'That's not possible.

When the Archives file out of the room, Galen turns to Emma. She’s ready for him. She holds up her shushing finger. “Don’t even,” she says. “I was going to tell you, but I just didn’t have a chance.” “Tell me now,” he says. “Since it seems I’m the last to know.” He isn’t the last to know, of course. But he’d really hoped she would come to him with it. Before now. Before it became an issue for other people. She raises a hesitant brow. “Please,” he grates out. She sighs in a gust. “I still don’t think it’s important at the moment, but when Rayna took off for the Arena, I hoped on one of the jet skis and tried to follow. But,” she amends, “I did not intend to get in the water. I swear I didn’t. It’s just that Goliath wanted to play, and he tipped over the”-she must sense all his patience oozing out-“anyway, so I come across this Syrena, Jasa, and she’s been caught in a net and two men are pulling her aboard. So me and Goliath helped her.” “Where are the fishermen now?” “Um. Unless Rachel did something drastic, they’re probably at home telling their kids crazy stories about mermaids.” Galen feels a sense of control slipping, but of what he’s not sure. For centuries, the Syrena have remained unnoticed by humans. Now within the span of a week, they’ve allowed themselves to be captured twice. He hopes this does not become a pattern. Toraf must have mistaken his long pause for brooding. “Don’t be too hard on her, Galen,” he says. “I told you, Emma helped her and then went straight home.” “Stay out of this,” Galen says pleasantly. “I knew you told him.” Emma crosses her arms at Toraf. “You really are a snitch.” “You had enough to worry about. And so did I.” Toraf shrugs, unperturbed. “It’s over now.” Nalia pinches the bridge of her nose. “This is where I ground you for life,” she tells Emma. “All three hundred years of it.

How much are you lifting?” “Seven hundred.” Alrighty then. I will just stand over here, out of your way, and hope you don’t remember my promise to kick your ass. He grinned. “Wanna spot me?” “No thanks. How about I just scream verbal encouragements at you?” I took a deep breath and barked. “No pain, no gain! That pain is just weakness leaving your body! Come on! Push! Push! Make that weight your bitch!” He cracked up. The weight stopped, perilously close to his chest, while he shook with laughter. I stepped up and grabbed the bar. It put me into an incredibly compromising position, since his head was really close to my thighs and the area directly above them, but I didn’t want to explain to a rabid Pack how I was responsible for the Beast Lord crushing his chest with a weight bar. I put my back into it. There was no way in hell I could ever pull it up without him pushing. The bar crept up very slowly. “Curran, stop playing and lift.” I looked down and saw him looking straight at me. He had a smile on his face. The sight of me puffing and straining apparently amused him to no end. He raised the bar up and slid it into the twin forks on the side of the bench. I beat a hasty retreat, putting a few feet between him and me. He sat, pulled his shirt off, and used it to wipe the sweat off his chest. Slowly. Flexing a bit for my benefit. I turned around and looked at the scenery. Having a streak of drool hang from my mouth would seriously cramp my style. Besides, if he full-out flexed, I would probably faint. Or jump off the building.

So what part did I play in all this? Well, none really. They completely ignored me for the whole twenty or thirty minutes. Which was perfectly fine, of course, I didn’t mind. But it did puzzle me, because early every morning they would come yelping and scratching around the doors and windows of my house until I got up and took them for their walk. If anything disturbed the daily ritual, like I had to drive into town, or have a meeting, or fly to England or something, they would get thoroughly miserable and simply not know what to do. Despite the fact that they would always completely ignore me whenever we went on our walks together, they couldn’t just go and have a walk without me. This revealed a profoundly philosophical bent in these dogs that were not mine, because they had worked out that I had to be there in order for them to be able to ignore me properly. You can’t ignore someone who isn’t there, because that’s not what “ignore” means.

I did not mean to be a Christian. I have been very clear about that. My first words upon encountering the presence of Jesus for the first time 12 years ago, were, I swear to God, “I would rather die.” I really would have rather died at that point than to have my wonderful brilliant left-wing non-believer friends know that I had begun to love Jesus. I think they would have been less appalled if I had developed a close personal friendship with Strom Thurmond. At least there is some reason to believe that Strom Thurmond is a real person. You know, more or less. But I never felt like I had much choice with Jesus; he was relentless. I didn’t experience him so much as the hound of heaven, as the old description has it, as the alley cat of heaven, who seemed to believe that if it just keeps showing up , mewling outside your door, you’d eventually open up and give him a bowl of milk. Of course, as soon as you do, you are fucked, and the next thing you know, he’s sleeping on your bed every night, and stepping on your chest at dawn to play a little push-push. I resisted as long as I could, like Sam-I-Am in “Green Eggs and Ham” — I would not, could not in a boat! I could not would not with a goat! I do not want to follow Jesus, I just want expensive cheeses. Or something. Anyway, he wore me out. He won. I was tired and vulnerable and he won. I let him in. This is what I said at the moment of my conversion: I said, “Fuck it. Come in. I quit.” He started sleeping on my bed that night. It was not so bad. It was even pretty nice. He loved me, he didn’t shed or need to have his claws trimmed, and he never needed a flea dip. I mean, what a savior, right? Then, when I was dozing, tiny kitten that I was, he picked me up like a mother cat, by the scruff of my neck, and deposited me in a little church across from the flea market in Marin’s black ghetto. That’s where I was when I came to. And then I came to believe.

The young activist who recycles Robert F. Kennedy’s line “There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why . . . I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?” has no idea he’s a walking, talking cliché, a non-conformist in theory while a predictable conformist in fact. But he also has no idea he’s tapping into his inner utopian.... RFK didn’t coin the phrase (JFK didn’t either, but he did use it first). The line actually comes from one of the worst people of the 20th century, George Bernard Shaw (admittedly he’s on the B-list of worst people since he never killed anybody; he just celebrated people who did). That much a lot of people know. But the funny part is the line comes from Shaw’s play Back to Methuselah. Specifically, it’s what the Serpent says to Eve in order to sell her on eating the apple and gaining a kind of immortality through sex (or something like that). Of course, Shaw’s Serpent differs from the biblical serpent, because Shaw — a great rationalizer of evil — is naturally sympathetic to the serpent. Still, it’s kind of hilarious that legions of Kennedy worshippers invoke this line as a pithy summation of the idealistic impulse, putting it nearly on par with Kennedy’s nationalistic “Ask Not” riff, without realizing they’re stealing lines from . . . the Devil. ​I don’t think this means you can march into the local high school, kick open the door to the student government offices with a crucifix extended, shouting “the power of Christ compels you!” while splashing holy water on every kid who uses that “RFK” quote on his Facebook page. But it is interesting.

Things I've Learned in 18 Years of Life   1) True love is not something found, rather [sic] something encountered. You can’t go out and look for it. The person you marry and the person you love could easily be two different people. So have a beautiful life while waiting for God to bring along your once-in-a-lifetime love. Don't allow yourself to settle for anything less than them. Stop worrying about who you're going to marry because God's already on the front porch watching your grandchildren play.   2) God WILL give you more than you can handle, so you can learn to lean on him in times of need. He won't tempt you more than you can handle, though. So don't lose hope. Hope anchors the soul.   3) Remember who you are and where you came from. Remember that you are not from this earth. You are a child of heaven, you're invaluable, you are beautiful. Carry yourself that way.   4) Don't put your faith in humanity, humanity is inherently flawed. We are all imperfect people created and loved by a perfect God. Perfect. So put your faith in Him.   5) I fail daily, and that is why I succeed.   6) Time passes, and nothing and everything changes. Don't live life half asleep. Don't drag your soul through the days. Feel everything you do. Be there physically and mentally. Do things that make you feel this way as well.   7) Live for beauty. We all need beauty, get it where you can find it. Clothing, paintings, sculptures, music, tattoos, nature, literature, makeup. It's all art and it's what makes us human. Same as feeling the things we do. Stay human.   8) If someone makes you think, keep them. If someone makes you feel, keep them.   9) There is nothing the human brain cannot do. You can change anything about yourself that you want to. Fight for it. It's all a mental game.   10) God didn’t break our chains for us to be bound again. Alcohol, drugs, depression, addiction, toxic relationships, monotony and repetition, they bind us. Break those chains. Destroy your past and give yourself new life like God has given you.   11) This is your life. Your struggle, your happiness, your sorrow, and your success. You do not need to justify yourself to anyone. You owe no one an explanation for the choices that you make and the position you are in. In the same vein, respect yourself by not comparing your journey to anyone else's.   12) There is no wrong way to feel.   13) Knowledge is everywhere, keep your eyes open. Look at how diverse and wonderful this world is. Are you going to miss out on beautiful people, places, experiences, and ideas because you are close-minded? I sure hope not.   14) Selfless actions always benefit you more than the recipient.   15) There is really no room for regret in this life. Everything happens for a reason. If you can't find that reason, accept there is one and move on.   16) There is room, however, for guilt. Resolve everything when it first comes up. That's not only having integrity, but also taking care of your emotional well-being.   17) If the question is ‘Am I strong enough for this?’ The answer is always, ‘Yes, but not on your own.’   18) Mental health and sanity above all.   19) We love because He first loved us. The capacity to love is the ultimate gift, the ultimate passion, euphoria, and satisfaction. We have all of that because He first loved us. If you think about it in those terms, it is easy to love Him. Just by thinking of how much He loves us.   20) From destruction comes creation. Beauty will rise from the ashes.   21) Many things can cause depression. Such as knowing you aren't becoming the person you have the potential to become. Choose happiness and change. The sooner the better, and the easier.   22) Half of happiness is as simple as eating right and exercising. You are one big chemical reaction. So are your emotions. Give your body the right reactants to work with and you'll be satisfied with the products.

neil closed his eyes and breathed in, breathed out, imagining the way bodies sounded as they crashed into each other on the court, the way the announcer’s voice would only come through in muffled, scattered bursts, the roar of sixty-five thousand people reacting to a goal. he knew he didn’t deserve this, knew beyond a doubt he wasn’t good enough to play on this court, but he wanted and needed it so badly he ached all over. the risks didn’t matter, the consequences would be worth it. he had to be here. he had to play on this court at least once. “oh,” nicky said, leaning against the wall a short ways down from him. “no wonder he chose you.” - narrator

When I was a young girl, I studied Greek in school. It's a beautiful language and ever so many good things were written in it. When you speak Greek, it feels like a little bird flapping its wings on your tongue as fast as it can. This is why I sometimes put Greek words into my stories, even though not so many people speak Ancient Greek anymore. Anything beautiful deserves to be shared round, and anything I love goes into my stories for safekeeping. The word I love is Arete. It has a simple meaning and a complicated meaning. The simple one is: excellence. But if that were all, we'd just use Excellence and I wouldn't bring it up until we got to E. Arete means your own excellence. Your very own. A personal excellence that belongs to no one else, one that comes out of all the things that make you special and different. Arete means whatever you are best at, no matter what that is. You might think the Greeks only meant things like fighting with bronze swords or debating philosophy, but they didn't. They meant whatever you're best at. What makes you feel like you're doing the rightest thing in the world. And that might be fighting with bronze swords and it might mean debating philosophy—but it also might mean building machines, or drawing pictures, or playing the guitar, or acting in Shakespeare plays, or writing books, or making a home for people who need one, or listening so hard and so well that people tell you the things they really need to say even if they didn't mean to, or running faster than anyone else, or teaching people patiently and boldly, or even making pillow forts or marching in parades or baking bread. It could be lending out just the right library book to just the right person at just the right moment. It could be standing up to the powerful even if you don't feel very powerful yourself, even if you're lost and as far away from home as you can get. It could be loving someone with the same care and thoroughness that a Wyvern takes with alphabetizing. It could be anything in the world. And it isn't easy to figure out what that is. It's even harder to get that good at it, because nothing, not even being yourself, comes without practice. But your arete goes with you everywhere, just waiting for you to pay attention to it. You can't lose it. You can only find it. And that's my favorite thing that starts with A.

The Holy Water No one lives outside the walls of this sacred place, existence. The holy water, I need it upon my eyes: it is you, dear, you – each form. What mother would lose her infant – and we are that to God, never lost from His gaze are we? Every cry of the heart is attended by light’s own arms. You cannot wander anywhere that will not aid you. Anything you can touch – God brought it into the classroom of your mind. Differences exist, but not in the city of love. Thus my vows and yours, I know they are the same. I have just peeled the skin from the potato and you are still contemplating its worth, sweetheart; indeed there are wonderful nutrients in all, for God made everything. You joined our community at birth. With your Father being who He is, what do the world’s scales know of your precious value. The priest and the prostitute – they weigh the same before the Son’s immaculate being, but who can bear that truth and freedom, so a wise man adulterated the scriptures; every wise man knows this. My soul’s face has revealed its beauty to me; why was it shy so long, didn’t it know how this made me suffer and weep? A different game He plays with His close ones. God tells us truths you would not believe, for most everyone needs to limit His compassion; concepts of right and wrong preserve the golden seed until one of God’s friends comes along and tends your body like a divine bride. The Holy sent out a surveyor to find the limits of its compassion and being. God knows a divine frustration whenever He acts like that, for the Infinite has no walls. Why not tease Him about this? Why not accept the freedom of what it means for our Lord to see us as Himself. So magnificently sovereign is our Lover; never say, 'On the other side of this river a different King rules.” For how could that be true – for nothing can oppose Infinite strength. No one lives outside the walls of this sacred place, existence. The holy water my soul’s brow needs is unity. Love opened my eye and I was cleansed by the purity of each form.

I hurried over to Conrad, walking so fast I kicked up sand behind me. “Hey, I’m gonna get a ride,” I said breathlessly. The blond Red Sox girl looked me up and down. “Hello,” she said. Conrad said, “With who?” I pointed at Cam. “Him.” “You’re not riding with someone you don’t even know,” he said flatly. “I do so know him. He’s Sextus.” He narrowed his eyes. “Sex what?” “Never mind. His name is Cam, he’s studying whales, and you don’t get to decide who I ride home with. I was just letting you know, as a courtesy. I wasn’t asking for your permission.” I started to walk away, but he grabbed my elbow. “I don’t care what he’s studying. It’s not gonna happen,” he said casually, but his grip was tight. “If you want to go, I’ll take you.” I took a deep breath. I had to keep cool. I wasn’t going to let him goad me into being a baby, not in front of all these people. “No, thanks,” I said, trying to walk away again. But he didn’t let go. “I thought you already had a boyfriend?” His tone was mocking, and I knew he’d seen through my lie the night before. I wanted so badly to throw a handful of sand in his face. I tried to twist out of his grip. “Let go of me! That hurts!” He let go immediately, his face red. It didn’t really hurt, but I wanted to embarrass him the way he was embarrassing me. I said loudly, “I’d rather ride with a stranger than with someone who’s been drinking!” “I’ve had one beer,” he snapped. “I weigh a hundred and seventy-five pounds. Wait half an hour and I’ll take you. Stop being such a brat.” I could feel tears starting to spark my eyelids. I looked over my shoulder to see if Cam was watching. He was. “You’re an asshole,” I said. He looked me dead in the eyes and said, “And you’re a four-year-old.” As I walked away, I heard the girl ask, “Is she your girlfriend?” I whirled around, and we both said “No!” at the same time. Confused, she said, “Well, is she your little sister?” like I wasn’t standing right there. Her perfume was heavy. It felt like it filled all the air around us, like we were breathing her in. “No, I’m not his little sister.” I hated this girl for being a witness to all this. It was humiliating. And she was pretty, in the same kind of way Taylor was pretty, which somehow made things worse. Conrad said, “Her mom is best friends with my mom.” So that was all I was to him? His mom’s friend’s daughter? I took a deep breath, and without even thinking, I said to the girl, “I’ve known Conrad my whole life. So let me be the one to tell you you’re barking up the wrong tree. Conrad will never love anyone as much as he loves himself, if you know what I mean-“ I lifted up my hand and wiggled my fingers. “Shut up, Belly,” Conrad warned. The tops of his ears were turning bright red. It was a low blow, but I didn’t care. He deserved it. Red Sox girl frowned. “What is she talking about, Conrad?” To her I blurted out, “Oh, I’m sorry, do you not know what the idiom ‘barking up the wrong tree’ means?” Her pretty face twisted. “You little skank,” she hissed. I could feel myself shrinking. I wished I could take it back. I’d never gotten into a fight with a girl before, or with anyone for that matter. Thankfully, Conrad broke in then and pointed to the bonfire. “Belly, go back over there, and wait for me to come get you,” he said harshly. That’s when Jeremiah ambled over. “Hey, hey, what’s going on?” he asked, smiling in his easy, goofy way. “Your brother is a jerk,” I said. “That’s what’s going on.” Jeremiah put his arm around me. He smelled like beer. “You guys play nice, you hear?” I shrugged out of his hold and said, “I am playing nice. Tell your brother to play nice.” “Wait, are you guys brother and sister too?” the girl asked. Conrad said, “Don’t even think about leaving with that guy.

Mustapha Mond paused, put down the first book and, picking up the other, turned over the pages. “Take this, for example,” he said, and in his deep voice once more began to read: “’A man grows old; he feels in himself that radical sense of weakness, of listlessness, of discomfort, which accompanies the advance of age; and, feeling thus, imagines himself merely sick, lulling his fears with the notion that this distressing condition is due to some particular cause, from which, as from an illness, he hopes to recover. Vain imaginings! That sickness is old age; and a horrible disease it is. They say that it is the fear of death and of what comes after death that makes men turn to religion as they advance in years. But my own experience has given me the conviction that, quite apart from any such terrors or imaginings, the religious sentiment tends to develop as we grow older; to develop because, as the passions grow calm, as the fancy and sensibilities are less excited and less excitable, our reason becomes less troubled in its working, less obscured by the images, desires and distractions, in which it used to be absorbed; whereupon God emerges as from behind a cloud; our soul feels, sees, turns towards the source of all light; turns naturally and inevitably; for now that all that gave to the world of sensations its life and charms has begun to leak away from us, now that phenomenal existence is no more bolstered up by impressions from within or from without, we feel the need to lean on something that abides, something that will never play us false-a reality, an absolute and everlasting truth. Yes, we inevitably turn to God; for this religious sentiment is of its nature so pure, so delightful to the soul that experiences it, that it makes up to us for all our other losses.”’ Mustapha Mond shut the book and leaned back in his chair. “One of the numerous things in heaven and earth that these philosophers didn’t dream about was this” (he waved his hand), “us, the modern world. ’You can only be independent of God while you’ve got youth and prosperity; independence won’t take you safely to the end.’ Well, we’ve now got youth and prosperity right up to the end. What follows? Evidently, that we can be independent of God. ’The religious sentiment will compensate us for all our losses.’ But there aren’t any losses for us to compensate; religious sentiment is superfluous. And why should we go hunting for a substitute for youthful desires, when youthful desires never fail? A substitute for distractions, when we go on enjoying all the old fooleries to the very last? What need have we of repose when our minds and bodies continue to delight in activity? of consolation, when we have soma? of something immovable, when there is the social order?

eighteen-year-olds to make the transition, who would guide us into adult life, into a world of work, of responsibilities, of civilized behaviour and progress – into the future. Quite often we ridiculed them and played tricks on them, but basically we believed in them. In our minds the idea of authority – which is what they represented – implied deeper insights and a more humane wisdom. But the first dead man that we saw shattered this conviction. We were forced to recognize that our generation was more honourable than theirs; they only had the advantage of us in phrase-making and in cleverness. Our first experience of heavy artillery fire showed us our mistake, and the view of life that their teaching had given us fell to pieces under that bombardment. While they went on writing and making speeches, we saw field hospitals and men dying: while they preached the service of the state as the greatest thing, we already knew that the fear of death is even greater. This didn’t make us into rebels or deserters, or turn us into cowards – and they were more than ready to use all of those words – because we loved our country just as much as they did, and so we went bravely into every attack. But now we were able to distinguish things clearly, all at once our eyes had been opened. And we saw that there was nothing left of their world. Suddenly we found ourselves horribly alone – and we had to come to terms with it alone as well.

There have been complaints?' said Miss Susan. 'Er, no ... er ... although Miss Smith has told me that the children coming up from your class are, er, restless. Their reading ability is, she says, rather unfortunately advanced ...' 'Miss Smith thinks a good book is about a boy and his dog chasing a big red ball,' said Miss Susan. 'My children have learned to expect a plot. No wonder they get impatient. We're reading Grim Fairy Tales at the moment.' 'That is rather rude of you, Susan.' 'No, madam. That is rather polite of me. It would have been rude of me to say that there is a circle of Hell reserved for teachers like Miss Smith.' 'But that's a dreadf-' Madam Frout stopped, and began again. 'You should not be teaching them to read at all yet!' she snapped. [...] 'I mean,' the headmistress mumbled, 'childhood is a time for play and-' 'Learning,' said Miss Susan. 'Learning through play,' said Madam Frout, grateful to find familiar territory. 'After all, kittens and puppies -' ' -grow up to be cats and dogs, which are even less interesting,' said Miss Susan, 'whereas children should grow up to be adults.' [...] 'What precisely was it you wanted, madam?' she said. It's just that I've left the class doing algebra, and they get restless when they've finished.' 'Algebra?' said Madam Frout [...] 'But that's far too difficult for seven-year-olds!' 'Yes, but I didn't tell them that and so far they haven't found out,' said Susan.

You don’t want to do this, Miss Sheffield,” he warned. “Oh,” she said with great feeling, “I do. I really, really do.” And then, with quite the most evil grin her lips had ever formed, she drew back her mallet and smacked her ball with every ounce of every single emotion within her. It knocked into his with stunning force, sending it hurtling even farther down the hill. Farther . . . Farther . . . Right into the lake. Openmouthed with delight, Kate just stared for a moment as the pink ball sank into the lake. Then something rose up within her, some strange and primitive emotion, and before she knew what she was about, she was jumping about like a crazy woman, yelling, “Yes! Yes! I win!” “You don’t win,” Anthony snapped. “Oh, it feels like I’ve won,” she reveled. Colin and Daphne, who had come dashing down the hill, skidded to a halt before them. “Well done, Miss Sheffield!” Colin exclaimed. “I knew you were worthy of the mallet of death.” “Brilliant,” Daphne agreed. “Absolutely brilliant.” Anthony, of course, had no choice but to cross his arms and scowl mightily. Colin gave her a congenial pat on the back. “Are you certain you’re not a Bridgerton in disguise? You have truly lived up to the spirit of the game.” “I couldn’t have done it without you,” Kate said graciously. “If you hadn’t hit his ball down the hill . . .” “I had been hoping you would pick up the reins of his destruction,” Colin said. The duke finally approached, Edwina at his side. “A rather stunning conclusion to the game,” he commented. “It’s not over yet,” Daphne said. Her husband gave her a faintly amused glance. “To continue the play now seems rather anticlimactic, don’t you think?” Surprisingly, even Colin agreed. “I certainly can’t imagine anything topping it.” Kate beamed. The duke glanced up at the sky. “Furthermore, it’s starting to cloud over. I want to get Daphne in before it starts to rain. Delicate condition and all, you know.” Kate looked in surprise at Daphne, who had started to blush. She didn’t look the least bit pregnant. “Very well,” Colin said. “I move we end the game and declare Miss Sheffield the winner.” “I was two wickets behind the rest of you,” Kate demurred. “Nevertheless,” Colin said, “any true aficionado of Bridgerton Pall Mall understands that sending Anthony into the lake is far more important than actually sending one’s ball through all the wickets. Which makes you our winner, Miss Sheffield.” He looked about, then straight at Anthony. “Does anyone disagree?” No one did, although Anthony looked close to violence. “Excellent,” Colin said. “In that case, Miss Sheffield is our winner, and Anthony, you are our loser.” A strange, muffled sound burst from Kate’s mouth, half laugh and half choke. “Well, someone has to lose,” Colin said with a grin. “It’s tradition.” “It’s true,” Daphne agreed. “We’re a bloodthirsty lot, but we do like to follow tradition.

Obama was the most powerful man in the world, but that didn’t mean he could control the forces at play in the Middle East. There was no Nelson Mandela who could lead a country to absolution for its sins and ours. Extremist forces were exploiting the Arab Spring. Reactionary forces—with deep reservoirs of political support in the United States—were intent on clinging to power. Bashar al-Assad was going to fight to the death, backed by his Russian and Iranian sponsors. Factions were going to fight it out in the streets of Libya. The Saudis and Emiratis were going to stamp out political dissent in Egypt before it could come to their kingdoms. A Likud prime minister was going to mouth words about peace while building settlements that made peace impossible. Meanwhile, innocent people were going to suffer, some of them were going to be killed, and there didn’t seem to be anything I could do about it. Obama had reached that conclusion before I had. History had opened up a doorway in 2011 that, by the middle of 2013, had been slammed shut. There would be more war, more conflict, and more suffering, until—someday—old men would make peace.

He slammed his cup down. Coffee splashed over the rim and puddled around the base. “What on earth gave you the idea I want space? I want you here. With me. All the time. I want to come home and hear the shower running and get excited because I know you’re in it. I want to struggle every morning to get up and go to the gym because I hate the idea of leaving your warm body behind in bed. I want to hear a key turn in the lock and feel contented knowing you’re home. I don’t want fucking space, Harper.” Harper laughed. “What’s funny?” “I didn’t mean space. I meant space, like closet space, a drawer in the bedroom, part of the counter in the bathroom.” Trent’s mouth twitched, a slight smile making its way to his lips. “Like a compromise. A commitment that I want more. I seem to recall you telling me in the car about something being a step in the right direction to a goal we both agreed on. Well, I want all those things you just said, with you, eventually. And if we start to leave things at each other’s places, it’s a step, right?” Trent reached up, flexing his delicious tattooed bicep, and scratched the side of his head. Without speaking, he leapt to his feet, grabbing Harper and pulling her into a fireman’s lift. “Trent,” she squealed, kicking her feet to get free. “What are you doing?” He slapped her butt playfully and laughed as he carried her down the hallway. Reaching the bedroom, Trent threw her onto the bed. “We’re doing space. Today, right now.” He started pulling open his drawers, looking inside each one before pulling stuff out of the top drawer and dividing it between the others. “Okay, this is for your underwear. I need to see bras, panties, and whatever other girly shit you have in here before the end of the day.” Like a panther on the prowl, Trent launched himself at the bed, grabbing her ankle and pulling her to the edge of the bed before sweeping her into his arms to walk to the bathroom. He perched her on the corner of the vanity, where his stuff was spread across the two sinks. “Pick one.” “Pick one what?” “Sink. Which do you want?” “You’re giving me a whole sink? Wait … stop…” Trent grabbed her and started tickling her. Harper didn’t recognize the girly giggles that escaped her. Pointing to the sink farthest away from the door, she watched as he pushed his toothbrush, toothpaste, and styling products to the other side of the vanity. He did the same thing with the vanity drawers and created some space under the sink. “I expect to see toothbrush, toothpaste, your shampoo, and whatever it is that makes you smell like vanilla in here.” “You like the vanilla?” It never ceased to surprise her, the details he remembered. Turning, he grabbed her cheeks in both hands and kissed her hard. He trailed kisses behind her ear and inhaled deeply before returning to face her. “Absolutely. I fucking love vanilla,” he murmured against her lips before kissing her again, softly this time. “Oh and I’d better see a box of tampons too.” “Oh my goodness, you are beyond!” Harper blushed furiously. “I want you for so much more than just sex, Harper.

You haven’t seen Tralse’s website today.” She said it as a statement, not a question. Without saying another word—apparently there were none to explain the coming horror—Robin surfed over to Tralse’s website. Aside from having posted videos from the concert last night of their new song, Kyle had posted a new blog. “Ten reasons why Virgin Val sucks?” I screeched. A couple walking past the store looked up, startled, so I bit my tongue to keep from spouting profanities of my own. I clicked on the blog. There was no way to make myself not click on it. The Top Ten Reasons Why Virgin Val Sucks 10. She called me a one-hit-wonder. 9. She doesn’t appreciate the endearing nickname I gave her. 8. She makes me write stupid blogs about her at four in the morning. 7. She’s encouraging people not to have sex. 6. She blew me off when I asked her out. 5. She has a crush on a douche bag. 4. She won’t answer any of my calls. 3. She’s such a tease with her look-but-don’t-touch policy. 2. I played a whole effing concert just for her and she didn’t come even though she told me she would. (You’re such a liar!) And the #1 reason why Virgin Val sucks? I still want her anyway.

When I was a kid, summers were the most glorious time of life. Because my parents believed in hands-off, free-range parenting, I’d usually be out the door before ten and wouldn’t return until dinner. There were no cell phones to keep track of me and whenever my mom called a neighbor to ask where I was, the neighbor was often just as clueless as to her own child’s whereabouts. In fact, there was only one rule as far as I could tell: I had to be home at half past five, since my parents liked to eat dinner as a family. I can’t remember exactly how I used to spend those days. I have recollections in snapshot form: building forts or playing king of the hill on the high part of the jungle gym or chasing after a soccer ball while attempting to score. I remember playing in the woods, too. Back then, our home was surrounded by undeveloped land, and my friends and I would have dirt-clod wars or play capture the flag; when we got BB guns, we could spend hours shooting cans and occasionally shooting at each other. I spent hours exploring on my bicycle, and whole weeks would pass where I’d wake every morning with nothing scheduled at all. Of course, there were kids in the neighborhood who didn’t lead that sort of carefree existence. They would head off to camp or participate in summer leagues for various sports, but back then, kids like that were the minority. These days, kids are scheduled from morning to night because parents have demanded it, and London has been no exception. But how did it happen? And why? What changed the outlook of parents in my generation? Peer pressure? Living vicariously through a child’s success? Résumé building for college? Or was it simply fear that if their kids were allowed to discover the world on their own, nothing good would come of it? I don’t know. I am, however, of the opinion that something has been lost in the process: the simple joy of waking in the morning and having nothing whatsoever to do.

back,” Daddy said. “It’ll work out.” He had no idea what to do about Helen. They spoke a completely different language. He was an old-timer who called school “schoolin”’ and called me “boy.” He had run off from Jim Crow in the South and felt that education, any education, was a privilege. Helen was far beyond that. Weeks passed, months, and Helen didn’t return. Finally Jack called. “I found her. She’s living with some crazy woman,” Jack said. She told Ma she didn’t know much about the lady other than that she wore a lot of scarves and used incense. Mommy got the address and went to the place herself. It was a dilapidated housing project near St. Nicholas Avenue, with junkies and winos standing out front. Mommy stepped past them and walked through a haze of reefer smoke and took the elevator to the eighth floor. She went to the apartment door and listened. There was music playing on a stereo inside, and the voice of someone on the phone. She knocked on the door. The stereo lowered. “Who is it?” someone asked. It sounded like Helen. “I’m here to see Helen,” Mommy said. Silence. “I know you’re there, Helen,” Mommy said. Silence. “Helen. I want you to come home. Whatever’s wrong we’ll fix. Just forget all of it and come on home.” From down the hallway, a doorway opened and a black woman watched in silence as the dark-haired, bowlegged white lady talked to the closed door. “Please come home, Helen.” The door had a peephole in it. The peephole slid back. A large black eye peered out. “Please come home, Helen. This is no place for you to be. Just come on home.” The peephole closed.

But to play in an international tournament of the caliber announced, he had to spend much more time at careful, precise study, analysis, and memorization. He stopped answering his phone, because he didn’t want to be interrupted or tempted to socialize—even for a chess party—and at one point, to be alone with the chessboard, he just threw some clothes in a suitcase, didn’t tell anyone where he was going, and checked into the Brooklyn YMCA. During his stay there, he sometimes studied more than sixteen hours per day. Malcolm Gladwell, in his book Outliers, describes how people in all fields reach success. He quotes neurologist Daniel Levitin: “In study after study, of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice skaters, concert pianists, chessplayers, criminals and what have you, the number comes up again and again [the magic number for true expertise: ten thousand hours of practice].” Gladwell then refers to Bobby: “To become a chess grandmaster also seems to take about ten years. (Only the legendary Bobby Fischer got to that elite level in less than that amount of time: it took him nine years.) Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing you do that makes you good.

He reached for me, and fast as lightning, he boxed my ears. All I remember is the world exploding. Cassandra says she helped me back to our room, and there was blood coming from my left ear. My right ear mended in a day or two, but I could only hear a little out of the left one, and there was a beating pain deep down. Soon I took ill with fever. Mama said that had nothing to do with the ear, but I think it did." Pandora paused, unwilling to relate any of the distasteful details of her ear suppurating and draining. She glanced cautiously at Gabriel, whose face was averted. He was no longer playing with her braid. His hand had clenched around it until the muscles of his forearms and wrist stood out. "Even after I recovered from the fever," Pandora said, "the hearing didn't come back all the way. But the worst part was that I kept losing my balance, especially at night. It made me afraid of the dark. Ever since then-" She stopped as Gabriel lifted his head. His face was hard and murderous, the hellfrost in his eyes frightening her more than her father's fury ever had. "That bloody son of a bitch," he said softly. "If he were still alive, I'd beat him with a thresher's flail." Pandora reached out with a fluttering motion, patting the air near him. "No," she said breathlessly, "no, I wouldn't want that. I hated him for a long time, but now I feel sorry for him." Gabriel caught her hand in midair, swift but gentle, as if it were a bird he wanted to hold without injuring. His eyes had dilated until she could see reflections of herself in the dark centers. "Why?" he whispered after a long moment. "Because hurting me was the only way to hide his own pain.

But before I go, I want to tell you a little story. “A certain shopkeeper sent his son to learn about the secret of happiness from the wisest man in the world. The lad wandered through the desert for forty days, and finally came upon a beautiful castle, high atop a mountain. It was there that the wise man lived. “Rather than finding a saintly man, though, our hero, on entering the main room of the castle, saw a hive of activity: tradesmen came and went, people were conversing in the corners, a small orchestra was playing soft music, and there was a table covered with platters of the most delicious food in that part of the world. The wise man conversed with everyone, and the boy had to wait for two hours before it was his turn to be given the man’s attention. “The wise man listened attentively to the boy’s explanation of why he had come, but told him that he didn’t have time just then to explain the secret of happiness. He suggested that the boy look around the palace and return in two hours. “‘Meanwhile, I want to ask you to do something,’ said the wise man, handing the boy a teaspoon that held two drops of oil. ‘As you wander around, carry this spoon with you without allowing the oil to spill.’ “The boy began climbing and descending the many stairways of the palace, keeping his eyes fixed on the spoon. After two hours, he returned to the room where the wise man was. “‘Well,’ asked the wise man, ‘did you see the Persian tapestries that are hanging in my dining hall? Did you see the garden that it took the master gardener ten years to create? Did you notice the beautiful parchments in my library?’ “The boy was embarrassed, and confessed that he had observed nothing. His only concern had been not to spill the oil that the wise man had entrusted to him. “‘Then go back and observe the marvels of my world,’ said the wise man. ‘You cannot trust a man if you don’t know his house.’ “Relieved, the boy picked up the spoon and returned to his exploration of the palace, this time observing all of the works of art on the ceilings and the walls. He saw the gardens, the mountains all around him, the beauty of the flowers, and the taste with which everything had been selected. Upon returning to the wise man, he related in detail everything he had seen. “‘But where are the drops of oil I entrusted to you?’ asked the wise man. “Looking down at the spoon he held, the boy saw that the oil was gone. “‘Well, there is only one piece of advice I can give you,’ said the wisest of wise men. ‘The secret of happiness is to see all the marvels of the world, and never to forget the drops of oil on the spoon.

April. It teaches us everything. The coldest and nastiest days of the year can happen in April. It won’t matter. It’s April. The English word for the month comes from the Roman Aprilis, the Latin aperire: to open, to uncover, to make accessible, or to remove whatever stops something from being accessible. It maybe also partly comes from the name of Aphrodite, Greek goddess of love, whose happy fickleness with various gods mirrors the month’s own showery-sunny fickleness. Month of sacrifice and month of playfulness. Month of restoration, of fertility-festivity. Month when the earth and the buds are already open, the creatures asleep for the winter have woken and are already breeding, the birds have already built their nests, birds that this time last year didn’t exist, busy bringing to life the birds that’ll replace them this time next year. Spring-cuckoo month, grass-month. In Gaelic its name means the month that fools mistake for May. April Fool’s Day also probably marks what was the old end of the new year celebrations. Winter has Epiphany. Spring’s gifts are different. Month of dead deities coming back to life. In the French revolutionary calendar, along with the last days of March, it becomes Germinal, the month of return to the source, to the seed, to the germ of things, which is maybe why Zola gave the novel he wrote about hopeless hope this revolutionary title. April the anarchic, the final month, of spring the great connective.

The old woman sat in her leather recliner, the footrest extended, a dinner tray on her lap. By candlelight, she turned the cards over, halfway through a game of Solitaire. Next door, her neighbors were being killed. She hummed quietly to herself. There was a jack of spades. She placed it under the queen of hearts in the middle column. Next a six of diamonds. It went under the seven of spades. Something crashed into her front door. She kept turning the cards over. Putting them in their right places. Two more blows. The door burst open. She looked up. The monster crawled inside, and when it saw her sitting in the chair, it growled. “I knew you were coming,” she said. “Didn’t think it’d take you quite so long.” Ten of clubs. Hmm. No home for this one yet. Back to the pile. The monster moved toward her. She stared into its small, black eyes. “Don’t you know it’s not polite to just walk into someone’s house without an invitation?” she asked. Her voice stopped it in its tracks. It tilted its head. Blood—from one of her neighbor’s no doubt—dripped off its chest onto the floor. Belinda put down the next card. “I’m afraid this is a one-player game,” she said, “and I don’t have any tea to offer you.” The monster opened its mouth and screeched a noise out of its throat like the squawk of a terrible bird. “That is not your inside voice,” Belinda snapped. The abby shrunk back a few steps. Belinda laid down the last card. “Ha!” She clapped. “I just won the game.” She gathered up the cards into a single deck, split it, then shuffled. “I could play Solitaire all day every day,” she said. “I’ve found in my life that sometimes the best company is your own.” A growl idled again in the monster’s throat. “You cut that right out!” she yelled. “I will not be spoken to that way in my own home.” The growl changed into something almost like a purr. “That’s better,” Belinda said as she dealt a new game. “I apologize for yelling. My temper sometimes gets the best of me.

He was beautiful. Whatever else he was, Sage was by far the most magnetic man I had ever seen. I had felt it in my dreams, and it was even more true in real life. I welcomed the chance to study him without his knowledge. He glanced up, and I quickly closed my eyes, feigning sleep. Had he seen me? The scratching stopped. He was looking at me, I knew it. I held my breath and willed my eyes not to pop open and see if he was staring. Finally the scratching started up again. I forced myself to slowly count to ten before I opened my eyelids the tiniest bit and peeked through my lashes. Good-he wasn’t looking at me. I opened my eyes a little wider. What was he doing? Moving only my eyes, I glanced down at the dirt floor in front of him… …and saw a picture of me, fast asleep. It was incredible. I could see his tools laid out beside the picture: rocks in several sizes and shapes, a couple of twigs…the most rudimentary materials, and yet what he was etching into the floor wouldn’t look out of place on an art gallery wall. It was beautiful…far more beautiful than I thought I actually looked in my sleep. Is that how he saw me? Sage lifted his head again, and I shut my eyes. I imagined him studying me, taking careful note of my features and filtering them through his own senses. My heartbeat quickened, and it took all my willpower to remain still. “You can keep pretending to be asleep if you’d like, but I don’t see a career for you as an actress,” he teased. My eyes sprang open. Sage’s head was again bent over his etching, but a grin played on his face as he worked. “You knew?” I asked, mortified. Sage put a finger to his lips, glancing toward Ben. “About two minutes before you woke up, I knew,” he whispered. “Your breathing hanged.” He bent back over the drawing, then impishly asked, “Pleasant dreams?” My heart stopped, and I felt myself blush bright crimson as I remembered our encounter in the bottom of the rowboat. I sent a quick prayer to whoever or whatever might be listening that I hadn’t re-enacted any of it in my sleep, then said as nonchalantly as possible, “I don’t know, I can’t remember what I dreamed about. Why?” He swapped out the rock in his hand for one with a thinner edge and worked for another moment. “No reason…just heard my name.” I hoped the dim moonlight shadowed the worst of my blush. “Your name,” I reiterated. “That’s…interesting. They say dreams sort out things that happen when we’re awake.” “Hmm. Did you sort anything out?” he asked. “Like I said, I can’t remember.” I knew he didn’t believe me. Time to change the subject. I nodded to the etching. “Can I come look?

Lora, beloved. Lora of the moon and sky. You are a dragon.” Ah, sighed the fiend, swelling with delight inside me, filled with an awful, awful recognition. Ah, ah! AH! “That is enough,” I shouted over them both; rather, I tried to shout, but my voice was so strangled it came more as a gasp. “I don’t know what you’re playing at, but I don’t appreciate your games. I-I came here to tell you to stop pestering me, and leaving me gifts, and smiling at me-“ “You dream of flying,” Jesse said, which cut me off midsentence. “Aye.” He nodded, shadows and gold, tall and warm and much too near. “I know all about it. I know all about you. You have wings at night. You lift as smoke. And you come to me, don’t you? Always to me.” I could not reply. I could barely take a breath. This is a dream, this is all still a dream, it’s just a new part to the dream, that’s all- “It’s why you’re here now, tonight. You’re drawn to me, as fiercely as I am to you. You didn’t even have to follow my song this time. I muted it, didn’t you notice? And you came anyway.” For a long, long moment, I gave up on breathing. For a long, long moment, all I heard was my heartbeat and his, and a gull crying miles away, and the distant thunder of a German bomb exploding on innocent ground. Jesse lifted a hand and placed it on my arm. His palm felt hot against the cotton of my sleeve, his fingers felt firm, and that rush of longing and pleasure that always overtook me at his touch began to build. “Lora,” he whispered again, so quiet it was barely a sound. “Inhale.” And when I did, he bent his head to kiss me.

I keep thinking about when we were young and we played ‘Candor,’” he says. “How I used to sit you down in a chair in the living room and as you questions? Remember?” “Yes,” I say. I lean my hips into the lab table. “You used to find the pulse in my wrist and tell me that if I lied, you would be able to tell, because the Candor can always tell when other people are lying. It wasn’t very nice.” Caleb laughs. “That one time, you confessed to stealing a book from the school library just as Mom came home--” “And I had to go to the librarian and apologize!” I laugh too. “That librarian was awful. She always called everyone ‘young lady’ or ‘young man.’” “Oh, she loved me, though. Did you know that when I was a library volunteer and was supposed to be shelving books during my lunch hour, I was really just standing in the aisles and reading? She caught me a few times and never said anything about it.” “Really?” I feel a twinge in my chest. “I didn’t know that.” “There was a lot we didn’t know about each other, I guess.” He taps his fingers on the table. “I wish we had been able to be more honest with each other.” “Me too.” “And it’s too late now, isn’t it.” He looks up. “Not for everything.” I pull out a chair from the lab table and sit in it. “Let’s play Candor. I’ll answer a question and then you have to answer a question. Honestly, obviously.” He looks a little exasperated, but he plays along. “Okay. What did you really do to break those glasses in the kitchen when you claimed that you were taking them out to clean water spots off them?” I roll my eyes. “That’s the one question you want an honest answer to? Come on, Caleb.

On our particular mission, senior marines met with local school officials while the rest of us provided security or hung out with the schoolkids, playing soccer and passing out candy and school supplies. One very shy boy approached me and held out his hand. When I gave him a small eraser, his face briefly lit up with joy before he ran away to his family, holding his two-cent prize aloft in triumph. I have never seen such excitement on a child’s face. I don’t believe in epiphanies. I don’t believe in transformative moments, as transformation is harder than a moment. I’ve seen far too many people awash in a genuine desire to change only to lose their mettle when they realized just how difficult change actually is. But that moment, with that boy, was pretty close for me. For my entire life, I’d harbored resentment at the world. I was mad at my mother and father, mad that I rode the bus to school while other kids caught rides with friends, mad that my clothes didn’t come from Abercrombie, mad that my grandfather died, mad that we lived in a small house. That resentment didn’t vanish in an instant, but as I stood and surveyed the mass of children of a war-torn nation, their school without running water, and the overjoyed boy, I began to appreciate how lucky I was: born in the greatest country on earth, every modern convenience at my fingertips, supported by two loving hillbillies, and part of a family that, for all its quirks, loved me unconditionally. At that moment, I resolved to be the type of man who would smile when someone gave him an eraser. I haven’t quite made it there, but without that day in Iraq, I wouldn’t be trying. The

Kevin wouldn't really go back," Neil said, disbelieving. "Not after what Riko did." Wymack gave him a pitying look. "Tetsuji never former adopted Kevin. Do you know why? Moriyamas don't believe in outsiders or equals. Tetsuji took Kevin in and took over his training, but he also gave Kevin to Riko - literally. Kevin isn't human to them. He's a project. He's a pet, and it's Riko's name on his leash. The fact he ran away is a miracle. If Tetsuji called tomorrow and told him to come home, Kevin would. He knows what Tetsuji would do to him if he refused. He'd be too afraid to say no." Neil thought he'd be sick. He didn't want to hear anymore of this, he'd already heard to much. He wanted to run until it all started making sense in his head, or at least until the ice left his veins. [...] "What if Coach Moriyama told him to stop playing?" Wymack was quiet for an endless minute, then said, "Kevin only had the strength to leave because Riko destroyed his hand. That was finally one injustice too many. Because of that I'd like to think Kevin would defy Tetsuji, but it's just as likely we'd never see him with a racquet again. But the day Kevin stops playing forever is the day he dies. He has nothing else. He wasn't raised to have anything else. Do you understand? We cannot lose to the Ravens this year. Kevin won't survive it." "We can't win against them," Neil said. "We're the worst team in the nation." "Then it's time to stop being the worst," Wymack said. "It's time to fly." "You don't really think we can," Neil said. "If you didn't think you could, what are you doing here? You wouldn't have signed the contract if you'd already given up on yourself.

I was outside St. Cecelia's Rectory smoking a cigarette when a goat appeared beside me. It was mostly black and white, with a little reddish brown here and there. When I started to walk away, it followed. I was amused and delighted, but wondered what the laws were on this kind of thing. There's a leash law for dogs, but what about goats? People smiled at me and admired the goat. "It's not my goat," I explained. "It's the town's goat. I'm just taking my turn caring for it." "I didn't know we had a goat," one of them said. "I wonder when my turn is." "Soon," I said. "Be patient. Your time is coming." The goat stayed by my side. It stopped when I stopped. It looked up at me and I stared into its eyes. I felt he knew everything essential about me. We walked on. A police- man on his beat looked us over. "That's a mighty fine goat you got there," he said, stopping to admire. "It's the town's goat," I said. "His family goes back three-hundred years with us," I said, "from the beginning." The officer leaned forward to touch him, then stopped and looked up at me. "Mind if I pat him?" he asked. "Touching this goat will change your life," I said. "It's your decision." He thought real hard for a minute, and then stood up and said, "What's his name?" "He's called the Prince of Peace," I said. "God! This town is like a fairy tale. Everywhere you turn there's mystery and wonder. And I'm just a child playing cops and robbers forever. Please forgive me if I cry." "We forgive you, Officer," I said. "And we understand why you, more than anybody, should never touch the Prince." The goat and I walked on. It was getting dark and we were beginning to wonder where we would spend the night.

I think I would make a very good astronaut. To be a good astronaut you have to be intelligent and I’m intelligent. You also have to understand how machines work and I’m good at understanding how machines work. You also have to be someone who would like being on their own in a tiny spacecraft thousands and thousands of miles away from the surface of the earth and not panic or get claustrophobia or homesick or insane. And I really like little spaces, so long as there is no one else in them with me. Sometimes when I want to be on my own I get into the airing cupboard outside the bathroom and slide in beside the boiler and pull the door closed behind me and sit there and think for hours and it makes me feel very calm. So I would have to be an astronaut on my own, or have my own part of the space craft which no one else could come into. And also there are no yellow things or brown things in a space craft, so that would be okay too. And I would have to talk to other people from Mission Control, but we would do that through a radio linkup and a TV monitor, so they wouldn’t be like real people who are strangers, but it would be like playing a computer game. Also I wouldn’t be homesick at all because I’d be surrounded by things I like, which are machines and computers and outer space. And I would be able to look out of a little window in the spacecraft and know that there was no one near me for thousands and thousands of miles, which is what I sometimes pretend at night in the summer when I go and lie on the lawn and look up at the sky and I put my hands round the sides of my face so that I can’t see the fence and the chimney and the washing line and I can pretend I’m in space. And all I could see would be stars. And stars are the places where molecules that life is made of were constructed billions of years ago. For example, all the iron in your blood which keeps you from being anemic was made in a star. And I would like it if I could take Toby with me into space, and that might be allowed because they sometimes do take animals into space for experiments, so if I could think of a good experiment you could do with a rat that didn’t hurt the rat, I could make them let me take Toby. But if they didn’t let me I would still go because it would be a Dream Come True.

As I walked away, I heard the girl ask, “Is she your girlfriend?” I whirled around, and we both said “No!” at the same time. Confused, she said, “Well, is she your little sister?” like I wasn’t standing right there. Her perfume was heavy. It felt like it filled all the air around us, like we were breathing her in. “No, I’m not his little sister.” I hated this girl for being a witness to all this. It was humiliating. And she was pretty, in the same kind of way Taylor was pretty, which somehow made things worse. Conrad said, “Her mom is best friends with my mom.” So that was all I was to him? His mom’s friend’s daughter? I took a deep breath, and without even thinking, I said to the girl, “I’ve known Conrad my whole life. So let me be the one to tell you you’re barking up the wrong tree. Conrad will never love anyone as much as he loves himself, if you know what I mean-“ I lifted up my hand and wiggled my fingers. “Shut up, Belly,” Conrad warned. The tops of his ears were turning bright red. It was a low blow, but I didn’t care. He deserved it. Red Sox girl frowned. “What is she talking about, Conrad?” To her I blurted out, “Oh, I’m sorry, do you not know what the idiom ‘barking up the wrong tree’ means?” Her pretty face twisted. “You little skank,” she hissed. I could feel myself shrinking. I wished I could take it back. I’d never gotten into a fight with a girl before, or with anyone for that matter. Thankfully, Conrad broke in then and pointed to the bonfire. “Belly, go back over there, and wait for me to come get you,” he said harshly. That’s when Jeremiah ambled over. “Hey, hey, what’s going on?” he asked, smiling in his easy, goofy way. “Your brother is a jerk,” I said. “That’s what’s going on.” Jeremiah put his arm around me. He smelled like beer. “You guys play nice, you hear?” I shrugged out of his hold and said, “I am playing nice. Tell your brother to play nice.” “Wait, are you guys brother and sister too?” the girl asked. Conrad said, “Don’t even think about leaving with that guy.” “Con, chill out,” Jeremiah said. “She’s not leaving. Right, Belly?” He looked at me, and I pursed my lips and nodded. Then I gave Conrad the dirtiest look I could muster, and I shot one at the girl, too, when I was far enough away that she wouldn’t be able to reach out and grab me by the hair.

You know what the best course I ever took at college was? Biology. We studied evolution. And I learned something important.’ Now he included Leonard in his gaze. ‘It helped me choose my career. For thousands, no, millions of years we had these huge brains, the neo-cortex, right? But we didn’t speak to each other, and we lived like fucking pigs. There was nothing. No language, no culture, nothing. And then, suddenly, wham! It was there. Suddenly it was something we had to have, and there was no turning back. So why did it suddenly happen?’ Russell shrugged. ‘Hand of God?’ ‘Hand of God my ass. I’ll tell you why. Back then we all used to hang out together all day long doing the same thing. We lived in packs. So there was no need for language. If there was a leopard coming, there was no point saying, Hey man, what’s coming down the track? A leopard! Everyone could see it, everyone was jumping up and down and screaming, trying to scare it off. But what happens when someone goes off on his own for a moment’s privacy? When he sees a leopard coming, he knows something the others don’t. And he knows they don’t know. He has something they don’t, he has a secret, and this is the beginning of his individuality, of his consciousness. If he wants to share his secret and run down the track to warn the other guys, then he’s going to need to invent language. From there grows the possibility of culture. Or he can hang back and hope the leopard will take out the leadership that’s been giving him a hard time. A secret plan, that means more individuation, more consciousness.’ The band was starting to play a fast, loud number. Glass had to shout his conclusion, ‘Secrecy made us possible,’ and Russell raised his beer to salute the theory.

Evelyn looks at me as if I am stupid. “She’s gone now,” Evelyn says. “The love of my life is gone, and I can’t just call her and say I’m sorry and have her come back. She’s gone forever. So yes, Monique, that is something I do regret. I regret every second I didn’t spend with her. I regret every stupid thing I did that caused her an ounce of pain. I should have chased her down the street the day she left me. I should have begged her to stay. I should have apologized and sent roses and stood on top of the Hollywood sign and shouted, ‘I’m in love with Celia St. James!’ and let them crucify me for it. That’s what I should have done. And now that I don’t have her, and I have more money than I could ever use in this lifetime, and my name is cemented in Hollywood history, and I know how hollow it is, I am kicking myself for every single second I chose it over loving her proudly. But that’s a luxury. You can do that when you’re rich and famous. You can decide that wealth and renown are worthless when you have them. Back then, I still thought I had all the time I needed to do everything I wanted. That if I just played my cards right, I could have it all.

She started shaping the face, using a wire loop to gently carve the slope of the strong forehead and brow, then the nose and the lean angle of the cheekbones. In little time, her fingers were moving on automatic pilot, her mind disengaged and gone into its own flow, her subconscious directly commanding her hands into action. She didn’t know how long she’d been working, but when the hard rap sounded on her apartment door some time later, Tess nearly jumped out of her skin. Sleeping next to her feet on the rug, Harvard woke up with a grunt. “You expecting someone?” she asked quietly as she got up from her stool. God, she must have been really zoned out while she was sculpting, because she’d seriously messed up around the mouth area of the piece. The lips were curled back in some kind of snarl, and the teeth . . . The knock sounded again, followed by a deep voice that went through her like a bolt of electricity. “Tess? Are you there?” Dante. Tess’s eyes flew wide, then squeezed into a wince as she did a quick mental inventory of her appearance. Hair flung up into a careless knot on top of her head, braless in her white thermal Henley and faded red sweats that had more than one dried clay smudge on them. Not exactly fit for company. “Dante?” she asked, stalling for time and just wanting to be sure her ears weren’t playing tricks on her. “Is that you?” “Yeah. Can I come in?” “Um, sure. Just a sec,” she called out, trying to sound casual as she threw a dry work cloth over her sculpture and quickly checked her face in the reflection off one of her putty spatulas. Oh, lovely. She had a slightly crazed, starving-artist look going on. Very glamorous. That’ll teach him to do the pop-in visit, she thought, as she padded over to the door and twisted the dead bolt.

Daniel." He looked up. "El-la.I was wondering if you'd catch me." He offered me a cigarette. I gave him a shame-on-you look;he grinned. "This is your band?" I asked. Visible piercings aside, no one looked like that went by the name Ax. "Nope,but I go to school with the lead's sister. Regular guy got food poisoning at a Christmas party last night.I've played with them before." "Weddings?" It wasn't quite how I'd pictured him performing. "Usually clubs, but the last one was a bar mitzvah. Musicians have to eat, too," he added, a little sharply. "Sorry." I wanted to wave the smoke away, but figured that might be adding insult to inury. "I thought you played the guitar." "Guitar, piano, a little violin, but badly, and I'll have to garrote you ith one of the strings if you tell anyone." That's the thing about Daniel. Obviously-the violin being a case in point-I don't know him very well,but he seems to hold a grudge for even less time than Frankie. "Secret's safe with me." He shrugged, telling me he didn't really care. Then, "Nice dress." "Just when I start liking you a litte.." He made his vampire-boy face. I could see why it usually worked. "You like me,Ella. Wanna do something when this is over?" "Tempting," I said. "No, I mean that. But no,thanks. I'm not at my best these days." "You're good," he said quietly, blowing out a stream of smoke. "You'll be fine." "Yeah." I shivered. It was bitter outside. "I should go in." "You should." The cold didn't seem to be bothering him at all, and he wasn't even wearing a jacket over his white dress shirt. I turned to go. "Oh, I think I figured it out, by the way." "Figured out what?" "The question.The one everyone should ask before getting involved with someone. Not 'Will he-slash-she make me happy?' but 'Does it bring out the best in me,being with him?'" "Him-slash-her," Daniel corrected, clearly amused. Then, "Nope. No way. Wasn't me who posed the question to you, Marino.I would never be so Emo." "Of course not.But it was one smart boy." I waved. "Hug Frankie for me." "Will do. Hey.Any requests for the band?" "'Don't Stop Believin'," I shot back. He rolled his eyes. "I'm curious, in that last song-are the words really 'I cut my chest wide open'?" "Yup.Followed by, "They come and watch us bleed.Is it art like I was hoping now?" Avett Brothers. Too gruesome for you?" "You have no idea," I told him. How much I get it.

Originally, the word power meant able to be. In time, it was contracted to mean to be able. We suffer the difference. Iwas waiting for a plane when I overheard two businessmen. One was sharing the good news that he had been promoted, and the other, in congratulation, said, “More power to you.” I've heard this expression before, but for some reason, I heard it differently this time and thought, what a curious sentiment. As a good wish, the assumption is that power is the goal. Of course, it makes a huge difference if we are wishing others worldly power or inner power. By worldly power, I mean power over things, people, and situations—controlling power. By inner power, I mean power that comes from being a part of something larger—connective power. I can't be certain, but I'm fairly sure the wish here was for worldly power, for more control. This is commonplace and disturbing, as the wish for more always issues from a sense of lack. So the wish for more power really issues from a sense of powerlessness. It is painfully ironic that in the land of the free, we so often walk about with an unspoken and enervating lack of personal freedom. Yet the wish for more controlling power will not set us free, anymore than another drink will quench the emptiness of an alcoholic in the grip of his disease. It makes me think of a game we played when I was nine called King of the Hill, in which seven or eight of us found a mound of dirt, the higher the better, and the goal was to stand alone on top of the hill. Once there, everyone else tried to throw you off, installing themselves as King of the Hill. It strikes me now as a training ground for worldly power. Clearly, the worst position of all is being King of the Hill. You are completely alone and paranoid, never able to trust anyone, constantly forced to spin and guard every direction. The hills may change from a job to a woman to a prized piece of real estate, but those on top can be so enslaved by guarding their position that they rarely enjoy the view. I always hated King of the Hill—always felt tense in my gut when king, sad when not, and ostracized if I didn't want to play. That pattern has followed me through life. But now, as a tired adult, when I feel alone and powerless atop whatever small hill I've managed to climb, I secretly long for anyone to join me. Now, I'm ready to believe there's more power here together.

Did you have a kid in your neighborhood who always hid so good, nobody could find him? We did. After a while we would give up on him and go off, leaving him to rot wherever he was. Sooner or later he would show up, all mad because we didn't keep looking for him. And we would get mad back because he wasn't playing the game the way it was supposed to be played. There's hiding and there's finding, we'd say. And he'd say it was hide-and-seek, not hide-and-give-UP, and we'd all yell about who made the rules and who cared about who, anyway, and how we wouldn't play with him anymore if he didn't get it straight and who needed him anyhow, and things like that. Hide-and-seek-and-yell. No matter what, though, the next time he would hide too good again. He's probably still hidden somewhere, for all I know. As I write this, the neighborhood game goes on, and there is a kid under a pile of leaves in the yard just under my window. He has been there a long time now, and everybody else is found and they are about to give up on him over at the base. I considered going out to the base and telling them where he is hiding. And I thought about setting the leaves on fire to drive him out. Finally, I just yelled, "GET FOUND, KID!" out the window. And scared him so bad he probably wet his pants and started crying and ran home to tell his mother. It's real hard to know how to be helpful sometimes. A man I know found out last year he had terminal cancer. He was a doctor. And knew about dying, and he didn't want to make his family and friends suffer through that with him. So he kept his secret. And died. Everybody said how brave he was to bear his suffering in silence and not tell everybody, and so on and so forth. But privately his family and friends said how angry they were that he didn't need them, didn't trust their strength. And it hurt that he didn't say good-bye. He hid too well. Getting found would have kept him in the game. Hide-and-seek, grown-up style. Wanting to hide. Needing to be sought. Confused about being found. "I don't want anyone to know." "What will people think?" "I don't want to bother anyone." Better than hide-and-seek, I like the game called Sardines. In Sardines the person who is It goes and hides, and everybody goes looking for him. When you find him, you get in with him and hide there with him. Pretty soon everybody is hiding together, all stacked in a small space like puppies in a pile. And pretty soon somebody giggles and somebody laughs and everybody gets found. Medieval theologians even described God in hide-and-seek terms, calling him Deus Absconditus. But me, I think old God is a Sardine player. And will be found the same way everybody gets found in Sardines - by the sound of laughter of those heaped together at the end. "Olly-olly-oxen-free." The kids out in the street are hollering the cry that says "Come on in, wherever you are. It's a new game." And so say I. To all those who have hid too good. Get found, kid! Olly-olly-oxen-free.

I thumped her on the back, picked her up and dropped her on top of her dungarees. “Put them pants on,” I said, “and be a man.” She did, but she cried quietly until I shook her and said gently, “Stop it now. I didn’t carry on like that when I was a little girl.” I got into my clothes and dumped her into the bow of the canoe and shoved off. All the way back to the cabin I forced her to play one of our pet games. I would say something—anything—and she would try to say something that rhymed with it. Then it would be her turn. She had an extraordinary rhythmic sense, and an excellent ear. I started off with “We’ll go home and eat our dinners.” “An’ Lord have mercy on us sinners,” she cried. Then, “Let’s see you find a rhyme for ‘month’!” “I bet I’ll do it … jutht thith onthe,” I replied. “I guess I did it then, by cracky.” “Course you did, but then you’re wacky. Top that, mister funny-lookin’!” I pretended I couldn’t, mainly because I couldn’t, and she soundly kicked my shin as a penance. By the time we reached the cabin she was her usual self, and I found myself envying the resilience of youth. And she earned my undying respect by saying nothing to Anjy about the afternoon’s events, even when Anjy looked us over and said, “Just look at you two filthy kids! What have you been doing—swimming in the bayou?” “Daddy splashed me,” said Patty promptly. “And you had to splash him back. Why did he splash you?” “ ’Cause I spit mud through my teeth at him to make him mad,” said my outrageous child. “Patty!” “Mea culpa,” I said, hanging my head. “ ’Twas I who spit the mud.” Anjy threw up her hands. “Heaven knows what sort of a woman Patty’s going to grow up to be,” she said, half angrily. “A broad-minded and forgiving one like her lovely mother,” I said quickly. “Nice work, bud,” said Patty. Anjy laughed. “Outnumbered again. Come in and feed the face.

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.

New Rule: If you're going to have a rally where hundreds of thousands of people show up, you may as well go ahead and make it about something. With all due respect to my friends Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, it seems that if you truly wanted to come down on the side of restoring sanity and reason, you'd side with the sane and the reasonable--and not try to pretend the insanity is equally distributed in both parties. Keith Olbermann is right when he says he's not the equivalent of Glenn Beck. One reports facts; the other one is very close to playing with his poop. And the big mistake of modern media has been this notion of balance for balance's sake, that the left is just as violent and cruel as the right, that unions are just as powerful as corporations, that reverse racism is just as damaging as racism. There's a difference between a mad man and a madman. Now, getting more than two hundred thousand people to come to a liberal rally is a great achievement that gave me hope, and what I really loved about it was that it was twice the size of the Glenn Beck crowd on the Mall in August--although it weight the same. But the message of the rally as I heard it was that if the media would just top giving voice to the crazies on both sides, then maybe we could restore sanity. It was all nonpartisan, and urged cooperation with the moderates on the other side. Forgetting that Obama tried that, and found our there are no moderates on the other side. When Jon announced his rally, he said that the national conversation is "dominated" by people on the right who believe Obama's a socialist, and by people on the left who believe 9/11 was an inside job. But I can't name any Democratic leaders who think 9/11 was an inside job. But Republican leaders who think Obama's socialist? All of them. McCain, Boehner, Cantor, Palin...all of them. It's now official Republican dogma, like "Tax cuts pay for themselves" and "Gay men just haven't met the right woman." As another example of both sides using overheated rhetoric, Jon cited the right equating Obama with Hitler, and the left calling Bush a war criminal. Except thinking Obama is like Hitler is utterly unfounded--but thinking Bush is a war criminal? That's the opinion of Major General Anthony Taguba, who headed the Army's investigation into Abu Ghraib. Republicans keep staking out a position that is farther and farther right, and then demand Democrats meet them in the middle. Which now is not the middle anymore. That's the reason health-care reform is so watered down--it's Bob Dole's old plan from 1994. Same thing with cap and trade--it was the first President Bush's plan to deal with carbon emissions. Now the Republican plan for climate change is to claim it's a hoax. But it's not--I know because I've lived in L.A. since '83, and there's been a change in the city: I can see it now. All of us who live out here have had that experience: "Oh, look, there's a mountain there." Governments, led my liberal Democrats, passed laws that changed the air I breathe. For the better. I'm for them, and not the party that is plotting to abolish the EPA. I don't need to pretend both sides have a point here, and I don't care what left or right commentators say about it, I can only what climate scientists say about it. Two opposing sides don't necessarily have two compelling arguments. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke on that mall in the capital, and he didn't say, "Remember, folks, those southern sheriffs with the fire hoses and the German shepherds, they have a point, too." No, he said, "I have a dream. They have a nightmare. This isn't Team Edward and Team Jacob." Liberals, like the ones on that field, must stand up and be counted, and not pretend we're as mean or greedy or shortsighted or just plain batshit at them. And if that's too polarizing for you, and you still want to reach across the aisle and hold hands and sing with someone on the right, try church.

She let her bad mood seethe into the silence of the carriage. Finally, she couldn’t bear the vicious cycle of her thoughts, the way they kept returning to Irex and her stupid decision to humiliate him at Bite and Sting. “Well?” she asked Arin. He sat across from her in the carriage, but didn’t lift his eyes to meet hers. He studied his hands. “Well, what?” “What do you think?” “About?” “About the party. About anything. About the bargain we made that you could at least pretend to uphold.” “You want to gossip about the party.” He seemed tired. “I want you to speak to me.” He looked at her then. She found that she had clenched her silk skirts in a fist. She let go. “For example, I know you overheard about Senator Andrax. Do you think he merits torture? Death?” “He deserves what he gets,” he said, and went quiet again. Kestrel gave up. She sank into her anger. “That isn’t what’s bothering you.” Arin sounded reluctant, almost incredulous, as if he couldn’t believe the words coming from his mouth. Kestrel waited. He said, “That man is an ass.” It was clear whom he meant. It was clear that no slave should ever say that of any Valorian. But it was magic to hear the words out loud. Kestrel breathed a laugh. “And I am a fool.” She pressed chilly hands to her forehead. “I knew what he’s like. I should have never played Bite and Sting with him. Or I should have let him win.” The corner of Arin’s mouth twitched. “I enjoyed watching him lose.” There was silence, and Kestrel, though she felt comforted, knew that Arin’s understanding of the afternoon had been fairly complete. He had waited beyond the laran trees, listening to her and Irex. Would he have continued to do nothing, had something else happened? “Do you know how to play Bite and Sting?” she asked. “Maybe.” “Either you do or you don’t.” “Whether I know or don’t doesn’t matter.” She made an impatient noise. “Because?” His teeth flashed in the late, shifting light. “Because you would not want to play against me.

The tulips are too excitable, it is winter here. Look how white everything is, how quiet, how snowed-in. I am learning peacefulness, lying by myself quietly As the light lies on these white walls, this bed, these hands. I am nobody; I have nothing to do with explosions. I have given my name and my day-clothes up to the nurses And my history to the anesthetist and my body to surgeons. They have propped my head between the pillow and the sheet-cuff Like an eye between two white lids that will not shut. Stupid pupil, it has to take everything in. The nurses pass and pass, they are no trouble, They pass the way gulls pass inland in their white caps, Doing things with their hands, one just the same as another, So it is impossible to tell how many there are. My body is a pebble to them, they tend it as water Tends to the pebbles it must run over, smoothing them gently. They bring me numbness in their bright needles, they bring me sleep. Now I have lost myself I am sick of baggage—— My patent leather overnight case like a black pillbox, My husband and child smiling out of the family photo; Their smiles catch onto my skin, little smiling hooks. I have let things slip, a thirty-year-old cargo boat stubbornly hanging on to my name and address. They have swabbed me clear of my loving associations. Scared and bare on the green plastic-pillowed trolley I watched my teaset, my bureaus of linen, my books Sink out of sight, and the water went over my head. I am a nun now, I have never been so pure. I didn’t want any flowers, I only wanted To lie with my hands turned up and be utterly empty. How free it is, you have no idea how free—— The peacefulness is so big it dazes you, And it asks nothing, a name tag, a few trinkets. It is what the dead close on, finally; I imagine them Shutting their mouths on it, like a Communion tablet. The tulips are too red in the first place, they hurt me. Even through the gift paper I could hear them breathe Lightly, through their white swaddlings, like an awful baby. Their redness talks to my wound, it corresponds. They are subtle : they seem to float, though they weigh me down, Upsetting me with their sudden tongues and their color, A dozen red lead sinkers round my neck. Nobody watched me before, now I am watched. The tulips turn to me, and the window behind me Where once a day the light slowly widens and slowly thins, And I see myself, flat, ridiculous, a cut-paper shadow Between the eye of the sun and the eyes of the tulips, And I have no face, I have wanted to efface myself. The vivid tulips eat my oxygen. Before they came the air was calm enough, Coming and going, breath by breath, without any fuss. Then the tulips filled it up like a loud noise. Now the air snags and eddies round them the way a river Snags and eddies round a sunken rust-red engine. They concentrate my attention, that was happy Playing and resting without committing itself. The walls, also, seem to be warming themselves. The tulips should be behind bars like dangerous animals; They are opening like the mouth of some great African cat, And I am aware of my heart: it opens and closes Its bowl of red blooms out of sheer love of me. The water I taste is warm and salt, like the sea, And comes from a country far away as health. --"Tulips", written 18 March 1961

Before I knew what I was doing, I was out of my seat and rushing up toward the railing that divided the seats from the field. I had to make sure he was okay. I couldn’t just sit here and watch him lie there in pain. I heard my name called, but I ignored it as I flung my leg over the top railing and prepared to hoist myself over. One of the guys working security happened to see me and he rushed over and ordered me to stop. “I can’t. That’s my…” My voice broke. I couldn’t force the word boyfriend between my lips. It just wasn’t enough. It just didn’t describe how desperate I was to get to him. “He’s my everything,” I finished. The security guard gave me a grim look. “You can’t come on the field.” A lone tear tracked its way down my cheek, and I craned my neck. Frustrated, I glanced up at the big screen to see if it was showing a different angle. But they weren’t playing Romeo. They were focused on me. I blinked at the site of me half straddling the railing and the security guard standing there with a grim look on his face as he stared me down. My cheeks were red, behind my glasses, my eyes wild. I turned away from the screen, irritated that they weren’t focused on Romeo. I glanced at the guard. “I’m coming over.” He crossed his arms over his chest as if to say, I dare you. I flung my other leg over so I was balanced on the bottom rung. “This is your last warning,” the guard shouted. The crowd started to cheer and go wild. Romeo’s number started filling the air. I looked up. He was okay! He was on his feet, helmet in hand, and laughing at something Braeden was saying. Beside him, the coach looked relieved, and all the Wolves were clapping. The guy who’d mowed him down was being escorted off the field. Jackass. Relief made me weak and a sob caught in my throat. I sagged back against the cold metal of the rails. The guard gestured for backup, and a few others that were dressed just like him started my way. I mean, really. He was being a bit dramatic. I was only one girl. And a small one at that.

I remember sitting here," he said, "and watching you over there." He pointed, but I didn't have to look. Before Cameron and I got close, I spent a lot of lunches the same way, starting off eating and reading on my special bench on the other side of the yard, followed by walking the perimeter of the playground, balancing on the small cement curb that separated the blacktop from the landscaping, around and around and around, hoping I looked busy and like it didn't matter that I had no friends. I sat next to Cameron on the bench. "What did you think when you used to watch me?" He leaned his head against the building. "That I understood you. That you'd understand me." "Do you remember the first time you talked to me? Because I don't. I've been trying to remember for years and I can't get it." "You don't remember? Wasn't me that talked to you. You talked to me." I scooted forward on the bench and looked at him. "I did?" "You walked right across the yard here at recess," he said, pointing. "Came straight up to me." He laughed. "You looked so determined. I was scared you were gonna kick me in the shins or something." I didn't remember this at all, any of it. "You said you were starting a club," he continued. "Asked me if I wanted to join." "Wait..." Something was there, at the very edge of my memory, coming into focus. "Do you remember if it happened to be May Day?" "That the one with the pole and all the ribbons?" "Yes!" "Yep. All the girls had ribbons in their hair but you." Jordana wouldn't let me wear ribbons. She said my hair was too greasy and I might give someone lice, and somehow I submitted to her logic. "I do remember," I said softly. "I haven't thought of that in forever. I kept thinking that you were the one to make friends with me first." "Nope." He smiled. "You started this whole thing. I wanted to, but you were the one with the guts to actually do it." "I think of myself as being a coward, and a baby, scared all the time." He got quiet. We watched kids in the schoolyard playing basketball. "You're not," he finally said. "You know that." He got up suddenly. "Let's go. We got one more stop.

Then angels were all around them, the old crew who'd formed at Sword & Cross and hundreds of other places before that. Arriane, Roland, Cam, and Annabelle. They'd saved Luce more times than she could every say. "This is hard." Luce folded herself into Roland's arms. "Oh, come on. You already saved the world." He laughed. "Now go save your relationship." "Don't listen to Dr. Phil!" Arriane squealed. "Don't ever leave us!" She was trying to laugh but it wasn't working. Rebellious tears streamed down her face. She didn't wipe them away; she just held on tight to Annabelle's hand. "Okay, fine, go!" "We'll be thinking of you," Annabelle said. "Always." "I'll be thinking of you too." Luce had to believe it was true. Otherwise, if she was really going to forget all this, she couldn't bear to leave them. But the angels smiled sadly, knowing she had to forget them. That left Cam, who was standing close to Daniel, their arms clapped around each other's shoulders. "You pulled it off, brother." "Course I did." Daniel played at being haughty, but it came off as love. "Thanks to you." Cam took Luce's hand. His eyes were bright green, the first color that had ever stood out to her in the grim, dreary world of Sword & Cross. He tilted his head and swallowed, considering his words carefully. He drew her close, and for a moment, she thought he was going to kiss her. Her heart pounded as his lips bypassed hers and came to a stop, whispering in her ear: "Don't let him flip you off next time." "You know I won't." She laughed. "Ah, Daniel, a mere shadow of a true bad boy." He pressed his hand to his heart and raised an eyebrow at her. "Make sure he treats you well. You deserve the best of everything there is." For once, she didn't want to let go if his hand. "What will you do?" "When you're ruined, there's so much to choose from. Everything opens up." He looked past her into the distant desert clouds. "I'll play my role. I know it well. I know goodbye." He winked at Luce, nodded one final time at Daniel, then rolled back his shoulders, spread his tremendous golden wings, and vanished into the roiling sky. Everyone watched until Cam's wings were a fleck of far-off gold.

When I came here, pretending to be Taryn, you said you'd sent me messages,' I say. 'You seemed surprised I hadn't gotten any. What was in them?' Cardan turns to me, hands clasped behind his back. 'Pleading, mostly. Beseeching you to come back. Several indiscreet promises.' He's wearing that mocking smile, the one he says comes from nervousness. I close my eyes against frustration great enough to make me scream. 'Stop playing games,' I say. 'You sent me in to exile.' 'Yes,' he says. 'That. I can't stop thinking about what you said to me, before Madoc took you. About it being a trick. You meant marrying you, making you queen, sending you to the mortal world, all of it, didn't you?' I fold my arms across my chest protectively. 'Of course it was a trick. Wasn't that what you said in return?' ''But that's what you do,' Cardan says. 'You trick people. Nicasia, Madoc, Balekin, Orlagh. Me. I thought you'd admire me a little for it, that I could trick you. I thought you'd be angry, of course, but not quite like this.' I stare at him, openmouthed. 'What?' 'Let me remind you that I didn't know you'd murdered my brother, the ambassador to the Undersea, until that very morning,' he says. 'My plans were made in haste. And perhaps I was a little annoyed. I thought it would pacify Queen Orlagh, at least until all promises were finalised in the treaty. By the time you guessed the answer, the negotiations would be over. Think of it: I exile Jude Duarte to the mortal world. Until and unless she is pardoned by the crown.' He pauses. 'Pardoned by the crown. Meaning by the King of Faerie. Or its queen. You could have returned any time you wanted.' Oh. Oh. It wasn't an accident, his choice of words. It wasn't infelicitous. It was deliberate. A riddle made just for me. Maybe I should feel foolish, but instead, I feel furiously angry. I turn away from him and walk, swiftly and completely directionless through the garden. He runs after me, grabbing my arm. I haul around and slap him. It's a stinging blow, smearing the gold of his cheekbone and causing his skin to redden. We stare at each other for long moments, breathing hard. His eyes are bright with something entirely different from anger. I am in over my head. I am drowning.

And what of that person, her most beautiful boy? He opened his eyes each morning , and the first word from his mouth was Mama. He needed to be lifted from bed, for he was so tiny and so sleepy, then dressed, fed, bathed, played with, sung to, tickled, swung high in the air, chased. He needed her to watch me, Mama, nearly every second of his waking life. Sometimes he took his soft little hand and put it on her face, moved her head to where he wanted her to look. And it was in this gesture she saw and entire impending future, one in which all things of this world revolved around this boy: when she woke and when she slept, where they went and what they bought, the very direction of his mother’s gaze. If she was not careful, he would come to know the world as a place that bent to his every whim, for she did indeed want to bend, because she loved him, but in the hardest moments- the moments in which, for instance, she held the limp body of the cat in her bloody hands- she grew resentful of this innocent little soul, whose life would be one of ease, one of knowing that he was taken care of and could have whatever her wanted, that the world was in a very real way his. She didn’t want to deny him things, to make his life harder, but already she felt this pull inside her, to make him responsible in a fundamental way, to tell him no and no and no, and, sure, she was trying to train him against what the entire world told him, was trying to say, Look, I am not all yours, I am not only here for you, but of course, ultimately, she was his, all of her.

After two weeks came the first letter from Alexander. Tatiasha, Can there be anything harder than this? Missing you is a physical aching that grips me early in the morning and does not leave me, not even as I draw my last waking breath. My solace in these waning empty summer days is the knowledge that you’re safe, and alive, and healthy, and that the worst that you have to go through is serfdom for four well-meaning old women. The wood piles I’ve left are the lightest in the front. The heaviest ones are for the winter. Use them last, and if you need help carrying them, God help me, ask Vova. Don’t hurt yourself. And don’t fill the water pails all the way to the top. They’re too heavy. Getting back was rough, and as soon as I came back, I was sent right out to the Neva, where for six days we planned our attack and then made a move in boats across the river and were completely crushed in two hours. We didn’t stand a chance. The Germans bombed the boats with the Vanyushas, their version of my rocket launcher, the boats all sank. We were left with a thousand fewer men and were no closer to crossing the river. We’re now looking at other places we can cross. I’m fine, except for the fact that it’s rained here for ten days straight and I’ve been hip deep in mud for all that time. There is nowhere to sleep, except in the mud. We put our trench coats down and hope it stops raining soon. All black and wet, I almost felt sorry for myself until I thought of you during the blockade. I’ve decided to do that from now on. Every time I think I have it so tough, I’m going to think of you burying your sister in Lake Ladoga. I wish you had been given a lighter cross than Leningrad to carry through your life. Things are going to be relatively quiet here for the next few weeks, until we regroup. Yesterday a bomb fell in the commandant’s bunker. The commandant wasn’t there at the time. Yet the anxiety doesn’t go away. When is it going to come again? I play cards and soccer. And I smoke. And I think of you. I sent you money. Go to Molotov at the end of August. Don’t forget to eat well, my warm bun, my midnight sun, and kiss your hand for me, right in the palm and then press it against your heart. Alexander Tatiana read Alexander’s letter a hundred times, memorizing every word. She slept with her face on the letter, which renewed her strength.

Softly, he said, “Why are you crying?” His words made the tears flow faster. “Kestrel.” She drew a shaky breath. “Because when my father comes home, I will tell him that he has won. I will join the military.” There was a silence. “I don’t understand.” Kestrel shrugged. She shouldn’t care whether he understood or not. “You would give up your music?” Yes. She would. “But your bargain with the general was for spring.” Arin still sounded confused. “You have until spring to marry or enlist. Ronan…Ronan would ask the god of souls for you. He would ask you to marry him.” “He has.” Arin didn’t speak. “But I can’t,” she said. “Kestrel.” “I can’t.” “Kestrel, please don’t cry.” Tentative fingers touched her face. A thumb ran along the wet skin of her cheekbone. She suffered for it, suffered for the misery of knowing that whatever possessed him to do this could be no more than compassion. He valued her that much. But not enough. “Why can’t you marry him?” he whispered. She broke her word to herself and looked at him. “Because of you.” Arin’s hand flinched against her cheek. His dark head bowed, became lost in its own shadow. Then he slipped from his seat and knelt before hers. His hands fell to the fists on her lap and gently opened them. He held them as if cupping water. He took a breath to speak. She would have stopped him. She would have wished herself deaf, blind, made of unfeeling smoke. She would have stopped his words out of terror, longing. The way terror and longing had become indistinguishable. Yet his hands held hers, and she could do nothing. He said, “I want the same thing you want.” Kestrel pulled back. It wasn’t possible his words could mean what they seemed. “It hasn’t been easy for me to want it.” Arin lifted his face so that she could see his expression. A rich emotion played across his features, offered itself, and asked to be called by its name. Hope. “But you’ve already given your heart,” she said. His brow furrowed, then smoothed. “Oh. No, not the way you think.” He laughed a little, the sound soft yet somehow wild. “Ask me why I went to the market.” This was cruel. “We both know why.” He shook his head. “Pretend that you’ve won a game of Bite and Sting. Why did I go? Ask me. It wasn’t to see a girl who doesn’t exist.” “She…doesn’t?” “I lied.” Kestrel blinked. “Then why did you go to the market?” “Because I wanted to feel free.” Arin raised a hand to brush the air by his temple, then awkwardly let it fall. Kestrel suddenly understood this gesture she’d seen many times. It was an old habit. He was brushing away a ghost, hair that was no longer there because she had ordered it cut. She leaned forward, and kissed his temple. Arin’s hand held her lightly to him. His cheek slid against hers. Then his lips touched her brow, her closed eyes, the line where her jaw met her throat. Kestrel’s mouth found his. His lips were salted with her tears, and the taste of that, of him, of their deepening kiss, filled her with the feeling of his quiet laugh moments ago. Of a wild softness, a soft wildness. In his hands, running up her thin dress. In his heat, burning through to her skin…and into her, sinking into him.

I find it hard to talk about myself. I'm always tripped up by the eternal who am I? paradox. Sure, no one knows as much pure data about me as me. But when I talk about myself, all sorts of other factors - values, standards, my own limitations as an observer - make me, the narrator, select and eliminate things about me, the narratee. I've always been disturbed by the thought that I'm not painting a very objective picture of myself. This kind of things doesn't seem to bother most people. Given the chance, people are surprisingly frank when they talk about themselves. "I'm honest and open to a ridiculous degree," they'll say, or "I'm thin-skinned and not the type who gets along easily in the world." Or "I'm very good at sensing others' true feelings." But any number of times I've seen people who say they're easily hurt or hurt other people for no apparent reason. Self-styled honest and open people, without realizing what they're doing, blithely use some self-serving excuse to get what they want. And those "good at sensing others' true feelings" are taken in by the most transparent flattery. It's enough to make me ask the question: how well do really know ourselves? The more I think about it, the more I'd like to take a rain check on the topic of me. What I'd like to know more about is the objective reality of things outside myself. How important the world outside is to me, how I maintain a sense of equilibrium by coming to terms with it. That's how I'd grasp a clearer sense of who I am. These are the kind of ideas I had running through my head when I was a teenager. Like a master builder stretches taut his string and lays one brick after another, I constructed this viewpoint - or philosophy of life, to put a bigger spin on it. Logic and speculation played a part in formulating this viewpoint, but for the most part it was based on my own experiences. And speaking of experience, a number of painful episodes taught me that getting this viewpoint of mine across to other people wasn't the easiest thing in the world. The upshot of all this is that when I was young I began to draw an invisible boundary between myself and other people. No matter who I was dealing with, I maintained a set distance, carefully monitoring the person's attitude so that they wouldn't get any closer. I didn't easily swallow what other people told me. My only passions were books and music. As you might guess, I led a lonely life.

Before he could say my name, I closed the space between us. Quickly, my lips moved against his. The mental and emotional emptiness took over instantly, but physically, I was more alert than ever. Wesley’s surprise didn’t last as long as it had before, and his hands were on me in seconds. My fingers tangled in his soft hair, and Wesley’s tongue darted into my mouth and became a new weapon in our war. Once again, my body took complete control of everything. Nothing existed at the corners of my mind; no irritating thoughts harassed me. Even the sounds of Wesley’s stereo, which had been playing some piano rock I didn’t recognize, faded away as my sense of touch heightened. I was fully conscious of Wesley’s hand as it slid up my torso and moved to cup my breast. With an effort, I pushed him away from me. His eyes were wide as he leaned back. “Please don’t slap me again,” he said. “Shut up.” I could have stopped there. I could have stood up and left the room. I could have let that kiss be the end of it. But I didn’t. The mind-numbing sensation I got from kissing him was so euphoric-such a high-that I couldn’t stand to give it up that fast. I might have hated Wesley Rush, but he held the key to my escape, and at that moment I wanted him… I needed him. Without speaking, without hesitating, I pulled my T-shirt over my head and threw it onto Wesley’s bedroom floor. He didn’t have a chance to say anything before I put my hands on his shoulders and shoved him onto his back. A second later, I was straddling him and we were kissing again. His fingers undid the clasp on my bra, and it joined my shirt on the floor. I didn’t care. I didn’t feel self-conscious or shy. I mean, he already knew I was the Duff, and it wasn’t like I had to impress him. I unbuttoned his shirt as he pulled the alligator clip from my hair and let the auburn waves fall around us. Casey had been right. Wesley had a great body. The skin pulled tight over his sculpted chest, and my hands drifted down his muscular arms with amazement. His lips moved to my neck, giving me a moment to breathe. I could only smell his cologne this close to him. As his mouth traveled down my shoulder, a thought pushed through the exhilaration. I wondered why he hadn’t shoved me-Duffy-away in disgust. Then again, I realized, Wesley wasn’t known for rejecting girls. And I was the one who should have been disgusted. But his mouth pressed into mine again, and that tiny, fleeting thought died. Acting on instinct, I pulled on Wesley’s lower lip with my teeth, and he moaned quietly. His hands moved over my ribs, sending chills up my spine. Bliss. Pure, unadulterated bliss. Only once, as Wesley flipped me onto my back, did I seriously consider stopping. He looked down at me, and his skilled hand grasped the zipper on my jeans. My dormant brain stirred, and I asked myself if things had gone too far. I thought about pushing him away, ending it right where we were. But why would I stop now? What did I stand to lose? Yet what could I possibly gain? How would I feel about this in an hour… or sooner? Before I could come up with any answers, Wesley had my jeans and underwear off. He pulled a condom from his pocket (okay, now that I’m thinking about it, who keeps condoms in their pockets? Wallet, yes, but pocket? Pretty presumptuous, don’t you think?), and then his pants were on the floor, too. All of a sudden, we were having sex, and my thoughts were muted again.

I pulled at the knot again and heard threads begin to pop. “Allow me, Miss Jones,” said Armand, right at my back. There was no gracious way to refuse him. Not with Mrs. Westcliffe there, too. I exhaled and dropped my arms. I stared at the lotus petals in my painting as the new small twists and tugs of Armand’s hands rocked me back and forth. Jesse’s music began to reverberate somewhat more sharply than before. “There,” Armand said, soft near my ear. “Nearly got it.” “Most kind of you, my lord.” Mrs. Westcliffe’s voice was far more carrying. “Do you not agree, Miss Jones?” Her tone said I’d better. “Most kind,” I repeated. For some reason I felt him as a solid warmth behind me, behind all of me, even though only his knuckles made a gentle bumping against my spine. How blasted long could it take to unravel a knot? “Yes,” said Chloe unexpectedly. “Lord Armand is always a perfect gentleman, no matter who or what demands his attention.” “There,” the gentleman said, and at last his hands fell away. The front of the smock sagged loose. I shrugged out of it as fast as I could, wadding it up into a ball. “Excuse me.” I ducked a curtsy and began my escape to the hamper, but Mrs. Westcliffe cut me short. “A moment, Miss Jones. We require your presence.” I turned to face them. Armand was smiling his faint, cool smile. Mrs. Westcliffe looked as if she wished to fix me in some way. I raised a hand instinctively to my hair, trying to press it properly into place. “You have the honor of being invited to tea at the manor house,” the headmistress said. “To formally meet His Grace.” “Oh,” I said. “How marvelous.” I’d rather have a tooth pulled out. “Indeed. Lord Armand came himself to deliver the invitation.” “Least I could do,” said Armand. “It wasn’t far. This Saturday, if that’s all right.” “Um…” “I am certain Miss Jones will be pleased to cancel any other plans,” said Mrs. Westcliffe. “This Saturday?” Unlike me, Chloe had not concealed an inch of ground. “Why, Mandy! That’s the day you promised we’d play lawn tennis.” He cocked a brow at her, and I knew right then that she was lying and that she knew that he knew. She sent him a melting smile. “Isn’t it, my lord?” “I must have forgotten,” he said. “Well, but we cannot disappoint the duke, can we?” “No, indeed,” interjected Mrs. Westcliffe. “So I suppose you’ll have to come along to the tea instead, Chloe.” “Very well. If you insist.” He didn’t insist. He did, however, sweep her a very deep bow and then another to the headmistress. “And you, too, Mrs. Westcliffe. Naturally. The duke always remarks upon your excellent company.” “Most kind,” she said again, and actually blushed. Armand looked dead at me. There was that challenge behind his gaze, that one I’d first glimpsed at the train station. “We find ourselves in harmony, then. I shall see you in a few days, Miss Jones.” I tightened my fingers into the wad of the smock and forced my lips into an upward curve. He smiled back at me, that cold smile that said plainly he wasn’t duped for a moment. I did not get a bow. Jesse was at the hamper when I went to toss in the smock. Before I could, he took it from me, eyes cast downward, no words. Our fingers brushed beneath the cloth. That fleeting glide of his skin against mine. The sensation of hardened calluses stroking me, tender and rough at once. The sweet, strong pleasure that spiked through me, brief as it was. That had been on purpose. I was sure of it.

We were talking about childhood dramas. Then I remembered. “You had said something that had confused me,” I said. “You had said that a person cannot play a control drama with us unless we play the matching drama. I didn’t understand that.” “Do you understand now?” “Not really. What are you getting at?” “The scene outside clearly demonstrated what happens if you do play the matching drama.” “How?” She glanced at me briefly. “What drama was the man playing with you?” “He was obviously the Intimidator.” “Right, and what drama did you play?” “I was just trying to get him off my back.” “I know, but what drama were you playing?” “Well, I started off in my aloofness drama, but he kept coming after me.” “Then?” The conversation was irritating me but I tried to get centered and stay with it. I looked at Julia and said, “I guess I was playing a Poor Me.” She smiled. “That’s right.” “I noticed you handled him with no problem,” I said. “Only because I didn’t play the drama he expected. Remember that each person’s control drama was formed in childhood in relation to another drama. Therefore each drama needs a matching drama to be fully played out. What the intimidator needs in order to get energy is either a poor me, or another intimidator. “How did you handle it?” I asked, still confused. “My drama response would have been to play the Intimidator myself, trying to out intimidate him. Of course, this would probably have resulted in violence. But instead I did what the Manuscript instructs. I named the drama he was playing. All dramas are covert strategies to get energy. He was trying to intimidate you out of your energy. When he tried that on me, I named what he was doing.” “That’s why you asked why he was so angry?” “Yes. The Manuscript says that covert manipulations for energy can’t exist if you bring them into consciousness by pointing them out. They cease to be covert. It is a very simple method. The best truth about what’s going on in a conversation always prevails. After that the person has to be more real and honest.” “That makes sense,” I said. “I guess I’ve even named dramas myself before, though I didn’t know what I was doing.” “I’m sure. That’s something all of us have done. We’re just learning more about what is at stake. And the key to making it work is to simultaneously look beyond the drama at the real person in front of you, and send as much energy their way as possible. If they can feel energy coming in anyway, then it’s easier for them to give up their way of manipulating for it.” “What could you appreciate in that guy?” I said. “I could appreciate him as a little insecure boy needing energy desperately.

Although Arin wasn’t touching her, he was touching no living part of her, it felt as if a fine net had been cast over Kestrel, one that hazed her vision and shimmered against her skin. “There,” he said. Kestrel watched her reflection lift a hand to her head. She couldn’t think of what to say. Arin had drawn back, hands in his pockets. But his eyes held hers in the mirror, and his face had softened, like when she had played the piano for him. She said, “How…?” He smiled. “How did a blacksmith pick up such an unexpected skill?” “Well, yes.” “My older sister used to make me do this when I was little.” Kestrel almost asked where Arin’s sister was now, then imagined the worst. She saw Arin watch her imagine it, and saw from his expression that the worst was true. Yet his smile didn’t fade. “I hated it, of course,” he said. “The way she ordered me around. The way I let her. But now…it’s a nice memory.” She rose and faced Arin. The chair stood between them, and she wasn’t sure whether she was grateful for that barrier or not. “Kestrel, if you must go to the ball, take me with you.” “I don’t understand you,” she said, frustrated. “I don’t understand what you say, how you change, how you act one way and then come here and act another.” “I don’t always understand myself either. But I know I want to go with you tonight.” Kestrel let the words echo in her mind. There had been a supple strength to his voice. An unconscious melody. Kestrel wondered if Arin knew how he exposed himself as a singer with every simple, ordinary word. She wondered if he meant to hold her in thrall. “If you think it’s stupid for me to go to the Firstwinter ball,” she said, “you can be certain that it is far worse for me to take you along.” He lifted one shoulder. “Or it could send a bold message of what we both know to be true: that you have nothing to hide.

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

Elizabeth snapped awake in a terrified instant as the door to her bed chamber was flung open near dawn, and Ian stalked into the darkened room. “Do you want to go first, or shall I?” he said tightly, coming to stand at the side of her bed. “What do you mean?” she asked in a trembling voice. “I mean,” he said, “that either you go first and tell me why in hell you suddenly find my company repugnant, or I’ll go first and tell you how I feel when I don’t know where you are or why you want to be there!” “I’ve sent word to you both nights.” “You sent a damned note that arrived long after nightfall both times, informing me that you intended to sleep somewhere else. I want to know why!” He has men beaten like animals, she reminded herself. “Stop shouting at me,” Elizabeth said shakily, getting out of bed and dragging the covers with her to hide herself from him. His brows snapped together in an ominous frown. “Elizabeth?” he asked, reaching for her. “Don’t touch me!” she cried. Bentner’s voice came from the doorway. “Is aught amiss, my lady?” he asked, glaring bravely at Ian. “Get out of here and close that damned door behind you!” Ian snapped furiously. “Leave it open,” Elizabeth said nervously, and the brave butler did exactly as she said. In six long strides Ian was at the door, shoving it closed with a force that sent it crashing into its frame, and Elizabeth began to vibrate with terror. When he turned around and started toward her Elizabeth tried to back away, but she tripped on the coverlet and had to stay where she was. Ian saw the fear in her eyes and stopped short only inches in front of her. His hand lifted, and she winced, but it came to rest on her cheek. “Darling, what is it?” he asked. It was his voice that made her want to weep at his feet, that beautiful baritone voice; and his face-that harsh, handsome face she’d adored. She wanted to beg him to tell her what Robert and Wordsworth had said were lies-all lies. “My life depends on this, Elizabeth. So does yours. Don’t fail us,” Robert had pleaded. Yet, in that moment of weakness she actually considered telling Ian everything she knew and letting him kill her if he wanted to; she would have preferred death to the torment of living with the memory of the lie that had been their lives-to the torment of living without him. “Are you ill?” he asked, frowning and minutely studying her face. Snatching at the excuse he’d offered, she nodded hastily. “Yes. I haven’t been feeling well.” “Is that why you went to London? To see a physician?” She nodded a little wildly, and to her bewildered horror he started to smile-that lazy, tender smile that always made her senses leap. “Are you with child, darling? Is that why you’re acting so strangely?” Elizabeth was silent, trying to debate the wisdom of saying yes or no-she should say no, she realized. He’d hunt her to the ends of the earth if he believed she was carrying his babe. “No! He-the doctor said it is just-just-nerves.” “You’ve been working and playing too hard,” Ian said, looking like the picture of a worried, devoted husband. “You need more rest.” Elizabeth couldn’t bear any more of this-not his feigned tenderness or his concern or the memory of Robert’s battered back. “I’m going to sleep now,” she said in a strangled voice. “Alone,” she added, and his face whitened as if she had slapped him. During his entire adult life Ian had relied almost as much on his intuition as on his intellect, and at that moment he didn’t want to believe in the explanation they were both offering. His wife did not want him in her bed; she recoiled from his touch; she had been away for two consecutive nights; and-more alarming than any of that-guilt and fear were written all over her pale face. “Do you know what a man thinks,” he said in a calm voice that belied the pain streaking through him, “when his wife stays away at night and doesn’t want him in her bed when she does return?

Arin watched the fire flare crimson. Then he went outside and surveyed the grounds, saw through leafless trees that no one was near. He could steal a few minutes. When he stepped back inside the forge, he leaned against the anvil. With one hand he pulled a book from its hiding place behind the kindling box, and in the other he held a hammer so that, if in danger of being caught, he could more quickly pretend to have been working. He began to read. It was a book he had seen in Kestrel’s possession, one on the history of the Valorian empire. He had taken it from the library after she had returned it, weeks ago. What would she say, if she saw him reading a book about his enemy, in his enemy’s tongue? What would she do? Arin knew this: her gaze would measure him, and he would sense a shift of perception within her. Her opinion of him would change as daylight changed, growing or losing shadow. Subtle. Almost indiscernible. She would see him differently, though he wouldn’t know in what way. He wouldn’t know what it meant. This had happened, again and again, since he had come here. Sometimes he wished he had never come here. Well. Kestrel couldn’t see him in the forge, or know what he read, because she couldn’t leave her rooms. She couldn’t even walk. Arin shut the book, gripped it between rigid fingers. He nearly threw it into the fire. I will have you torn limb from limb, the general had said. That wasn’t why Arin stayed away from her. Not really. He forced his thoughts from his head. He hid the book where it had been. He busied himself with quiet work, heating iron and charcoal in a crucible to produce steel. It took some time before Arin realized he was humming a dark tune. For once, he didn’t stop himself. The pressure of song was too strong, the need for distraction too great. Then he found that the music caged behind his closed teeth was the melody Kestrel had played for him months ago. He felt the sensation of it, low and alive, on his mouth. For a moment, he imagined it wasn’t the melody that touched his lips, but Kestrel. The thought stopped his breath, and the music, too.

We have snacks, everybody!” “Where’d you get them from, Delaware?” Ben asked. He was glaring behind me, where Sage leaned casually against the wall. “Practically,” I said. “My fault-I was dying for Red Hots. Pretty much impossible to find. So what movie are we watching?” Back in the cave, Sage had told me I wasn’t much of an actress, and apparently he was right. I thought I put on a brilliant show, but Ben’s eyes were filled with suspicion, Rayna looked like she was ready to pounce, and Sage seemed to be working very hard to stifle his laughter. Rayna yawned. “Can’t do it. I’m so tired. I’m sorry, but I have to kick you guys out and get some sleep.” She wasn’t much better at acting than I was. I knew she wanted to talk, but the idea of being away from Sage killed me. “No worries,” I said. “I can bring he snacks to the guys’ room. We can watch there and let you sleep.” “Great!” Ben said. Rayna gaped, and in the space of ten seconds, she and I had a full conversation with only our eyes. Rayna: “What the hell?” Me: “I know! But I want to hang out with Sage.” Rayna: “Are you insane?! You’ll be with him for the rest of your life. I’m only with you until morning!” I couldn’t fight that one. She was right. “Actually, I’m pretty tired too,” I said. I even forced a yawn, though judging from Sage’s smirk, it wasn’t terribly convincing. “You sure?” Ben asked. He was staring at me in a way that made me feel X-rayed. “Positive. Take some snacks, though. I got dark chocolate M&Ms and Fritos.” “Sounds like a slumber party!” Rayna said. “Absolutely,” Sage deadpanned. “Look out, Ben-I do a mean French braid.” Ben paid no attention. He had moved closer and was looking at me suspiciously, like a dog whose owner comes from after playing with someone else’s pet. I almost thought he was going to smell me. “G’night,” he said. He had to brush past Sage to get to the door, but he didn’t say a word to him. Sage raised an amused eyebrow to me. “Good night, ladies,” he said, then turned and followed Ben out. It hurt to see him go, like someone had run an ice cream scoop through my core, but I knew that was melodramatic. I’d see him in the morning. We had our whole lives to be together. Tonight he could spend with Ben. I laughed out loud, imagining the two of them actually cheating, snacking, and French braiding each other’s hair as they sat cross-legged on the bed. Then a pillow smacked me in the side of the head. “’We can watch there and let you sleep’?” Rayna wailed. “Are you crazy?” “I know! I’m sorry. I took it back, though, right?” “You have two seconds to start talking, or I reload.” Before now, if anyone had told me that I could have a night like tonight and not want to tell Rayna everything, I’d have thought they were crazy. But being with Sage was different. It felt perfectly round and complete. If I said anything about it, I felt like I’d be giving away a giant scoop of it that I couldn’t ever get back. “It was really nice,” I said. “Thanks.” Rayna picked up another pillow, then let it drop. She wasn’t happy, but she understood. She also knew I wasn’t thanking her just for asking, but for everything. “Ready for bed?” she asked. “We have to eat the guys to breakfast so they don’t steal all the cinnamon rolls.” I loved her like crazy.

If talking pictures could be said to have a father, it was Lee De Forest, a brilliant but erratic inventor of electrical devices of all types. (He had 216 patents.) In 1907, while searching for ways to boost telephone signals, De Forest invented something called the thermionic triode detector. De Forest’s patent described it as “a System for Amplifying Feeble Electric Currents” and it would play a pivotal role in the development of broadcast radio and much else involving the delivery of sound, but the real developments would come from others. De Forest, unfortunately, was forever distracted by business problems. Several companies he founded went bankrupt, twice he was swindled by his backers, and constantly he was in court fighting over money or patents. For these reasons, he didn’t follow through on his invention. Meanwhile, other hopeful inventors demonstrated various sound-and-image systems—Cinematophone, Cameraphone, Synchroscope—but in every case the only really original thing about them was their name. All produced sounds that were faint or muddy, or required impossibly perfect timing on the part of the projectionist. Getting a projector and sound system to run in perfect tandem was basically impossible. Moving pictures were filmed with hand-cranked cameras, which introduced a slight variability in speed that no sound system could adjust to. Projectionists also commonly repaired damaged film by cutting out a few frames and resplicing what remained, which clearly would throw out any recording. Even perfect film sometimes skipped or momentarily stuttered in the projector. All these things confounded synchronization. De Forest came up with the idea of imprinting the sound directly onto the film. That meant that no matter what happened with the film, sound and image would always be perfectly aligned. Failing to find backers in America, he moved to Berlin in the early 1920s and there developed a system that he called Phonofilm. De Forest made his first Phonofilm movie in 1921 and by 1923 he was back in America giving public demonstrations. He filmed Calvin Coolidge making a speech, Eddie Cantor singing, George Bernard Shaw pontificating, and DeWolf Hopper reciting “Casey at the Bat.” By any measure, these were the first talking pictures. However, no Hollywood studio would invest in them. The sound quality still wasn’t ideal, and the recording system couldn’t quite cope with multiple voices and movement of a type necessary for any meaningful dramatic presentation. One invention De Forest couldn’t make use of was his own triode detector tube, because the patents now resided with Western Electric, a subsidiary of AT&T. Western Electric had been using the triode to develop public address systems for conveying speeches to large crowds or announcements to fans at baseball stadiums and the like. But in the 1920s it occurred to some forgotten engineer at the company that the triode detector could be used to project sound in theaters as well. The upshot was that in 1925 Warner Bros. bought the system from Western Electric and dubbed it Vitaphone. By the time of The Jazz Singer, it had already featured in theatrical presentations several times. Indeed, the Roxy on its opening night in March 1927 played a Vitaphone feature of songs from Carmen sung by Giovanni Martinelli. “His voice burst from the screen with splendid synchronization with the movements of his lips,” marveled the critic Mordaunt Hall in the Times. “It rang through the great theatre as if he had himself been on the stage.

Ah, my friends, that innocent afternoon with Larry provoked me into thought in a way my own dicelife until then never had. Larry took to following the dice with such ease and joy compared to the soul-searching gloom that I often went through before following a decision, that I had to wonder what happened to every human in the two decades between seven and twenty-seven to turn a kitten into a cow. Why did children seem to be so often spontaneous, joy-filled and concentrated while adults seemed controlled, anxiety-filled and diffused? It was the Goddam sense of having a self: that sense of self which psychologists have been proclaiming we all must have. What if - at the time it seemed like an original thought - what if the development of a sense of self is normal and natural, but is neither inevitable nor desirable? What if it represents a psychological appendix: a useless, anachronistic pain in the side? - or, like the mastodon's huge tusks: a heavy, useless and ultimately self-destructive burden? What if the sense of being some-one represents an evolutionary error as disastrous to the further development of a more complex creature as was the shell for snails or turtles? He he he. What if? indeed: men must attempt to eliminate the error and develop in themselves and their children liberation from the sense of self. Man must become comfortable in flowing from one role to another, one set of values to another, one life to another. Men must be free from boundaries, patterns and consistencies in order to be free to think, feel and create in new ways. Men have admired Prometheus and Mars too long; our God must become Proteus. I became tremendously excited with my thoughts: 'Men must become comfortable in flowing from one role to another' - why aren't they? At the age of three or four, children were willing to be either good guys or bad guys, the Americans or the Commies, the students or the fuzz. As the culture molds them, however, each child comes to insist on playing only one set of roles: he must always be a good guy, or, for equally compulsive reasons, a bad guy or rebel. The capacity to play and feel both sets of roles is lost. He has begun to know who he is supposed to be. The sense of permanent self: ah, how psychologists and parents lust to lock their kids into some definable cage. Consistency, patterns, something we can label - that's what we want in our boy. 'Oh, our Johnny always does a beautiful bower movement every morning after breakfast.' 'Billy just loves to read all the time...' 'Isn't Joan sweet? She always likes to let the other person win.' 'Sylvia's so pretty and so grown up; she just loves all the time to dress up.' It seemed to me that a thousand oversimplifications a year betrayed the truths in the child's heart: he knew at one point that he didn't always feel like shitting after breakfast but it gave his Ma a thrill. Billy ached to be out splashing in mud puddles with the other boys, but... Joan wanted to chew the penis off her brother every time he won, but ... And Sylvia daydreamed of a land in which she wouldn’t have to worry about how she looked . . . Patterns are prostitution to the patter of parents. Adults rule and they reward patterns. Patterns it is. And eventual misery. What if we were to bring up our children differently? Reward them for varying their habits, tastes, roles? Reward them for being inconsistent? What then? We could discipline them to be reliably various, to be conscientiously inconsistent, determinedly habit-free - even of 'good' habits.

Maybe that’s his game, though,” I said. “The hunt for one soul, again and again.” “Then why are you still here?” “The other women lived with him for a long time too. Maybe he wants to wait until my defenses are down, and then-“ “Wow, Clea, you are so jaded. You found your soulmate. People wait their whole lives for this. It’s the most amazing thing in the world, and it’s happened to you. Can’t you just accept it and be happy?” What she said made sense, but… I flopped back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. Without looking at Rayna, I said, “He doesn’t act like he’s my soulmate. Sometimes I think maybe he liked the other women more. I think maybe he wishes I was one of them.” Rayna was silent. This was something I’d never heard. “This is seriously, deep,” she finally said. “You’re feeling insecure because you’re jealous…of yourself.” “I didn’t say I was jealous…” “You’d rather think he’s a serial killer than risk being with him and finding out he doesn’t like you as much as he liked…you?” She scrunched her brow and thought, then tried again. “Yous? Anyway, you know what I mean-the other yous.” “Forget the jealousy thing, okay? There are other reasons to doubt him too. Ben doesn’t trust him at all. He thinks Sage is some kind of demon. He said there’s a spirit called an incubus that comes to women in their sleep, and-“ “Of course Ben said that.” Rayna shrugged. “He’s jealous.” “Of what?” “Ben’s crazy in love with you, Clea. I’ve been saying that forever!” “And I’ve been ignoring you forever, because it’s not true. You just want it to be true because it’s romantic.” “Did you not see the pictures of you from Rio?” I narrowed my eyes. “What are you talking about?” Rayna pulled out her phone. “Honestly, I don’t know how you survive without Google Alerts on yourself. The paparazzi were out in full force for Carnival.” She played with the phone for a minute, then handed it to me. It showed a close-up of Ben and me at the Sambadrome that could only have been taken with a serious zoom. I felt violated. “I hate this,” I muttered. “Why? You look cute!” “I hate that people are sneaking around taking pictures of me!” “I know you do. Ignore that for the moment. Just scroll through.” There were five pictures of Ben and me. Four of them were moments I vividly remembered, pictures of the two of us facing each other, laughing as we did our best to imitate the dancers shimmying and strutting down the parade route. The fifth one I didn’t remember. I wouldn’t have; in it I had my camera up to my face and was concentrating on lining up the perfect shot. Ben stood behind me, but he wasn’t wearing the goofy smile he’d had in the other pictures. He was staring right at me with those big puppydog eyes, and his smile wasn’t goofy at all, but… “Uh-huh,” Rayna said triumphantly. She had climbed into my bed was looking at the picture over my shoulder. “Knew that one would stop you. There is only one word for the look on that boy’s face, Clea: love-struck. Which is probably why a bunch of websites are reporting he’s about to propose.” “What?” “Messenger. Don’t kill the messenger.” I looked back at the picture. Ben did look love-struck. Very love-struck. “It could just be the picture,” I said. “They caught him at a weird moment.” “Yeah, a weird moment when he thought no one was looking so he showed how he really felt.” I gave Rayna back the phone and shook my head. “Ben and I are like brother and sister. That’s gross.” “Hey, I read Flowers in the Attic. It was kind of hot.” “Shut up!” I laughed. “I’m just saying, think about it. Really think about it. Is it that hard to believe that Ben’s in love with you?

Last Thoughts On Woody Guthrie When yer head gets twisted and yer mind grows numb When you think you're too old, too young, too smart or too dumb When yer laggin' behind an' losin' yer pace In a slow-motion crawl of life's busy race No matter what yer doing if you start givin' up If the wine don't come to the top of yer cup If the wind's got you sideways with with one hand holdin' on And the other starts slipping and the feeling is gone And yer train engine fire needs a new spark to catch it And the wood's easy findin' but yer lazy to fetch it And yer sidewalk starts curlin' and the street gets too long And you start walkin' backwards though you know its wrong And lonesome comes up as down goes the day And tomorrow's mornin' seems so far away And you feel the reins from yer pony are slippin' And yer rope is a-slidin' 'cause yer hands are a-drippin' And yer sun-decked desert and evergreen valleys Turn to broken down slums and trash-can alleys And yer sky cries water and yer drain pipe's a-pourin' And the lightnin's a-flashing and the thunder's a-crashin' And the windows are rattlin' and breakin' and the roof tops a-shakin' And yer whole world's a-slammin' and bangin' And yer minutes of sun turn to hours of storm And to yourself you sometimes say "I never knew it was gonna be this way Why didn't they tell me the day I was born" And you start gettin' chills and yer jumping from sweat And you're lookin' for somethin' you ain't quite found yet And yer knee-deep in the dark water with yer hands in the air And the whole world's a-watchin' with a window peek stare And yer good gal leaves and she's long gone a-flying And yer heart feels sick like fish when they're fryin' And yer jackhammer falls from yer hand to yer feet And you need it badly but it lays on the street And yer bell's bangin' loudly but you can't hear its beat And you think yer ears might a been hurt Or yer eyes've turned filthy from the sight-blindin' dirt And you figured you failed in yesterdays rush When you were faked out an' fooled white facing a four flush And all the time you were holdin' three queens And it's makin you mad, it's makin' you mean Like in the middle of Life magazine Bouncin' around a pinball machine And there's something on yer mind you wanna be saying That somebody someplace oughta be hearin' But it's trapped on yer tongue and sealed in yer head And it bothers you badly when your layin' in bed And no matter how you try you just can't say it And yer scared to yer soul you just might forget it And yer eyes get swimmy from the tears in yer head And yer pillows of feathers turn to blankets of lead And the lion's mouth opens and yer staring at his teeth And his jaws start closin with you underneath And yer flat on your belly with yer hands tied behind And you wish you'd never taken that last detour sign And you say to yourself just what am I doin' On this road I'm walkin', on this trail I'm turnin' On this curve I'm hanging On this pathway I'm strolling, in the space I'm taking In this air I'm inhaling Am I mixed up too much, am I mixed up too hard Why am I walking, where am I running What am I saying, what am I knowing On this guitar I'm playing, on this banjo I'm frailin' On this mandolin I'm strummin', in the song I'm singin' In the tune I'm hummin', in the words I'm writin' In the words that I'm thinkin' In this ocean of hours I'm all the time drinkin' Who am I helping, what am I breaking What am I giving, what am I taking But you try with your whole soul best Never to think these thoughts and never to let Them kind of thoughts gain ground Or make yer heart pound ...

The same song was playing the second I met my ex–best friend and the moment I realized I’d lost her. I met my best friend at a neighborhood cookout the year we would both turn twelve. It was one of those hot Brooklyn afternoons that always made me feel like I'd stepped out of my life and onto a movie set because the hydrants were open, splashing water all over the hot asphalt. There wasn't a cloud in the flawless blue sky. And pretty black and brown people were everywhere. I was crying. ‘What a Wonderful World’ was playing through a speaker someone had brought with them to the park, and it reminded me too much of my Granny Georgina. I was cupping the last snow globe she’d ever given me in my small, sweaty hands and despite the heat, I couldn’t help imagining myself inside the tiny, perfect, snow-filled world. I was telling myself a story about what it might be like to live in London, a place that was unimaginably far and sitting in the palm of my hands all at once. But it wasn't working. When Gigi had told me stories, they'd felt like miracles. But she was gone and I didn't know if I'd ever be okay again. I heard a small voice behind me, asking if I was okay. I had noticed a girl watching me, but it took her a long time to come over, and even longer to say anything. She asked the question quietly. I had never met anyone who…spoke the way that she did, and I thought that her speech might have been why she waited so long to speak to me. While I expected her to say ‘What’s wrong?’—a question I didn’t want to have to answer—she asked ‘What are you doing?’ instead, and I was glad. “I was kind of a weird kid, so when I answered, I said ‘Spinning stories,’ calling it what Gigi had always called it when I got lost in my own head, but my voice cracked on the phrase and another tear slipped down my cheek. To this day I don’t know why I picked that moment to be so honest. Usually when kids I didn't know came up to me, I clamped my mouth shut like the heavy cover of an old book falling closed. Because time and taught me that kids weren't kind to girls like me: Girls who were dreamy and moony-eyed and a little too nice. Girls who wore rose-tonted glasses. And actual, really thick glasses. Girls who thought the world was beautiful, and who read too many books, and who never saw cruelty coming. But something about this girl felt safe. Something about the way she was smiling as she stuttered out the question helped me know I needn't bother with being shy, because she was being so brave. I thought that maybe kids weren't nice to girls like her either. The cookout was crowded, and none of the other kids were talking to me because, like I said, I was the neighborhood weirdo. I carried around snow globesbecause I was in love with every place I’d never been. I often recited Shakespeare from memory because of my dad, who is a librarian. I lost myself in books because they were friends who never letme down, and I didn’t hide enough of myself the way everyone else did, so people didn’t ‘get’ me. I was lonely a lot. Unless I was with my Gigi. The girl, she asked me if it was making me feel better, spinning the stories. And I shook my head. Before I could say what I was thinking—a line from Hamlet about sorrow coming in battalions that would have surely killed any potential I had of making friends with her. The girl tossed her wavy black hair over her shoulder and grinned. She closed her eyes and said 'Music helps me. And I love this song.' When she started singing, her voice was so unexpected—so bright and clear—that I stopped crying and stared at her. She told me her name and hooked her arm through mine like we’d known each other forever, and when the next song started, she pulled me up and we spun in a slow circle together until we were both dizzy and giggling.

Oskar Schell: My father died at 9-11. After he died I wouldn't go into his room for a year because it was too hard and it made me want to cry. But one day, I put on heavy boots and went in his room anyway. I miss doing taekwondo with him because it always made me laugh. When I went into his closet, where his clothes and stuff were, I reached up to get his old camera. It spun around and dropped about a hundred stairs, and I broke a blue vase! Inside was a key in an envelope with black written on it and I knew that dad left something somewhere for me that the key opened and I had to find. So I take it to Walt, the locksmith. I give it to Stan, the doorman, who tells me keys can open anything. He gave me the phone book for all the five boroughs. I count there are 472 people with the last name black. There are 216 addresses. Some of the blacks live together, obviously. I calculated that if I go to 2 every Saturday plus holidays, minus my hamlet school plays, my minerals, coins, and comic convention, it's going to take me 3 years to go through all of them. But that's what I'm going to do! Go to every single person named black and find out what the key fits and see what dad needed me to find. I made the very best possible plan but using the last four digits of each phone number, I divide the people by zones. I had to tell my mother another lie, because she wouldn't understand how I need to go out and find what the key fits and help me make sense of things that don't even make sense like him being killed in the building by people that didn't even know him at all! And I see some people who don't speak English, who are hiding, one black said that she spoke to God. If she spoke to god how come she didn't tell him not to kill her son or not to let people fly planes into buildings and maybe she spoke to a different god than them! And I met a man who was a woman who a man who was a woman all at the same time and he didn't want to get hurt because he/she was scared that she/he was so different. And I still wonder if she/he ever beat up himself, but what does it matter? Thomas Schell: What would this place be if everyone had the same haircut? Oskar Schell: And I see Mr. Black who hasn't heard a sound in 24 years which I can understand because I miss dad's voice that much. Like when he would say, "are you up yet?" or... Thomas Schell: Let's go do something. Oskar Schell: And I see the twin brothers who paint together and there's a shed that has to be clue, but it's just a shed! Another black drew the same drawing of the same person over and over and over again! Forest black, the doorman, was a school teacher in Russia but now says his brain is dying! Seamus black who has a coin collection, but doesn't have enough money to eat everyday! You see olive black was a gate guard but didn't have the key to it which makes him feel like he's looking at a brick wall. And I feel like I'm looking at a brick wall because I tried the key in 148 different places, but the key didn't fit. And open anything it hasn't that dad needed me to find so I know that without him everything is going to be alright. Thomas Schell: Let's leave it there then. Oskar Schell: And I still feel scared every time I go into a strange place. I'm so scared I have to hold myself around my waist or I think I'll just break all apart! But I never forget what I heard him tell mom about the sixth borough. That if things were easy to find... Thomas Schell: ...they wouldn't be worth finding. Oskar Schell: And I'm so scared every time I leave home. Every time I hear a door open. And I don't know a single thing that I didn't know when I started! It's these times I miss my dad more than ever even if this whole thing is to stop missing him at all! It hurts too much. Sometimes I'm afraid I'll do something very bad.

Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)” Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of '99: Wear sunscreen. If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now. Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth; oh never mind; you will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded. But trust me, in 20 years you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine. Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4:00 pm on some idle Tuesday. Do one thing everyday that scares you. Sing. Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts; don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours. Floss. Don’t waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you’re ahead; sometimes you’re behind; the race is long, and in the end it’s only with yourself. Remember compliments you receive; forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how. Keep your old love letters; throw away your old bank statements. Stretch. Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you wanna do with your life; the most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives; some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t. Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees; you’ll miss them when they’re gone. Maybe you’ll marry -- maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll have children -- maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll divorce at 40 -- maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either -- your choices are half chance; so are everybody else’s. Enjoy your body; use it every way you can. Don’t be afraid of it, or what other people think of it. It’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own. Dance. even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room. Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them. Do not read beauty magazines; they will only make you feel ugly. Get to know your parents; you never know when they’ll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings; they're your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future. Understand that friends come and go, but for the precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography, in lifestyle, because the older you get the more you need the people you knew when you were young. Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft. Travel. Accept certain inalienable truths: prices will rise; politicians will philander; you too will get old, and when you do you’ll fantasize that when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians were noble, and children respected their elders. Respect your elders. Don’t expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund; maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse; but you never know when either one might run out. Don’t mess too much with your hair, or by the time you're 40, it will look 85. Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia: dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts, and recycling it for more than it’s worth. But trust me on the sunscreen. Baz Luhrmannk, William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet (1996)

told me more about what happened the other night?” she asked, deciding to air her worst fears. “Am I under suspicion or something?” “Everyone is.” “Especially ex-wives who are publicly humiliated on the day of the murder, right?” Something in Montoya’s expression changed. Hardened. “I’ll be back,” he promised, “and I’ll bring another detective with me, then we’ll interview you and you can ask all the questions you like.” “And you’ll answer them?” He offered a hint of a smile. “That I can’t promise. Just that I won’t lie to you.” “I wouldn’t expect you to, Detective.” He gave a quick nod. “In the meantime if you suddenly remember, or think of anything, give me a call.” “I will,” she promised, irritated, watching as he hurried down the two steps of the porch to his car. He was younger than she was by a couple of years, she guessed, though she couldn’t be certain, and there was something about him that exuded a natural brooding sexuality, as if he knew he was attractive to women, almost expected it to be so. Great. Just what she needed, a sexy-as-hell cop who probably had her pinned to the top of his murder suspect list. She whistled for the dog and Hershey bounded inside, dragging some mud and leaves with her. “Sit!” Abby commanded and the Lab dropped her rear end onto the floor just inside the door. Abby opened the door to the closet and found a towel hanging on a peg she kept for just such occasions, then, while Hershey whined in protest, she cleaned all four of her damp paws. “You’re gonna be a problem, aren’t you?” she teased, then dropped the towel over the dog’s head. Hershey shook herself, tossed off the towel, then bit at it, snagging one end in her mouth and pulling backward in a quick game of tug of war. Abby laughed as she played with the dog, the first real joy she’d felt since hearing the news about her ex-husband. The phone rang and she left the dog growling and shaking the tattered piece of terry cloth. “Hello?” she said, still chuckling at Hershey’s antics as she lifted the phone to her ear. “Abby Chastain?” “Yes.” “Beth Ann Wright with the New Orleans Sentinel.” Abby’s heart plummeted. The press. Just what she needed. “You were Luke Gierman’s wife, right?” “What’s this about?” Abby asked warily as Hershey padded into the kitchen and looked expectantly at the back door leading to her studio. “In a second,” she mouthed to the Lab. Hershey slowly wagged her tail. “Oh, I’m sorry,” Beth Ann said, sounding sincerely rueful. “I should have explained. The paper’s running a series of articles on Luke, as he was a local celebrity, and I’d like to interview you for the piece. I was thinking we could meet tomorrow morning?” “Luke and I were divorced.” “Yes, I know, but I would like to give some insight to the man behind the mike, you know. He had a certain public persona, but I’m sure my readers would like to know more about him, his history, his hopes, his dreams, you know, the human-interest angle.” “It’s kind of late for that,” Abby said, not bothering to keep the ice out of her voice. “But you knew him intimately. I thought you could come up with some anecdotes, let people see the real Luke Gierman.” “I don’t think so.” “I realize you and he had some unresolved issues.” “Pardon me?” “I caught his program the other day.” Abby tensed, her fingers holding the phone in a death grip. “So this is probably harder for you than most, but I still would like to ask you some questions.” “Maybe another time,” she hedged and Beth Ann didn’t miss a beat. “Anytime you’d like. You’re a native Louisianan, aren’t you?” Abby’s neck muscles tightened. “Born and raised, but you met Luke in Seattle when he was working for a radio station . . . what’s the call sign, I know I’ve got it somewhere.” “KCTY.” It was a matter of public record. “Oh, that’s right. Country in the City. But you grew up here and went to local schools, right? Your

When we get down to potential versus reality in relationships, we often see disappointment, not successful achievement. In the Church, if someone creates nuclear fallout in a calling, they are often released or reassigned quickly. Unfortunately, we do not have that luxury when we marry. So many of us have experienced this sad realization in the first weeks of our marriages. For example, we realized that our partner was not going to live up to his/her potential and give generously to the partnership. While fighting the mounting feelings of betrayal, we watched our new spouses claim a right to behave any way they desired, often at our expense. Most of us made the "best" of a truly awful situation but felt like a rat trapped in maze. We raised a family, played our role, and hoped that someday things would change if we did our part. It didn't happen, but we were not allowed the luxury of reassigning or releasing our mates from poor stewardship as a spouse or parent. We were stuck until we lost all hope and reached for the unthinkable: divorce. Reality is simple for some. Those who stay happily married (the key word here is happily are the ones who grew and felt companionship from the first days of marriage. Both had the integrity and dedication to insure its success. For those of us who are divorced, tracing back to those same early days, potential disappeared and reality reared its ugly head. All we could feel, after a sealing for "time and all eternity," was bound in an unholy snare. Take the time to examine the reality of who your sweetheart really is. What do they accomplish by natural instinct and ability? What do you like/dislike about them? Can you live with all the collective weaknesses and create a happy, viable union? Are you both committed to making each other happy? Do you respect each other's agency, and are you both encouraging and eager to see the two of you grow as individuals and as a team? Do you both talk-the-talk and walk-the-walk? Or do you love them and hope they'll change once you're married to them? Chances are that if the answer to any of these questions are "sorta," you are embracing their potential and not their reality. You may also be embracing your own potential to endure issues that may not be appropriate sacrifices at this stage in your life. No one changes without the internal impetus and drive to do so. Not for love or money. . . . We are complex creatures, and although we are trained to see the "good" in everyone, it is to our benefit to embrace realism when it comes to finding our "soul mate." It won't get much better than what you have in your relationship right now.

When we pulled up to Marlboro Man’s house, I saw my Camry sitting in his driveway. I didn’t expect it to be there; I figured it was still on Marlboro Man’s parents’ road, sitting all crooked in the ditch where I’d left it the night before. Marlboro Man had already fixed it, fishing it out of the ditch and repairing the mangled tires and probably, knowing him, filling the tank with gas. “Oh, thank you so much,” I said as we walked toward the front door. “I thought maybe I’d killed it.” “Aw, it’s fine,” he replied. “But you might want to learn to drive before you get in it again.” He flashed his mischievous grin. I slugged him in the arm as he laughed. Then he lunged at me, grabbing my arms and using his leg to sweep my supporting leg right out from under me. Within an instant, he had me on the ground, right on the soft, green grass of his front yard. I shrieked and screamed, trying in vain to wrestle my way out of his playful grasp, but my wimpy upper body was no match for his impossible strength. He tickled me, and being the most ticklish human in the Northern Hemisphere, I screamed bloody murder. Afraid I’d wet my pants (it was a valid concern), I fought back the only way I knew how--by grabbing and untucking his shirt from his Wranglers…and running my hand up his back, poking at his rib cage. The tickling suddenly stopped. Marlboro Man propped himself on his elbows, holding my face in his hands. He kissed me passionately and seriously, and what started as a playful wrestling match became an impromptu make-out session in his front yard. It was an unlikely place for such an event, and considering it was at the very beginning of our night together, an unlikely time. But it was also strangely perfect. Because sometime during all the laughing and tickling and wrestling and rolling around in the grass, my worry and concern over my parents’ troubles had magically melted away. Only when the chiggers began biting did Marlboro Man suggest an alternate plan. “Let’s go inside,” he said. “I’m cooking dinner.” Yummy, I thought. That means steak. And as we walked into the house, I smiled contentedly, realizing that the stress of the previous twenty-four hours had all but disappeared from view. And I knew it, even then: Marlboro Man, not only that night but in the months to come, would prove to be my savior, my distraction, my escape in the midst of troubles, my strength in the face of upheaval, my beauty in times of terrible, heartbreaking ugliness. He held my heart entirely in his hands, this cowboy, and for the first time in my life, despite everything I’d ever believed about independence and feminism and emotional autonomy, I knew I’d be utterly incomplete without him. Talk about a terrifying moment.

Kestrel came often. One day, when she knew from Sarsine that Arin had returned home but she had not yet seen him, she went to the suite. She touched one of his violins, reaching furtively to pluck the highest string of the largest instrument. The sound was sour. The violin was ruined--no doubt all of them were. That is what happens when an instrument is left strung and uncased for ten years. A floorboard creaked somewhere in one of the outer chambers. Arin. He entered the room, and she realized that she had expected him. Why else had she come here so frequently, almost every day, if she hadn’t hoped that someone would notice and tell him to find her there? But even though she admitted to wanting to be here with him in his old rooms, she hadn’t imagined it would be like this. With her caught touching his things. Her gaze dropped. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “It’s all right,” he said. “I don’t mind.” He lifted the violin off its nails and set it in her hands. It was light, but Kestrel’s arms lowered as if the violin’s hollowness were terribly heavy. She cleared her throat. “Do you still play?” He shook his head. “I’ve mostly forgotten how. I wasn’t good at it anyway. I loved to sing. Before the war, I worried that gift would leave me, the way it often does with boys. We grow, we change, our voices break. It doesn’t matter how well you sing when you’re nine years old, you know. Not when you’re a boy. When the change comes you just have to hope for the best…that your voice settles into something you can love again. My voice broke two years after the invasion. Gods, how I squeaked. And when my voice finally settled, it seemed like a cruel joke. It was too good. I hardly knew what to do with it. I felt so grateful to have this gift…and so angry, for it to mean so little. And now…” He shrugged, a self-deprecating gesture. “Well, I know I’m rusty.” “No,” Kestrel said. “You’re not. Your voice is beautiful.” The silence after that was soft. Her fingers curled around the violin. She wanted to ask Arin a question yet couldn’t bear to do it, couldn’t say that she didn’t understand what had happened to him the night of the invasion. It didn’t make sense. The death of his family was what her father would call a “waste of resources.” The Valorian force had had no pity for the Herrani military, but it had tried to minimize civilian casualties. You can’t make a dead body work. “What is it, Kestrel?” She shook her head. She set the violin back on the wall. “Ask me.” She remembered standing outside the governor’s palace and refusing to hear his story, and was ashamed once more. “You can ask me anything,” he said. Each question seemed the wrong one. Finally, she said, “How did you survive the invasion?” He didn’t speak at first. Then he said, “My parents and sister fought. I didn’t.” Words were useless, pitifully useless--criminal, even, in how they could not account for Arin’s grief, and could not excuse how her people had lived on the ruin of his. Yet again Kestrel said, “I’m sorry.” “It’s not your fault.” It felt as if it was. Arin led the way out of his old suite. When they came to the last room, the greeting room, he paused before the outermost door. It was the slightest of hesitations, no longer than if the second hand of a clock stayed a beat longer on its mark than it should. But in that fraction of time, Kestrel understood that the last door was not paler than the others because it had been made from a different wood. It was newer. Kestrel took Arin’s battered hand in hers, the rough heat of it, the fingernails still ringed with carbon from the smith’s coal fire. His skin was raw-looking: scrubbed clean and scrubbed often. But the black grime was too ingrained. She twined her fingers with his. Kestrel and Arin walked together through the passageway and the ghost of its old door, which her people had smashed through ten years before.

The phone rang. It was a familiar voice. It was Alan Greenspan. Paul O'Neill had tried to stay in touch with people who had served under Gerald Ford, and he'd been reasonably conscientious about it. Alan Greenspan was the exception. In his case, the effort was constant and purposeful. When Greenspan was the chairman of Ford's Council of Economic Advisers, and O'Neill was number two at OMB, they had become a kind of team. Never social so much. They never talked about families or outside interests. It was all about ideas: Medicare financing or block grants - a concept that O'Neill basically invented to balance federal power and local autonomy - or what was really happening in the economy. It became clear that they thought well together. President Ford used to have them talk about various issues while he listened. After a while, each knew how the other's mind worked, the way married couples do. In the past fifteen years, they'd made a point of meeting every few months. It could be in New York, or Washington, or Pittsburgh. They talked about everything, just as always. Greenspan, O'Neill told a friend, "doesn't have many people who don't want something from him, who will talk straight to him. So that's what we do together - straight talk." O'Neill felt some straight talk coming in. "Paul, I'll be blunt. We really need you down here," Greenspan said. "There is a real chance to make lasting changes. We could be a team at the key moment, to do the things we've always talked about." The jocular tone was gone. This was a serious discussion. They digressed into some things they'd "always talked about," especially reforming Medicare and Social Security. For Paul and Alan, the possibility of such bold reinventions bordered on fantasy, but fantasy made real. "We have an extraordinary opportunity," Alan said. Paul noticed that he seemed oddly anxious. "Paul, your presence will be an enormous asset in the creation of sensible policy." Sensible policy. This was akin to prayer from Greenspan. O'Neill, not expecting such conviction from his old friend, said little. After a while, he just thanked Alan. He said he always respected his counsel. He said he was thinking hard about it, and he'd call as soon as he decided what to do. The receiver returned to its cradle. He thought about Greenspan. They were young men together in the capital. Alan stayed, became the most noteworthy Federal Reserve Bank chairman in modern history and, arguably the most powerful public official of the past two decades. O'Neill left, led a corporate army, made a fortune, and learned lessons - about how to think and act, about the importance of outcomes - that you can't ever learn in a government. But, he supposed, he'd missed some things. There were always trade-offs. Talking to Alan reminded him of that. Alan and his wife, Andrea Mitchell, White House correspondent for NBC news, lived a fine life. They weren't wealthy like Paul and Nancy. But Alan led a life of highest purpose, a life guided by inquiry. Paul O'Neill picked up the telephone receiver, punched the keypad. "It's me," he said, always his opening. He started going into the details of his trip to New York from Washington, but he's not much of a phone talker - Nancy knew that - and the small talk trailed off. "I think I'm going to have to do this." She was quiet. "You know what I think," she said. She knew him too well, maybe. How bullheaded he can be, once he decides what's right. How he had loved these last few years as a sovereign, his own man. How badly he was suited to politics, as it was being played. And then there was that other problem: she'd almost always been right about what was best for him. "Whatever, Paul. I'm behind you. If you don't do this, I guess you'll always regret it." But it was clearly about what he wanted, what he needed. Paul thanked her. Though somehow a thank-you didn't seem appropriate. And then he realized she was crying.