Heart Wrenching Quotes

I cannot go to school today" Said little Peggy Ann McKay. "I have the measles and the mumps, A gash, a rash and purple bumps. My mouth is wet, my throat is dry. I'm going blind in my right eye. My tonsils are as big as rocks, I've counted sixteen chicken pox. And there's one more - that's seventeen, And don't you think my face looks green? My leg is cut, my eyes are blue, It might be the instamatic flu. I cough and sneeze and gasp and choke, I'm sure that my left leg is broke. My hip hurts when I move my chin, My belly button's caving in. My back is wrenched, my ankle's sprained, My 'pendix pains each time it rains. My toes are cold, my toes are numb, I have a sliver in my thumb. My neck is stiff, my voice is weak, I hardly whisper when I speak. My tongue is filling up my mouth, I think my hair is falling out. My elbow's bent, my spine ain't straight, My temperature is one-o-eight. My brain is shrunk, I cannot hear, There's a hole inside my ear. I have a hangnail, and my heart is ... What? What's that? What's that you say? You say today is .............. Saturday? G'bye, I'm going out to play!

Meghan,” whispered a voice, heart wrenchingly familiar, drawing me out of the void. I recognized it immediately, just as I realized it was a figment of my desperate imagination, because the real owner of that voice would never be here, talking to me. Ash? “Wake up,” he murmured, his deep voice cutting through the layers of the darkness. “Don’t do this. If you don’t come out of this soon, you’ll fade away and drift forever. Fight it. Come back to us.” I didn’t want to wake up. There was nothing but pain waiting for me in the real world. If I was asleep, I couldn’t feel anything. If I was asleep, I didn’t have to face Ash and the cold contempt on his face when he looked at me. Darkness was my retreat, my sanctuary. I drew back from Ash’s voice, deeper into the comforting blackness. And, through the layer of dreams and delirium, I heard a quiet sob. “Please.” A hand gripped mine, real and solid, anchoring me to the present. “I know what you must think of me, but…” The voice broke off, took a ragged breath. “Don’t leave,” it whispered. “Meghan, don’t go. Come back to me.

In the first few seconds an aching sadness wrenched his heart, but it soon gave way to a feeling of sweet disquiet, the excitement of gypsy wanderlust

I've always felt like once someone sees me deep down, that's it. There's something ugly in there, or unlovable, and you're the only person who's ever made me feel like I'm okay.

If you're serious about sanctification, you can expect to experience heart-wrenching moments that try your faith, your endurance, and your patience.

sometimes i don't know, which moment which cool gust of wind will come, and enchant me tousling my hair and my heart, stirring...that familiar ache of poetry, which drop will kiss the old wrench in my soul reminding me, all over again i miss you better in the rain.

I love language, words, and all the lovely, exciting, and heart wrenching things you can do with them. Pick the right ones, put them in the right order, and you’ve created a moment in time where the reader forgets about the late car payment, the dirty dishes, the impending workweek. You have created a state of bliss. Or negligence, depending on your perspective.

On the outside she looked like a sexy young woman, on the inside he was a destroyed young man

...when someone is honest and vulnerable, they wring my heart - I want to hug them for being real...

Peter the pedo killer and I spent a couple of days touring pharmacies

My heart was fashioned to be susceptible of love and sympathy, and when wrenched by misery to vice and hatred, it did not endure the violence of the change without torture such as you cannot even imagine.

He was a breath of fresh air after the heart wrenching storm that had engulfed me.

Does it take the harsh light of disaster to show a person’s true nature?

And I put my hand on her arm to stop her rowing. Aaron’s Noise roars up in red and black. The current takes us on. “I’m sorry!” I cry as the river takes us away, my words ragged things torn from me, my chest pulled so tight I can’t barely breathe. “I’m sorry, Manchee!” “Todd?” he barks, confused and scared and watching me leave him behind. “Todd?” “Manchee!” I scream. Aaron brings his free hand towards my dog. “MANCHEE!” “Todd?” And Aaron wrenches his arms and there’s a CRACK and a scream and a cut-off yelp that tears my heart in two forever and forever. And the pain is too much it’s too much it’s too much and my hands are on my head and I’m rearing back and my mouth is open in a never-ending wordless wail of all the blackness that’s inside of me.

Once in a while I experience an emotion onstage that is so gut-wrenching, so heart-stopping, that I could weep with gratitude and joy. The feeling catches and magnifies so rapidly that it threatens to engulf me.

First, there was trust. Then, there was betrayal. You cannot have one without the other. You cannot be betrayed by someone you do not trust ... what you have learned is the same heart-wrenching journey of every woman to whom I have sold a poison. And it is, indeed, the same path for me.

Somehow she felt hollow, as though her heart was wrenched away from her. She didn't realize it. She hadn't expected it. She loved Fallon.

A slow, heart-wrenching smile pulled at his lips. A real one, and it was the kind of smile that could break hearts and rebuild them.

We've made a beautiful mess of things lately, haven't we?" He flashed that sexy crooked smile at me, which made my heart flutter. "But it's our crazy story," "It's been ours, only ours. There's been a lot of romance, sometimes way too much drama..." "very memorable comedy, a few pulse-racing action scenes..." "We've also had our fair share of suspense and raw terror, and unfortunately gut-wrenching heartache too." "I think we've covered it all, everything except fo being captured by aliens!" "But through it all you've loved me unconditionally, and I know how fortunate I am to have your love. I don't want to live without you, not for one more minute, not for one more second. I want to spend the rest of my days living my story with you...only you." "It is here that I fell in love with you" "And as fate would have it, it is here that I humbly kneel before you and ask you to be my wife.

You are my heart, my soul, my equal. You see the light in me when I’m lost within darkness. When I’m cold and distant, you’re as warm as autumn sunshine, bathing me in your glow. If I am the night, then you are the stars lighting up my endless dark.” His voice broke, wrenching my heart. “My best friend, the absolute love of my life, now until forevermore, I call you my wife.

The fourth man in the terrorist team was Conor Lenihan. Conor had been born in Catholic Belfast and brought up in the sectarian ways of his peers.

It was odds on they would find out one of the team had escaped the blast, and it wouldn’t be long before they knew which one. Then they would come looking for him. And Conor intended they should find him.

Damn it! Are you so stupid you don't know what I'm going to do to you?" Her eyes bore into his without flinching. "Are you so stupid you haven't figured out yet that it doesn't matter?

Why allow the tendrils of the heart to twine around objects which may at any moment be wrenched away

There was no meaning in life, and man by living served no end. It was immaterial whether he was born or not born, whether he lived or ceased to live. Life was insignificant and death without consequence. Philip exulted, as he had exulted in his boyhood when the weight of a belief in God was lifted from his shoulders: it seemed to him that the last burden of responsibility was taken from him; and for the first time he was utterly free. His insignificance was turned to power, and he felt himself suddenly equal with the cruel fate which had seemed to persecute him; for, if life was meaningless, the world was robbed of its cruelty. What he did or left undone did not matter. Failure was unimportant and success amounted to nothing. He was the most inconsiderate creature in that swarming mass of mankind which for a brief space occupied the surface of the earth; and he was almighty because he had wrenched from chaos the secret of its nothingness. Thoughts came tumbling over one another in Philip's eager fancy, and he took long breaths of joyous satisfaction. He felt inclined to leap and sing. He had not been so happy for months. 'Oh, life,' he cried in his heart, 'Oh life, where is thy sting?

She was so endearing, so indomitable, that Gabriel was wrenched with a feeling he’d never known before, as if all the extremes of joy and despair had been compressed into some new emotion that threatened to crack the walls of his heart.

Stand Fast Through the Storms of Life. "You will have all kinds of trials to pass through. And it is quite as necessary for you to be tried as it was for Abraham and other men of God... God will feel after you, and He will take hold of you and wrench your very heart strings and if you cannot stand it you will not be fit for an inheritance in the Celestial kingdom of God" -John Taylor recalls the words of Joseph Smith to the Twelve. JS manual page 231

Thanks for the good times. Thank you for being so generous with what you have withheld. Thank you for being the snake in my grass, the thorn in my side, the pain in my ass, the knife in my back, the wrench in my works, the fly in my ointment. My Achilles’ heart. Caught in a whirlpool without an anchor, relaxing into it, calmly going under for one of many last times.

She heard the echoes of Ian’s screams in her head. Beth pressed her forehead to his hands, her heart wrenching. Ian’s hands were large, sinews hard under his kid-leather gloves. Yes, he was strong. In the Tuileres Gardens, it had taken both Mac and Curry to pull him away from Fellows. That didn’t mean others could try to tear at that strength, try to defeat him. The doctors in the horrible asylum had done it, and now Fellows was trying to. I’m falling in love with you, she wanted to say into their clasped hands. Do you mind awfully?

I’ve never felt anything so strong and it’s love—actual love. Heart wrenching, stomach churning, toe curling love. I’ve been completely consumed by him and I didn’t even know it.

At the word sacrifice, something sparked in the Fate's cold eyes. He held the girl tighter, carrying her in his bloodstained arms as he stood and started down the ancient hall. 'What are you doing?' A crack of alarm showed in the queen's implacable face. 'I'm going to fix this.' He continued marching forward, holding the girl close as he carried her back through the arch. The angels who'd been guarding it now wept. They cried tears of stone as the Fate set the girl at their feet and began wrenching stone after stone from the arch. 'Jacks of the Hollow,' warned the queen. 'Those arch stones can only be used one time to go back. They were not created for infinite trips to the past.' 'I know,' Jacks growled. 'I'm going to go back and stop your son from killing her.' The queen's face fell. For a moment, she looked as old as the years she'd spent lying in suspended state. 'This is not a small mistake to fix. If you do this, Time will take something equally valuable from you.' The Fate gave the queen a look more vicious than any curse. 'There is nothing of equal value to me.

The human heart must be a strong and resilient thing, Daphne decided when she awoke the following morning. She was surprised to find that she was no longer in the throes of wrenching heartbreak and pain. Instead, in a strange way, she felt as if she had been reborn.

I think she's afraid to even hug me now. It's my fault, but I miss it, Andrew. I miss it so much it aches sometimes, you know?' I do know. I do know, I want to tell him, but I let him talk. And he does, with a gut-wrenching honesty that tears at my heart. 'I want to be held. Is that so wrong? I want to be held, and stroked. I want to know that someone loves me. I want to feel it on my skin.' He looks at the ceiling and exhales, then meets my eyes again. 'But nobody touches me anymore. Not even when I have a fever. Mom just hands me a thermometer now.' He drops his eyes and his ears redden. 'Even when you kiss me, you don't touch me. It's like I'm a leper or something. I can hardly keep my hands off of you, but it's not the same for you, is it?

This was it. It was pulse-racing, heart-wrenching, dizzying love. The kind that touches every one of your nerve endings and renders you almost insane. The kind I could not give into easily because it already hurt like hell before lift-off.

Are you sure you can prevent yourself from falling in love one of these days? Such things do happen, you know, even to the most prudent men.' Simon gave him a strange, one might even have thought a hostile, look. I should tear it out of my heart as I'd wrench out of my mouth a rotten tooth.

She reached into the pocket of her dress and threw the small stack of bills at him. They fluttered to the ground like broken dreams. "I hope you choke on every penny." "Pick that up." She drew back her arm and slapped him as hard as she could.

Fate was a reality, but it wasn’t a beautiful or angelic thing. It was a heart-wrenching nightmare. And we’d fallen blindly into it. We had no escape. It was happening, and it was up to me to guarantee our survival of it. (Eric)

Sometimes as a family we don’t like to talk about it because all this stuff is going through our heads about what could have happened to him. It upsets us because we didn’t want him to suffer. We just want to be told, you know, he died…

Amidst of all these darkness, soul wrenching pain and disappointments, you have a heart that still believes in love, trust and second chances. And that my dear, is what makes you so beautiful.

So, everything that’s happened, that’s just the way life is, and it’s never going to be the way you think you want it. I’m not embarrassed about my brother, but I just don’t want to relive it, because people ask, “Oh, where’s your brother, what’s he doing?” and I have to say I don’t know, I haven’t seen him in over 30 years.

Though I myself am an atheist, I openly profess religion in the sense just mentioned, that is, a nature religion. I hate the idealism that wrenches man out of nature; I am not ashamed of my dependency on nature; I openly confess that the workings of nature affect not only my surface, my skin, my body, but also my core, my innermost being, that the air I breathe in bright weather has a salutary effect not only on my lungs but also on my mind, that the light of the sun illumines not only my eyes but also my spirit and my heart. And I do not, like a Christian, believe that such dependency is contrary to my true being or hope to be delivered from it. I know further that I am a finite moral being, that I shall one day cease to be. But I find this very natural and am therefore perfectly reconciled to the thought.

That they were torn from mistakes they had no chance to fix; everything unfinished. All the sins of love without detail, detail without love. The regret of having spoken, of having run out of time to speak. Of hoarding oneself. Of turning one’s back too often in favour of sleep. I tried to imagine their physical needs, the indignity of human needs grown so extreme they equal your longing for wife, child, sister, parent, friend. But truthfully I couldn’t even begin to imagine the trauma of their hearts, of being taken in the middle of their lives. Those with young children. Or those newly in love, wrenched from that state of grace. Or those who had lived invisibly, who were never know.

Hope is a torturous thing. It wrenches one from despair just long enough to allow one to take a breath before plunging her back beneath the icy waters. If it wasn't for those breaths, it would be easy to let ice claim the soul. Easy to let surrender swallow the struggle. But hope - cruel mistress that she is - is not satisfied with so neat an ending. Like a house cat with a tiny prisoner, she wants only to torment the soul again, and again, until it dies from a burst heart.

Maybe it’s not, in the end, the virtues of others that so wrenches our hearts as it is the sense of almost unbearably poignant recognition when we see them at their most base, in their sorrow and gluttony and foolishness. You need the virtues, too—some sort of virtues—but we don’t care about Emma Bovary or Anna Karenina or Raskolnikov because they’re good. We care about them because they’re not admirable, because they’re us, and because great writers have forgiven them for it.

I obeyed, so far as to quit the chamber; when, ignorant where the narrow lobbies led, I stood still, and was witness, involuntarily, to a piece of superstition on the part of my landlord which belied, oddly, his apparent sense. He got on to the bed, and wrenched open the lattice, bursting, as he pulled at it, into an uncontrollable passion of tears. 'Come in! come in!' he sobbed. 'Cathy, do come. Oh, do - ONCE more! Oh! my heart's darling! hear me THIS time, Catherine, at last!' The spectre showed a spectre's ordinary caprice: it gave no sign of being; but the snow and wind whirled wildly through, even reaching my station, and blowing out the light.

I live for you," I say sadly. She kisses my cheek. "Then you must live for more." There's a long, terrible silence that stretches between us. She does not understand how her words wrench my heart, how she can twist me so easily. Because she does not love me like I love her. Her mind is too high. Mine too low. Am I not enough for her?

Most best-sellers are written for readers who are willing to be passive consumers. The blurbs on their covers often highlight the coercive, aggressive power of the text—compulsive page-turner, gut-wrenching, jolting, mind-searing, heart-stopping—what is this, electroshock torture?

I pushed until I felt his [Donovan's] body grow still, the tendons in his neck relaxing. I pushed until I felt the mouth beneath the pillow droop, one last dull groan fading into silence. And I kept pushing, because I couldn't bear to pull the pillow away to see what I'd done. "You're free," I said. I closed my eyes, saw Donovan as he had been. One last smile, then he faded.

What about those Promises of yours to never leave me? she asked, stammering too much this time. His cruel smirk was as gut-wrenching as his words— Promises are meant to be broken, sweetheart.

She frowned. "I don't understand" "You can't love me. No one does" The sincerity in his voice and expression was heart-wrenching. He truly couldn't fathom anyone caring about him. Not even her.

A Rock, A River, A Tree Hosts to species long since departed, Mark the mastodon. The dinosaur, who left dry tokens Of their sojourn here On our planet floor, Any broad alarm of their of their hastening doom Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages. But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully, Come, you may stand upon my Back and face your distant destiny, But seek no haven in my shadow. I will give you no hiding place down here. You, created only a little lower than The angels, have crouched too long in The bruising darkness, Have lain too long Face down in ignorance. Your mouths spelling words Armed for slaughter. The rock cries out today, you may stand on me, But do not hide your face. Across the wall of the world, A river sings a beautiful song, Come rest here by my side. Each of you a bordered country, Delicate and strangely made proud, Yet thrusting perpetually under siege. Your armed struggles for profit Have left collars of waste upon My shore, currents of debris upon my breast. Yet, today I call you to my riverside, If you will study war no more. Come, clad in peace and I will sing the songs The Creator gave to me when I And the tree and stone were one. Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your brow And when you yet knew you still knew nothing. The river sings and sings on. There is a true yearning to respond to The singing river and the wise rock. So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew, The African and Native American, the Sioux, The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek, The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheikh, The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher, The privileged, the homeless, the teacher. They hear. They all hear The speaking of the tree. Today, the first and last of every tree Speaks to humankind. Come to me, here beside the river. Plant yourself beside me, here beside the river. Each of you, descendant of some passed on Traveller, has been paid for. You, who gave me my first name, You Pawnee, Apache and Seneca, You Cherokee Nation, who rested with me, Then forced on bloody feet, Left me to the employment of other seekers-- Desperate for gain, starving for gold. You, the Turk, the Swede, the German, the Scot... You the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru, Bought, sold, stolen, arriving on a nightmare Praying for a dream. Here, root yourselves beside me. I am the tree planted by the river, Which will not be moved. I, the rock, I the river, I the tree I am yours--your passages have been paid. Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need For this bright morning dawning for you. History, despite its wrenching pain, Cannot be unlived, and if faced with courage, Need not be lived again. Lift up your eyes upon The day breaking for you. Give birth again To the dream. Women, children, men, Take it into the palms of your hands. Mold it into the shape of your most Private need. Sculpt it into The image of your most public self. Lift up your hearts. Each new hour holds new chances For new beginnings. Do not be wedded forever To fear, yoked eternally To brutishness. The horizon leans forward, Offering you space to place new steps of change. Here, on the pulse of this fine day You may have the courage To look up and out upon me, The rock, the river, the tree, your country. No less to Midas than the mendicant. No less to you now than the mastodon then. Here on the pulse of this new day You may have the grace to look up and out And into your sister's eyes, Into your brother's face, your country And say simply Very simply With hope Good morning.

My personal theory is that one of you, me, is always faulty, like a toy purchased without the batteries. It is not until you have had time to go out and buy batteries, to put them in, to turn it on, that you realise it doesn't work the way that you wanted. Doesn't match what you hoped for. It never did. I am a bright, broken thing that he lost the receipt for.

Have you ever had a moment in time when it felt like it moved in slow motion? As if a split second felt like an hour because your mind cannot seem to process in the instant it’s supposed to, and the moment implodes on itself so you can barely breathe, and everything feels like a dream. A slow, heart-wrenching, time-freezing, dream. Well, this was one of those moments for me.

didn’t patronize him. It took me seconds. And when I wrenched him close, when I prepared my killing blow, that one remaining eye met mine, as if looking into a mirror. “I’m glad it was you,” he said, quietly. And I made sure my aim was true as I slid my blade right into his heart.

For me, talking about church in front of a bunch of Christians means approaching a microphone and attempting to explain the most important, complicated, beautiful, and heart-wrenching relationship of my life in thirty minutes or less without yelling or crying or saying any cuss words.

International correspondents with their long dictaphones, and dirty jeans, and five hundred words before whiskey, are slouched over the red velvet chairs, in the VIP section in the front, looking for the Story: the Most Macheteing Deathest, Most Treasury Corruptest, Most Entrail-Eating Civil Warest, Most Crocodile-Grinning Dictatorest, MOst Heart-Wrenching and Genociding Pulitzerest, Most Black Big-Eyed Oxfam Child Starvingest, Most Wild African Savages Having AIDS-Ridden Sexest with Genetically Mutilatedest Girls...The Most Authentic Real Black Africanest story they can find...

Podemos estar numa sala cheia de gente e ainda assim sentirmo-nos sozinhos.

Reunion will come.

And that is a heart-wrenching combination… loving someone you can’t respect.

From the moment I saw you, I thought I would do anything for you, and now I know that’s true.

Paradox is at the heart of the mysteries of witchcraft. I believe that paradox is what allows the conditions for the witch to create magick. By creating a paradox, we essentially overload the processing of reality by breaking the rules. In a way, we’re jamming the system like throwing a wrench into the cogs, where we can then enter in our own codes for when we’re done and the system and its processes of reality resume.

Gideon walked briskly and I hurried to keep up. When he stopped abruptly, turned, and dipped me back in a lavish heated kiss on the crowded sidewalk, I was too stunned to do more than hold on. It was a soul-wrenching melding of our mouths, full of passion and sweet spontaneity that made my heart ache. Applause broke out around us. When he straightened me again, I was breathless and dizzy. “What was that?” I gasped. “A prelude.

What is there, in the mention of Time To Come, that is so quick to wrench at the heart, to inflict a pain in the senses that is like the run of a sword, I wonder. Perhaps we feel our youngness taken from us without the soothe of sliding years, and the pains of age that come to stand unseen beside us and grow more solid as the minutes pass, are with us solid on the instant, and we sense them, but when we try to assess them, they are back again in their places down in Time To Come, ready to meet us coming.

Wracking sobs rip from the innermost chamber of my heart, and I give into them, allowing them to fully take over. Pain lances me on all sides, and I bury my head in my knees, giving in to the heartache. I cry for my parents. For my lost life. For the threat that Addison poses, scaring me in ways it shouldn’t. For a boy I can’t have and shouldn’t want. For the never-ending gut-wrenching hollow ache in my chest and the soul-crushing loneliness I feel.

I have to go, Jenna", he whispered, sounding shaky, like he questioned the decision himself. He released the hold and squatted to retrieve his bag, leaving me to sway in the air, ready to collapse any second, as he walked away forever. And it ate me up inside. Forever. "Evan?" "Yeah?" he answered, turning back as his hand gripped the door. "I do love you. And i never gave you anything less than everything i had to give" A solitary tear managed to break through my defenses. "And i'll always regret that it wasn't enough" "Me, too" And just as he slid out into the hallway, marking the beginning of forever, he quietly added "Because i would've spent my life with you

Kierkegaard was a Christian, though he hated the Danish Church and couldn't accept the way complacent Christians around him behaved. For him, religion was a heart-wrenching option, not a cosy excuse for a song in church.

As a child refugee who grew up in exile, I can tell you that life in exile is by far one of the most heart-wrenching, gruesome and mind-bending things anyone can experience. Twenty years into this journey, I am still coming to terms with it...

I can hear my mom. I can hear her take a deep breath. I hear her pushing words out, and I can almost see her, for a second, the look on her face, her hand pressed to her own heart, the other in a fist. "You can go if you have to go," my mom says, and her voice shakes, but she's solid. She says it again, so I'll know. "You can go if you have to go, okay, baby? Don't wait for me. I love you, you're mine, you'll always be mine, and this is going to be okay, you're safe, baby, you're safe-" ...And after that? There's nothing.

Ariel looked at her then, instead of the sky, instead of the horizon that surely beckoned to him. “Out of a thousand different winds, I think I can resist nine hundred and ninety-nine of them. Now she was the one unable to swallow. “And the last one?” "That one wrenches the beating heart from my chest, the blood from my veins, the marrow from my bones.” Grasping her hand, he brought it up to his face and rubbed it against his cheek. Pain radiated from his pale skin, from his eyes, from his lips when they grazed her knuckles. “You’ve two birds to do your bidding, my fair huntress, but I want you to choose me, to love me above all others, to make the pain in my soul worthwhile… or I would be free of you.

Oh, my father sighs, if only we had a screwdriver that could unscrew wrongheaded ideas; if only we had a hammer to drive home good intentions; if only we had a pipe wrench to tighten hearts in everlasting love; a saw that we could use to make a clean cut with the past!

Tears flood in you your eyes burning your heart scars with my name scratched deep My face is gone my heart betrayed by your lullabies I’m a shadow of a girl inside Hands are touching you nothing takes the place of you Heart wrench, weeps goodbye Lullabies, beautiful and trusting Barely breathing as they break into dust Lonely corners me Sweeps me off my feet Shows me it was better for me Fingertips holding close your grip not as soft Follows me to an empty bed I can’t stop the weakening of my soul my body is dying your tune is holding my mind Let me go see what I do No control No you You whisper your sweet goodbye If it is small it won’t interrupt my sleep But my heart you keep You say it’s for me But who would be happy? Alone left out in the cold

Sad-looking brown eyes, they wrenched his heart like a gut punch. Worse – hell, worse – a bloke could punch him in the head but he’d stay up, and grin through the bloody split lip, intimidating his attacker; but there was no honour in wounds inside, wounds that only you could deal with.

Grief is a heart-wrenchingly painful problem for the brain to solve, and grieving necessitates learning to live in the world with the absence of someone you love deeply, who is ingrained in your understanding of the world. This means that for the brain, your loved one is simultaneously gone and also everlasting, and you are walking through two worlds at the same time. You are navigating your life despite the fact that they have been stolen from you, a premise that makes no sense, and that is both confusing and upsetting.

Memories of last night manifested slowly from the back of her brain, every new detail hammering her heart like a war drum: the flowers, the vodka, the persistent dream-like sensation, the closet, the outline of a stranger, the sex... and, most gut-wrenching of all, the sudden realization that he might still be here.

With a vicious curse, John wrenched the steering wheel and brought the SUV to a sudden halt by the side of the road. He stared ahead, breathing hard, and then lowered his head to the steering wheel. "Fuck." His voice was the merest whisper. He turned his head, eyes bleak. "I can't do this, Suzanne. I can't give you up to them." "You have to." Her heart was cracking open. There was no question of holding back the tears now. "You have no choice." They moved at the same time. She launched herself into his arms at the same moment he opened them to haul her onto his lap. They kissed, violently, hungrily, a meeting of lips and tongue and tears. Her tears. He wasn't crying, but she could feel his muscles tense as rocks beneath her hands. He was holding the back of her head tightly, while eating at her mouth, as if he could fuse them at the lips. His tongue was deep in her mouth. She'd take the taste of him to her grave. "Don't go, goddammit. Stay with me." His voice was thick and gravelly. The words came out between biting kisses. "I. Can't. Stand. To. Let. You. Go.

Reading consists of perusing razor-thin slices of perpetuity, wrenched from the heart of a murdered tree, and infused with the dark blood that swirls within the hidden depths of every writer's soul. It is their combined angst - the author's and the tree's - that we partake of when we immerse ourselves in the pages of a book.

Art, like the Jewish God, wallows in sacrifices. So tear yourself to pieces, mortify your flesh, roll in ashes, smear yourself with filth and spittle, wrench out your heart! You will be alone, your feet will bleed, an infernal disgust will be with you throughout your pilgrimage, what gives joy to others will give none to you, what to them are but pinpricks will cut you to the quick, and you will be lost in the hurricane with only beauty's faint glow visible on the horizon.

Xie Lian’s own heartbreaking screams couldn’t be heard, but he could hear another heart-wrenching wail that seemed to come from the flame. Although it wasn’t him, it felt like he was the one making that sound—its pain was the same as his own. In the end, Xie Lian couldn’t hang on to his sanity. His consciousness had completely shattered, and he was left to blankly gurgle from his throat.

Sick" "I cannot go to school today," Said little Peggy Ann McKay. "I have the measles and the mumps, A gash, a rash and purple bumps. My mouth is wet, my throat is dry, I'm going blind in my right eye. My tonsils are as big as rocks, I've counted sixteen chicken pox And there's one more--that's seventeen, And don't you think my face looks green? My leg is cut--my eyes are blue-- It might be instamatic flu. I cough and sneeze and gasp and choke, I'm sure that my left leg is broke-- My hip hurts when I move my chin, My belly button's caving in, My back is wrenched, my ankle's sprained, My 'pendix pains each time it rains. My nose is cold, my toes are numb. I have a sliver in my thumb. My neck is stiff, my voice is weak, I hardly whisper when I speak. My tongue is filling up my mouth, I think my hair is falling out. My elbow's bent, my spine ain't straight, My temperature is one-o-eight. My brain is shrunk, I cannot hear, There is a hole inside my ear. I have a hangnail, and my heart is--what? What's that? What's that you say? You say today is. . .Saturday? G'bye, I'm going out to play!

There must be a million different ways to ask, “Why don’t you love me anymore?” Is there any hope that a narcissistic partner will say: “I’m sorry. I want to do better, and, I will.” Well, this is a story where Jehovah asks that heart-wrenching question to His narcissistic wife, Judah. “Why don’t you love me anymore?” Lamentations is a chronicle of a family gone bad, and all its gory details. Lamentations, Intro pg

Sunlight’s warmth on my face awoke me in the morning. I didn’t remember falling asleep or how I came to be in my own bed. But I did recall nightmares. Awful nightmares featuring Gwen. I turned my head to stare out an open window where the sun shone in full splendor, bleaching a clear sky enough to tell it was going to be a beautiful spring day. The air smelled of rain from overnight showers, mixed with a strong floral scent. A large lilac bush outside was responsible for the perfume. I breathed in the clean and fragrant air. My eyelids fluttered, blinking at a stunning reflection of daylight off the glass. The blue beyond gave an exquisite glow to my room. All of it was an invitation to bask in a new day—an invitation I declined because none of that mattered to me. The world might as well come to a dark and ugly end. I saw no reason for beauty or life to go on so long as Gwen was lost. Rolling over in bed, I felt the vice grips wrench at my heart again as I cried myself back to sleep. from Phantom's Veil

Wilco and I would find a body, a young soldier, nothing more than a boy or girl really, and I’d see the marriage that would never be, the kids and grandkids that would never happen, a family tree altered forever. I grew to understand that there was no closure for the heart-wrenching grief felt by those who have loved and lost. They’d hold their sorrow for a lifetime of milestones that would never be. And that realization slowly ate away at me.

Their other hands flipped up, palm to palm, and Merik’s only consolation as he and the domna slid into the next movement of the dance was that her chest heaved as much as his did. Merik’s right hand gripped the girl’s, and with no small amount of ferocity, he twisted her around to face the same direction as he before wrenching her to his chest. His hand slipped over her stomach, fingers splayed. Her left hand snapped up—and he caught it. Then the real difficulty of the dance began. The skipping of feet in a tide of alternating hops and directions. The writhing of hips countered the movement of their feet like a ship upon stormy seas. The trickling tap of Merik’s fingers down the girl’s arms, her ribs, her waist—like the rain against a ship’s sail. On and on, they moved to the music until they were both sweating. Until they hit the third movement. Merik flipped the girl around to face him once more. Her chest slammed against his—and by the Wells, she was tall. He hadn’t realized just how tall until this precise moment when her eyes stared evenly into his and her panting breaths fought against his own. Then the music swelled once more, her legs twined into his, and he forgot all about who she was or what she was or why he had begun the dance in the first place. Because those eyes of hers were the color of the sky after a storm. Without realizing what he did, his Windwitchery flickered to life. Something in this moment awoke the wilder parts of his power. Each heave of his lungs sent a breeze swirling in. It lifted the girl’s hair. Kicked at her wild skirts. She showed no reaction at all. In fact, she didn’t break her gaze from Merik, and there was a fierceness there—a challenge that sent Merik further beneath the waves of the dance. Of the music. Of those eyes. Each leap backward of her body—a movement like the tidal tug of the sea against the river—led to a violent slam as Merik snatched her back against him. For each leap and slam, the girl added in an extra flourishing beat with her heels. Another challenge that Merik had never seen, yet rose to, rose above. Wind crashed around them like a growing hurricane, and he and this girl were at its eye. And the girl never looked away. Never backed down. Not even when the final measures of the song began—that abrupt shift from the sliding cyclone of strings to the simple plucking bass that follows every storm—did Merik soften how hard he pushed himself against this girl. Figuratively. Literally. Their bodies were flush, their hearts hammering against each other’s rib cages. He walked his fingers down her back, over her shoulders, and out to her hands. The last drops of a harsh rain. The music slowed. She pulled away first, slinking back the required four steps. Merik didn’t look away from her face, and he only distantly noticed that, as she pulled away, his Windwitchery seemed to settle. Her skirts stopped swishing, her hair fluttered back to her shoulders. Then he slid backward four steps and folded his arms over his chest. The music came to a close. And Merik returned to his brain with a sickening certainty that Noden and His Hagfishes laughed at him from the bottom of the sea.

There’s a Chinese word that means “soul sister,” and that is the word I would use to address you in my heart. Listen to me, soul sister: Fate or luck or destiny already put you through hell once. Please don’t make it worse by condemning yourself. There is no choice that would have left you feeling no guilt. Every time I watch Adam struggle to speak, every time I see another child laugh and point at him, every time I watch his face fall as he realizes he is not going to be treated like the other kids, I feel wrenched by guilt just as you did when you heard my story. Life is hard. We make the best choices we can. Condemnation, whether it comes from around you or inside you, only robs the world of another dram of compassion. God knows, we need all the compassion we can get. If you promise to try to forgive yourself, I’ll try to forgive myself as well. I think, in my heart of hearts, that there is nothing for either one of us to forgive.

I’ve experienced a lot in my life. I’ve been in bloody battles. I’ve been with friends who were killed. I’ve seen terrible things done to man and beast, but I’ve never felt afraid. “I’ve been troubled. I’ve also been uneasy and tense. I’ve been in mortal danger, but I’ve never experienced that cold-sweat kind of fear, the kind that eats a man alive, brings him to his knees, and makes him beg. In fact, I always prided myself on being above that. I thought that I’d suffered through and seen so much that nothing could scare me anymore. That nothing could bring me to that point.” He brushed a brief kiss on my neck. “I was wrong. When I found you and saw that…that thing trying to kill you, I was enraged. I destroyed it without hesitation.” “The Kappa were terrifying.” “I wasn’t afraid of the Kappa. I was afraid…that I’d lost you. I felt an unquenchable, gut-wrenching, corrosive fear. It was unbearable. The most agonizing part was realizing that I didn’t want to live anymore if you were gone and knowing there was nothing I could do about it. I would be stuck forever in this miserable existence without you.” I heard every word he said. It pierced through me, and I knew I would have felt the same way if our places had been reversed. But I told myself that his heartfelt declaration was just a reflection of the tense pressure we’d been under. The little love plant in my heart was grasping at each wispy thought, absorbing his words like sweet drops of morning dew. But I chastised my heart and shoved the tender expressions of affection elsewhere, determined to be unaffected by them. “It’s okay. I’m here. You don’t need to be afraid. I’m still around to help you break the curse,” I said, trying to keep my voice even. He squeezed my waist and whispered softly, “Breaking the curse didn’t matter to me anymore. I thought you were dying.” I swallowed and tried to be flippant. “Well, I didn’t. See? I lived to argue with you another day. Now don’t you wish it had gone the other way?” His arms stiffened and he threatened, “Don’t ever say that, Kells.” After a second of hesitation, I said, “Well, thank you. Thank you for saving me.” He pulled me close, and I allowed myself a minute, just a minute, to lie back against him and enjoy it. I had almost died after all. I deserved some kind of reward for surviving, didn’t I?

These things matter to me, Daniel, says the man with six days to live. They are sitting on the porch in the last light. These things matter to me, son. The way the hawks huddle their shoulders angrily against hissing snow. Wrens whirring in the bare bones of bushes in winter. The way swallows and swifts veer and whirl and swim and slice and carve and curve and swerve. The way that frozen dew outlines every blade of grass. Salmonberries thimbleberries cloudberries snowberries elderberries salalberries gooseberries. My children learning to read. My wife's voice velvet in my ear at night in the dark under the covers. Her hair in my nose as we slept curled like spoons. The sinuous pace of rivers and minks and cats. Fresh bread with too much butter. My children's hands when they cup my face in their hands. Toys. Exuberance. Mowing the lawn. Tiny wrenches and screwdrivers. Tears of sorrow, which are the salt sea of the heart. Sleep in every form from doze to bone-weary. Pay stubs. Trains. The shivering ache of a saxophone and the yearning of a soprano. Folding laundry hot from the dryer. A spotless kitchen floor. The sound of bagpipes. The way horses smell in spring. Red wines. Furnaces. Stone walls. Sweat. Postcards on which the sender has written so much that he or she can barely squeeze in the signature. Opera on the radio. Bathrobes, back rubs. Potatoes. Mink oil on boots. The bands at wedding receptions. Box-elder bugs. The postman's grin. Linen table napkins. Tent flaps. The green sifting powdery snow of cedar pollen on my porch every year. Raccoons. The way a heron labors through the sky with such a vast elderly dignity. The cheerful ears of dogs. Smoked fish and the smokehouses where fish are smoked. The way barbers sweep up circles of hair after a haircut. Handkerchiefs. Poems read aloud by poets. Cigar-scissors. Book marginalia written with the lightest possible pencil as if the reader is whispering to the writer. People who keep dead languages alive. Fresh-mown lawns. First-basemen's mitts. Dish-racks. My wife's breasts. Lumber. Newspapers folded under arms. Hats. The way my children smelled after their baths when they were little. Sneakers. The way my father's face shone right after he shaved. Pants that fit. Soap half gone. Weeds forcing their way through sidewalks. Worms. The sound of ice shaken in drinks. Nutcrackers. Boxing matches. Diapers. Rain in every form from mist to sluice. The sound of my daughters typing their papers for school. My wife's eyes, as blue and green and gray as the sea. The sea, as blue and green and gray as her eyes. Her eyes. Her.

A flavor...what do you think, old madman, what do you think? That if you find a lost flavor you will eradicate decades of misunderstanding and find yourself confronted with a truth that might redeem the aridity of your heart of stone? And yet he had in his possession all the arms that make for the best duelist: a fine way with his pen, nerve, panache. His prose...his prose was nectar, ambrosia, a hymn to language: it was gut-wrenching, and it hardly mattered whether he was talking about food or something else, it would be a mistake to think that the topic mattered: it was the way he phrased it that was so brilliant.

The question is, How can you see the divine intersection of all that shapes and marks your existence, whether it be the heart-wrenching tragedies that wound you or the ecstasy of a great delight that brings laughter to your soul? How can you meet God in all your appointments and your disappointments? How can you recognize that he has a purpose, even when all around seems senseless, if not hopeless? Will there be a last gasp that whispers in one word a conclusion that redefines everything? If so, is it possible to borrow from that word to enrich the now? Can we really see, even a little, the patterned convergence of everything into some grand design?

People tend to mistake reading and writing with living passively. Words are actions. Language ignites thoughts and channels emotions. Each sentence written by a literary master is an act of rebellion against the intolerable inadequacies and the outrageous injustices of life. Contemplative reading and writing creates channels of empathy and decreases our sense of aloneness. Many liberating social movements trace their origins back to a heart-wrenching piece of literature.

Parenting, in short, is a dance of the generations. Whatever affected one generation but has not been fully resolved will be passed on to the next. Lance Morrow, a journalist and writer, succinctly expressed the multigenerational nature of stress in his book Heart, a wrenching and beautiful account of his encounters with mortality, thrust upon him by near-fatal heart disease: “The generations are boxes within boxes: Inside my mother’s violence you find another box, which contains my grandfather’s violence, and inside that box (I suspect but do not know), you would find another box with some such black, secret energy — stories within stories, receding in time.” Blame becomes a meaningless concept if one understands how family history stretches back through the generations. “Recognition of this quickly dispels any disposition to see the parent as villain,” wrote John Bowlby, the British psychiatrist whose work threw scientific light on the decisive importance of attachment in infancy and childhood. Whom do we accuse?

We’ve made a beautiful mess of things lately, haven’t we?” He flashed that sexycrooked smile at me, which made my heart flutter.I nodded, agreeing with him.“But it’s our crazy story,” he stated. “It’s been ours, only ours. There’s been a lot of romance, sometimes way too much drama…” He raised his eyebrows and smirked. “Verymemorable comedy, a few pulse-racing action scenes...”He shrugged and sighed.“We’ve also had our fair share of suspense and raw terror, and unfortunately gut-wrenching heartache too.“I think we’ve covered it all, everything except for being captured by aliens!”I couldn’t help but chuckle.“But through it all you’ve loved me, unconditionally, and I know how fortunate I amto have your love.“I don’t want to live without you, not for one more minute, not for one more second.I want to spend the rest of my days living my story with you… only you.”He walked to the edge and jumped off the table, landing in front of me.“It is here that I fell in love with you,” Ryan whispered, taking my hands in his.He dropped down on one knee.“And as fate would have it, it is here that I humbly kneel before you and ask you to be my wife.“Taryn Lynn Mitchell, will you marry me?” His glistening eyes, so blue, so full of emotion, gazed up at me… waiting patiently for my reply.Only one word rang through my heart.“Yes!” I nodded emphatically. My salted tears dripped across my lips. I said yes over and over again.

I like to think of myself as a fairly rational person. I believe in cause and effect and that's about it. But sometimes I have to wonder about all the various, seemingly unrelated things that conspire to form an improbable chain of events culminating in some awful, heart-wrenching conclusion. If someone is in control and there really is such a thing as fate or destiny or some divine plan, I can't help but think whoever or whatever is behind it just doesn't seem very nice. I don't relish the concept of non-existence, but I do find that a more comforting prospect than spending eternity in the presence of the thing behind the curtain.

The faeries took no notice of my cry. No doubt they were used to lost travelers screaming for help. One of them grabbed me by my cloak and wrenched me painfully back and forth, like an animal wishing to drag me to the ground. But I did not need to call for Wendell again. He stepped out from behind a tree---or perhaps from the tree; I didn't see. He reached a hand out and snapped the neck of the faerie gripping me, which I had not expected, and I staggered back from both him and the crumpling body. He saw the mark on my neck, and his entire face darkened with something that seemed to go beyond fury and made him look like some feral creature. The faeries scattered like leaves, though they were too intrigued and too stupid to run. "Are you hurt?" "No." I don't know how I made myself speak. I have seen Wendell angry before, but this was something that seemed to surge through him like lightning, threatening to burn everything in its path. He moved his hand, and a hideous tree rose up from the snow, dark and terrifying, all thorns and knife-sharp branches. The boughs darted out, and he skewered the faeries on them. Once they were all immobilized, held squirming and screaming above the ground, he moved from one to the other, tearing them apart with perfect, calm brutality. Limbs, hearts, other organs I did not recognize scattered the snow. He did not rush, but killed them methodically while the others howled and writhed.

My friend tugged her husband’s arm with both hands. She used all her strength, and I who knew her thoroughly felt that if she could she would have wrenched it from his body, crossed the room holding it high above her head, blood dripping in her train, and she would have used it as a club or a donkey’s jawbone to crush Marcello’s face with a solid blow. Ah yes, she would have done it, and at the idea my heart pounded furiously, my throat became dry. Then she would have dug out the eyes of both men, she would have torn the flesh from the bones of their faces, she would have bitten them. Yes, yes, I felt that I wanted that, I wanted it to happen. An end of love and of that intolerable celebration, no embraces in a bed in Amalfi. Immediately shatter everything and every person in the neighborhood, tear them to pieces, Lila and I, go and live far away, lightheartedly descending together all the steps of humiliation, alone, in unknown cities. It seemed to me the just conclusion to that day. If nothing could save us, not money, not a male body, and not even studying, we might as well destroy everything immediately.

God saw Hansen tighten his chokehold on Day and he could see his lover fighting to breathe. Day’s ears and neck were bright red. His lips were turning a darker color as his body was deprived of oxygen. Hansen pressed the barrel in deeper and yelled. “Two minutes and fifteen seconds before I get to zero and I provide the great state of Georgia the luxury of one less narc.” God’s mind exploded at the thought of not having Day in a world he lived in. He looked into his partner’s glistening eyes and saw he was turning blue and possibly getting ready to faint. Day was still looking at him, looking into God’s green eyes. No, no, no! He’s saying good-bye. God closed his eyes and released a loud, gut-wrenching growl cutting off the SWAT leader’s negotiations. “Godfrey, get yourself under control,” his captain said while grabbing for him. God jerked himself away from the hold and stepped forward, his angry eyes boring into Hansen’s dark ones. Hansen stared at him as if God was crazy. Little did he know God was at that moment. “Godfrey, get back here and stand down. That’s an order, Detective!” his captain barked. God’s large hands clenched at his sides fighting not to pull out his weapons. He ground his teeth together so hard his jaw ached. “Do you have any idea of the shit storm you’re about to bring down on your life,” God spoke with a menacing snarl while his large frame shook with fury. “In your arms you hold the only thing in this world that means anything to me. The man that you are pointing a gun at is my only purpose for living. You are threating to kill the only person in this world that gives a fuck about me.” God took two more steps forward and was vaguely aware of the complete silence surrounding him. Hansen’s finger hovered shakily over the trigger as he took two large steps back with Day still tight against his chest. God growled again and he saw a shade of fear ghost over Hansen’s sweaty face. “If you kill that man, I swear on everything that is holy, I will track you to the ends of the earth, killing and destroying any and everything you hold dear. I will take everything from you and leave you alive to suffer through it. I will bestow upon you the same misery that you have given to me.” Hansen shook his head and inched closer to the door behind him. “Stay back,” he yelled again but this time the demand lacked the courage and venom he exhibited before. “You kill that man, and you’ll have no idea of the monster you will create. Have you ever met a man with no heart…no conscience…no soul…no purpose?” God rumbled, his voice at least twelve octaves lower than the already deep baritone. God yanked his Desert Eagle from his holster in a flash and cocked the hammer back chambering the first round. Hansen stumbled back again, his eyes gone wide with fear. God’s entire body instinctually flexed every muscle in his body and it felt like the large vein in his neck might rupture. His body burned like he had a sweltering fever and he knew his wrath had him a brilliant shade of red. “I’m asking you a goddamn question, Hansen! No soul! No conscience! I’m asking you have you ever met the devil!” God’s thunderous voice practically rattled the glass in the hanger. “If you kill the man I love, you better make your peace with God, because I’m gonna meet your soul in hell.” His voice boomed.

Despite her grave concern over her uncle, Elizabeth chuckled inwardly as she introduced Duncan. Everyone exhibited the same stunned reaction she had when she’d discovered Ian Thornton’s uncle was a cleric. Her uncle gaped, Alex stared, and the dowager duchess glowered at Ian in disbelief as Duncan politely bent over her hand. “Am I to understand, Kensington,” she demanded of Ian, “that you are related to a man of the cloth?” Ian’s reply was a mocking bow and a sardonic lift of his brows, but Duncan, who was desperate to put a light face on things, tried ineffectually to joke about it. “The news always has a peculiar effect on people,” he told her. “One needn’t think too hard to discover why,” she replied gruffly. Ian opened his mouth to give the outrageous harridan a richly deserved setdown, but Julius Cameron’s presence was worrying him; a moment later it was infuriating him as the man strode to the center of the room and said in a bluff voice, “Now that we’re all together, there’s no reason to dissemble. Bentner, being champagne. Elizabeth, congratulations. I trust you’ll conduct yourself properly as a wife and not spend the man out of what money he has left.” In the deafening silence no one moved, except it seemed to Elizabeth that the entire room was beginning to move. “What?” she breathed finally. “You’re betrothed.” Anger rose up like flames licking inside her, spreading up her limbs. “Really?” she said in a voice of deadly calm, thinking of Sir Francis and John Marchman. “To whom?” To her disbelief, Uncle Julius turned expectantly to Ian, who was looking at him with murder in his eyes. “To me,” he clipped, his icy gaze still on her uncle. “It’s final,” Julius warned her, and then, because he assumed she’d be as pleased as he to discover she had monetary value, he added, “He paid a fortune for the privilege. I didn’t have to give him a shilling.” Elizabeth, who had no idea the two men had ever met before, looked at Ian in wild confusion and mounting anger. “What does he mean?” she demanded in a strangled whisper. “He means,” Ian began tautly, unable to believe all his romantic plans were being demolished, “we are betrothed. The papers have been signed.” “Why, you-you arrogant, overbearing”-She choked back the tears that were cutting off her voice-“you couldn’t even be bothered to ask me?” Dragging his gaze from his prey with an effort, Ian turned to Elizabeth, and his heart wrenched at the way she was looking at him. “Why don’t we go somewhere private where we can discuss this?” he said gently, walking forward and taking her elbow. She twisted free, scorched by his touch. “Oh, no!” she exploded, her body shaking with wrath. “Why guard my sensibilities now? You’ve made a laughingstock of me since the day I set eyes on you. Why stop now?

Gabriel was stunned by Pandora's compassion for a man who had caused her such harm. He shook his head in wonder as he stared into her eyes, as dark as cloud-shadow on a field of blue gentian. "That doesn't excuse him," he said thickly. Gabriel would never forgive the bastard. He wanted vengeance. He wanted to strip the flesh from the bastard's corpse and hang up his skeleton to scare the crows. His fingers contained a subtle tremor as he reached out to trace the fine edges of her face, the sweet, high plane of her cheekbone. "What did the doctor say about your ear? What treatment did he give?" "It wasn't necessary to send for a doctor." A fresh flood of rage seared his veins as the words sunk in. "Your eardrum was ruptured. What in God's name do you mean a doctor wasn't necessary?" Although he had managed to keep from shouting, his tone was far from civilized. Pandora quivered uneasily and began to inch backward. He realized the last thing she needed from him was a display of temper. Battening down his rampaging emotions, he used one arm to bring her back against his side. "No, don't pull away. Tell me what happened." "The fever had passed," she said after a long hesitation, "and... well, you have to understand my family. If something unpleasant happened, they ignored it, and it was never spoken of again. Especially if it was something my father had done when he'd lost his temper. After a while, no one remembered what had really happened. Our family history was erased and rewritten a thousand times. But ignoring the problem with my ear didn't make it disappear. Whenever I couldn't hear something, or when I stumbled or fell, it made my mother very angry. She said I'd been clumsy because I was hasty or careless. She wouldn't admit there was anything wrong with my hearing. She refused even to discuss it." Pandora stopped, chewing thoughtfully on her lower lip. "I'm making her sound terrible, and she wasn't. There were times when she was affectionate and kind. No one's all one way or the other." She flicked a glance of dread in his direction. "Oh God, you're not going to pity me, are you?" "No." Gabriel was anguished for her sake, and outraged. It was all he could do to keep his voice calm. "Is that why you keep it a secret? You're afraid of being pitied?" "That, and... it's a shame I'd rather keep private." "Not your shame. Your father's." "It feels like mine. Had I not been eavesdropping, my father wouldn't have disciplined me." "You were a child," he said brusquely. "What he did wasn't bloody discipline, it was brutality." To his surprise, a touch of unrepentant amusement curved Pandora's lips, and she looked distinctly pleased with herself. "It didn't even stop my eavesdropping. I just learned to be more clever about it." She was so endearing, so indomitable, that Gabriel was wrenched with a feeling he'd never known before, as if all the extremes of joy and despair had been compressed into some new emotion that threatened to crack the walls of his heart.

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.

He had panicked. Tessier cursed his own stupidity. He should have remained in the column where he would have been protected. Instead, he saw an enemy coming for him like a revenant rising from a dark tomb, and had run first instead of thinking. Except this was no longer a French stronghold. The forts had all been captured and surrendered and the glorious revolutionary soldiers had been defeated. If the supply ships had made it through the blockade, Vaubois might still have been able to defend the city, but with no food, limited ammunition and disease rampant, defeat was inevitable. Tessier remembered the gut-wrenching escape from Fort Dominance where villagers spat at him and threw rocks. One man had brought out a pistol and the ball had slapped the air as it passed his face. Another man had chased him with an ancient boar spear and Tessier, exhausted from the fight, had jumped into the water. He had nearly drowned in that cold grey sea, only just managing to cling to a rock whilst the enemy searched the shoreline. The British warship was anchored outside the village, and although Tessier could see men on-board, no one had spotted him. Hours passed by. Then, when he considered it was clear, he swam ashore to hide in the malodorous marshland outside Mġarr. His body shivered violently and his skin was blue and wrinkled like withered fruit, but in the night-dark light he lived. He had crept to a fishing boat, donned a salt-stained boat cloak and rowed out to Malta's monochrome coastline. He had somehow managed to escape capture by abandoning the boat to swim into the harbour. From there it had been easy to climb the city walls and to safety. He had written his account of the marines ambush, the fort’s surrender and his opinion of Chasse, to Vaubois. Tessier wanted Gamble cashiered and Vaubois promised to take his complaint to the senior British officer when he was in a position to. Weeks went past. Months. A burning hunger for revenge changed to a desire for provisions. And until today, Tessier reflected that he would never see Gamble again. Sunlight twinkled on the water, dazzling like a million diamonds scattered across its surface. Tessier loaded his pistol in the shadows where the air was still and cool. He had two of them, a knife and a sword, and, although starving and crippled with stomach cramps, he would fight as he had always done so: with everything he had.

There was a moment of stillness before something in him seemed to snap. she pounced on her with a sort of tigerish delight, and clamped his mouth over hers. She squeaked in surprise, wriggling in his hold, but his arms clamped around her easily, his muscles as solid as oak. He kissed her possessively, almost roughly at first, gentling by voluptuous degrees. Her body surrendered without giving her brain a chance to object, applying itself eagerly to every available inch of him. The luxurious male heat and hardness of him satisfied a wrenching hunger she hadn't been aware of until now. It also gave her the close-but-not-close-enough feeling she remembered from before. Oh, how confusing this was, this maddening need to crawl inside his clothes, practically inside his skin. She let her fingertips wander over his cheeks and jaw, the neat shape of his ears, the taut smoothness of his neck. When he offered no objection, she sank her fingers into his thick, vibrant hair and sighed in satisfaction. He searched for her tongue, teased and stroked intimately until her heart pounded in a tumult of longing, and a sweet, empty ache spread all through her. Dimly aware that she was going to lose control, that she was on the verge of swooning, or assaulting him again, she managed to break the kiss and turn her face away with a gasp. "Don't," she said weakly. His lips grazed along her jawline, his breath rushing unsteadily against her skin. "Why? Are you still worried about Australian pox?" Slowly it registered that they were no longer standing. Gabriel was sitting on the ground with his back against the grass-covered mound, and- heaven help her- she was in his lap. She glanced around them in bewilderment. How had this happened? "No," she said, bewildered and perturbed, "but I just remembered that you said I kissed like a pirate." Gabriel looked blank for a moment. "Oh, that. That was a compliment." Pandora scowled. "It would only be a compliment if I had a beard and a peg leg." Setting his mouth sternly against a faint quiver, Gabriel smoothed her hair tenderly. "Forgive my poor choice of words. What I meant to convey was that I found your enthusiasm charming." "Did you?" Pandora turned crimson. Dropping her head to his shoulder, she said in a muffled voice, "Because I've worried for the past three days that I did it wrong." "No, never, darling." Gabriel sat up a little and cradled her more closely to him. Nuzzling her cheek, he whispered, "Isn't it obvious that everything about you gives me pleasure?" "Even when I plunder and pillage like a Viking?" she asked darkly. "Pirate. Yes, especially then." His lips moved softly along the rim of her right ear. "My sweet, there are altogether too many respectable ladies in the world. The supply has far exceeded the demand. But there's an appalling shortage of attractive pirates, and you do seem to have a gift for plundering and ravishing. I think we've found you're true calling." "You're mocking me," Pandora said in resignation, and jumped a little as she felt his teeth gently nip her earlobe. Smiling, Gabriel took her head between his hands and looked into her eyes. "Your kiss thrilled me beyond imagining," he whispered. "Every night for the rest of my life, I'll dream of the afternoon in the holloway, when I was waylaid by a dark-haired beauty who devastated me with the heat of a thousand troubled stars, and left my soul in cinders. Even when I'm an old man, and my brain has fallen to wrack and ruin, I'll remember the sweet fire of your lips under mine, and I'll say to myself, 'Now, that was a kiss.'" Silver-tongued devil, Pandora thought, unable to hold back a crooked grin. Only yesterday, she'd heard Gabriel affectionately mock his father, who was fond of expressing himself with elaborate, almost labyrinthine turns of phrase. Clearly the gift had been passed down to his son.