I Don't Usually Cry Quotes

Peeta, how come I never know when you're having a nightmare?” I say. “I don't know. I don't think I cry out or thrash around or anything. I just come to, paralyzed with terror,” he says. “You should wake me,” I say, thinking about how I can interrupt his sleep two or three times on a bad night. About how long it can take to calm me down. “It's not necessary. My nightmares are usually about losing you,” he says. “I'm okay once I realize you're here.

That is another chamber of my heart that shows no electrical activity - the chamber that used to flicker into life when I saw a film that moved me, or read a book that inspired me, or listened to music that made me want to cry. I closed that chamber myself, for all the usual reasons. And now I seem to have made a pact with some philistine devil: if I don't attempt to re-open it, I will be allowed just enough energy and optimism to get through a working day without wanting to hang myself.

I shouldn't have lost my temper that way. It just pricks his pride, makes him dig in his heels." "So why did you?" I asked, genuinely curious. It was rare for Nikolai's emotions to get the best of him. "I don't know," he said, shredding the leaf. "You got angry. I got angry. The room was too damn hot." "I don't think that's it." "Indigestion?" he offered. "It's because you actually care about what happens to this country," I said. "The throne is just a prize to Vasily, something he wants to squabble over like a favorite toy, You're not like that. You'll make a good king." Nikolai froze. "I…" For once, words seemed to have deserted him. Then a crooked, embarrassed smile crept across his face. It was a far cry from his usual self-assured grin. "Thank you," he said. I sighed as we resumed our pace. "You're going to be insufferable now, aren't you?" Nikolai laughed. "I'm already insufferable.

You only play Pistol Annies when you're pissed, usually at me. I know your fake laugh from your real one. You have a great laugh, by the way. I know which shirts are your favorites, because they're the first ones you wear after you've done your laundry. You lick your bottom lip when you're trying to concentrate on your textbook reading. You cry during those commercials with the absurd animals when you think no one is looking. No, I don't know you at all.

We love men because they can never fake orgasms, even if they wanted to. Because they write poems, songs, and books in our honor. Because they never understand us, but they never give up. Because they can see beauty in women when women have long ceased to see any beauty in themselves. Because they come from little boys. Because they can churn out long, intricate, Machiavellian, or incredibly complex mathematics and physics equations, but they can be comparably clueless when it comes to women. Because they are incredible lovers and never rest until we’re happy. Because they elevate sports to religion. Because they’re never afraid of the dark. Because they don’t care how they look or if they age. Because they persevere in making and repairing things beyond their abilities, with the naïve self-assurance of the teenage boy who knew everything. Because they never wear or dream of wearing high heels. Because they’re always ready for sex. Because they’re like pomegranates: lots of inedible parts, but the juicy seeds are incredibly tasty and succulent and usually exceed your expectations. Because they’re afraid to go bald. Because you always know what they think and they always mean what they say. Because they love machines, tools, and implements with the same ferocity women love jewelry. Because they go to great lengths to hide, unsuccessfully, that they are frail and human. Because they either speak too much or not at all to that end. Because they always finish the food on their plate. Because they are brave in front of insects and mice. Because a well-spoken four-year old girl can reduce them to silence, and a beautiful 25-year old can reduce them to slobbering idiots. Because they want to be either omnivorous or ascetic, warriors or lovers, artists or generals, but nothing in-between. Because for them there’s no such thing as too much adrenaline. Because when all is said and done, they can’t live without us, no matter how hard they try. Because they’re truly as simple as they claim to be. Because they love extremes and when they go to extremes, we’re there to catch them. Because they are tender they when they cry, and how seldom they do it. Because what they lack in talk, they tend to make up for in action. Because they make excellent companions when driving through rough neighborhoods or walking past dark alleys. Because they really love their moms, and they remind us of our dads. Because they never care what their horoscope, their mother-in-law, nor the neighbors say. Because they don’t lie about their age, their weight, or their clothing size. Because they have an uncanny ability to look deeply into our eyes and connect with our heart, even when we don’t want them to. Because when we say “I love you” they ask for an explanation.

A man who seeks only the light, while shirking his responsibilities, will never find illumination. And one who keep his eyes fixed upon the sun ends up blind..." "It doesn't matter what others think -because that's what they will think, in any case. So, relax. Let the universe move about. Discover the joy of surprising yourself." "The master says: “Make use of every blessing that God gave you today. A blessing cannot be saved. There is no bank where we can deposit blessings received, to use them when we see fit. If you do not use them, they will be irretrievably lost. God knows that we are creative artists when it comes to our lives. On one day, he gives us clay for sculpting, on another, brushes and canvas, or a pen. But we can never use clay on our canvas, nor pens in sculpture. Each day has its own miracle. Accept the blessings, work, and create your minor works of art today. Tomorrow you will receive others.” “You are together because a forest is always stronger than a solitary tree,” the master answered. "The forest conserves humidity, resists the hurricane and helps the soil to be fertile. But what makes a tree strong is its roots. And the roots of a plant cannot help another plant to grow. To be joined together in the same purpose is to allow each person to grow in his own fashion, and that is the path of those who wish to commune with God.” “If you must cry, cry like a child. You were once a child, and one of the first things you learned in life was to cry, because crying is a part of life. Never forget that you are free, and that to show your emotions is not shameful. Scream, sob loudly, make as much noise as you like. Because that is how children cry, and they know the fastest way to put their hearts at ease. Have you ever noticed how children stop crying? They stop because something distracts them. Something calls them to the next adventure. Children stop crying very quickly. And that's how it will be for you. But only if you can cry as children do.” “If you are traveling the road of your dreams, be committed to it. Do not leave an open door to be used as an excuse such as, 'Well, this isn't exactly what I wanted. ' Therein are contained the seeds of defeat. “Walk your path. Even if your steps have to be uncertain, even if you know that you could be doing it better. If you accept your possibilities in the present, there is no doubt that you will improve in the future. But if you deny that you have limitations, you will never be rid of them. “Confront your path with courage, and don't be afraid of the criticism of others. And, above all, don't allow yourself to become paralyzed by self-criticism. “God will be with you on your sleepless nights, and will dry your tears with His love. God is for the valiant.” "Certain things in life simply have to be experienced -and never explained. Love is such a thing." "There is a moment in every day when it is difficult to see clearly: evening time. Light and darkness blend, and nothing is completely clear nor completely dark." "But it's not important what we think, or what we do or what we believe in: each of us will die one day. Better to do as the old Yaqui Indians did: regard death as an advisor. Always ask: 'Since I'm going to die, what should I be doing now?'” "When we follow our dreams, we may give the impression to others that we are miserable and unhappy. But what others think is not important. What is important is the joy in our heart.” “There is a work of art each of us was destined to create. That is the central point of our life, and -no matter how we try to deceive ourselves -we know how important it is to our happiness. Usually, that work of art is covered by years of fears, guilt and indecision. But, if we decide to remove those things that do not belong, if we have no doubt as to our capability, we are capable of going forward with the mission that is our destiny. That is the only way to live with honor.

I’ll get you another red dress.” She wiped the backs of her hands over her cheeks at the snarl. “You will?” He glared down at her. “Yes. But you must not cry. I won’t get you any dresses if you cry.” “I don’t normally cry.” “You will never do it.” “Well, I’m afraid I may sometimes,” she said apologetically. “Women need to cry.” Lines formed between his brows. “How many times in a year?”“Maybe five or six,” she said, thinking about it. “But really, it’s usually a very small cry and not in front of anyone At that, his scowl grew even darker. “I will permit you to cry four times a year. And you will do it when I am here.

It’s loneliness. Even though I’m surrounded by loved ones who care about me and want only the best, it’s possible they try to help only because they feel the same thing—loneliness—and why, in a gesture of solidarity, you’ll find the phrase “I am useful, even if alone” carved in stone. Though the brain says all is well, the soul is lost, confused, doesn’t know why life is being unfair to it. But we still wake up in the morning and take care of our children, our husband, our lover, our boss, our employees, our students, those dozens of people who make an ordinary day come to life. And we often have a smile on our face and a word of encouragement, because no one can explain their loneliness to others, especially when we are always in good company. But this loneliness exists and eats away at the best parts of us because we must use all our energy to appear happy, even though we will never be able to deceive ourselves. But we insist, every morning, on showing only the rose that blooms, and keep the thorny stem that hurts us and makes us bleed hidden within. Even knowing that everyone, at some point, has felt completely and utterly alone, it is humiliating to say, “I’m lonely, I need company. I need to kill this monster that everyone thinks is as imaginary as a fairy-tale dragon, but isn’t.” But it isn’t. I wait for a pure and virtuous knight, in all his glory, to come defeat it and push it into the abyss for good, but that knight never comes. Yet we cannot lose hope. We start doing things we don’t usually do, daring to go beyond what is fair and necessary. The thorns inside us will grow larger and more overwhelming, yet we cannot give up halfway. Everyone is looking to see the final outcome, as though life were a huge game of chess. We pretend it doesn’t matter whether we win or lose, the important thing is to compete. We root for our true feelings to stay opaque and hidden, but then … … instead of looking for companionship, we isolate ourselves even more in order to lick our wounds in silence. Or we go out for dinner or lunch with people who have nothing to do with our lives and spend the whole time talking about things that are of no importance. We even manage to distract ourselves for a while with drink and celebration, but the dragon lives on until the people who are close to us see that something is wrong and begin to blame themselves for not making us happy. They ask what the problem is. We say that everything is fine, but it’s not … Everything is awful. Please, leave me alone, because I have no more tears to cry or heart left to suffer. All I have is insomnia, emptiness, and apathy, and, if you just ask yourselves, you’re feeling the same thing. But they insist that this is just a rough patch or depression because they are afraid to use the real and damning word: loneliness. Meanwhile, we continue to relentlessly pursue the only thing that would make us happy: the knight in shining armor who will slay the dragon, pick the rose, and clip the thorns. Many claim that life is unfair. Others are happy because they believe that this is exactly what we deserve: loneliness, unhappiness. Because we have everything and they don’t. But one day those who are blind begin to see. Those who are sad are comforted. Those who suffer are saved. The knight arrives to rescue us, and life is vindicated once again. Still, you have to lie and cheat, because this time the circumstances are different. Who hasn’t felt the urge to drop everything and go in search of their dream? A dream is always risky, for there is a price to pay. That price is death by stoning in some countries, and in others it could be social ostracism or indifference. But there is always a price to pay. You keep lying and people pretend they still believe, but secretly they are jealous, make comments behind your back, say you’re the very worst, most threatening thing there is. You are not an adulterous man, tolerated and often even admired, but an adulterous woman, one who is ...

Why are you being so nice to me?' I asked her. 'You know,' she said, 'when you say stuff like that I just want to slap you.' 'What?' 'You heard me.' She picked up her beer and took a swallow, still watching me. Then she said, 'Colie, you should never be surprised when people treat you with respect. You should expect it.' I shook my head. 'You don’t know-' I began. But, as usual, she didn’t let me finish. 'Yes,' she said simply. 'I do know. I’ve watched you, Colie. You walk around like a dog waiting to be kicked, and when someone does, you pout and cry like you didn’t deserve it.' 'No one deserves to be kicked,' I said. 'I disagree,' she said flatly. 'You do if you don’t think you’re worth any better.

Oh Josie," Samuel sighed gently. "Your heart is too tender for your own good." "I don't usually cry like this, Samuel. Geez, it's been years since I've cried like this. Since you've been back I can't seem to stop. It's like a cloud has burst inside me, and I'm caught in a constant downpour" "Come here, Josie," Samuel said, and when I slid over next to him he kissed me gently on the forehead and smoothed my hair from my damp cheeks. "Well then, maybe you should go ahead and just let it rain for a while" And so I did.

I stood up angrily. “Look, I’m done talking to you tonight. Will you let me out of this dream? I’m not telling you where I am. And I’m not interested in hearing about how wonderful Avery is and how much better than me she is.” “Avery would never act like a little brat,” he said. “She wouldn’t get so offended that someone actually cares enough to check on her. She wouldn’t deny me the chance to learn more about my magic because she was paranoid someone would ruin her crazy attempt to get over her boyfriend’s death." “Don’t talk to me about being a brat,” I shot back. “You’re as selfish and self-centered as usual. It’s always about you—even this dream is. You hold me against my will, whether I want it or not, because it amuses you.” “Fine,” he said, voice cold. “I’ll end this. And I’ll end everything between us. I won’t be coming back.” “Good. I hope you mean it this time.” His green eyes were the last thing I saw before I woke up in my own bed. I sat up, gasping. My heart felt like it was breaking, and I almost thought I might cry. Adrian was right—I had been a brat. I’d lashed out at him when it wasn’t really deserved. And yet . . . I hadn’t been able to help it. I missed Lissa. I even kind of missed Adrian. And now someone else was taking my place, someone who wouldn’t just walk away like I had. I won’t be coming back. And for the first time ever, I had a feeling he really wouldn’t be.

What I wish I had known, age twenty-one, as I cycled away from the results board towards the meadow by the river in Cambridge, where I would throw stones into the water and cry, is that nobody ever asks you what degree you got. It ceases to matter the moment you leave university. That the things in life which don’t go to plan are usually more important, more formative, in the long run, than the things that do.

Oh, I`m sure Tristin will do it" She said casually as she hung the dress back on the hanger. I stared at her in confusion. "Surely he knows how to put a condom." The visual made my insides squirm with panic. "I mean the whole thing! All of it!" I cried. "Oh" She looked at me with surprise and then her expression dissolved into understanding. "Honey, it will all come naturally." "How do I know what natural is though? How do I know what`s right? What if I do it all wrong?" She smiled. "The thing about men, Alexis, is they generally don`t find any of it wrong. In fact, usually the more wrong it is, the more they like it.

He was biting his lower lip and clenching his hands. He looked like he was about to cry. I threw my arms around him instinctively, wrapping them around his waist and pressing my face against his chest. He was so big, I flet like I was a child hugging a grown-up. "Oh, Jake, it'll be okay!" I promised. "If it gets worse you can come live with me and Charlie. Don't be scared, we'll think of something!" He was frozen for a second, and then his long arms wrapped hesitantly around me. "Thanks, Bella." His voice was huskier than usual. We stood like that for a moment, and it didn't upset me; in fact, I felt comforted by the contact. This didn't feel anything like the last time someone had embraced me this way. This was friendship. And Jacob was very warm. It was strange for me, being this close--emotionally rather physically, though the physical was strange for me, too--to another human being. It wasn't my usual style. I didn't normally relate to people so easily, on such a basic level. Not human beings. "If this is how you're going to react, I'll freak out more often." Jacob's voice was light, normal again, and his laughter rumbled against my ear. His fingers touched my hair, soft and tentative. Well, it was friendship for me.

Far as I’m concerned, friendship between black and white don’t mean that much ‘cause it usually ain’t on a equal basis. Right now you and Jeremy might get along fine, but in a few years he’ll think of himself as a man but you’ll probably still be a boy to him. And if he feels that way, he’ll turn on you in a minute.

Daddy had only just got into bed when, from the next room, a small voice called, "Hello?" "What do you want?" Daddy demanded, perhaps a trifle less patiently than usual. There came a long silence. Then from a sleepy child came the reply, "I don't want anything 'cept I just want to know somebody is there." That is the cry of million of hearts, millions who feel they can manage along through life as long as there is someone to share it with.

You can come to your friends with a problem and they will most usually blurt out a set of orders based entirely upon their own lives, which they believe you should follow. There is no thought process that goes into it, no internalization, no ingestion of your own pain into their own stomachs. I believe this is why, about a million people come to me with their problems rather than turning to their closest friends and family members; because I'm like that ancient tree with protruding roots, you can sit under my branches and as you cry I will soak your tears into me. We don't actually need humans with their many thoughtless advices. We need to be sitting under trees, asking roots to share in our pains.

What I wish I had known, aged twenty-one, as I cycled away from the results board towards the meadow by the river in Cambridge, where I would throw stones into the water and cry, is that nobody ever asks you what degree you got. It ceases to matter the moment you leave university. That the things in life which don't go to plan are usually more important, more formative, in the long run, than the things that do.

I don’t believe you,’ he says. He takes a step towards me, fluster-ing me with his nearness, with his smell, which shouldn’t be so damn familiar after so much time and which shouldn’t still affect me the way it does. ‘I think you still love me,’ he says, ‘even though you don’t want to.’I glare at him, fury battling my instincts. ‘Because that kind of love, Jessa,’ Kit continues, ‘doesn’t just disappear. It doesn’t just fade. I still love you. I’ll always love you. And I think you feel the same way about me. And hell, I know I don’t deserve it. I know all I deserve is your hatred. But if there’s a chance, a single chance that you might still love me, then I’m not going to throw it away. Because I’ve been through hell and you’re the only reason I’m still standing.’ He pauses. ‘So tell me the truth. Do you love him?’I don’t answer. ‘Does he know you like I do? Does he know exactly how you like your eggs in the morning – just a little bit runny?’ he asks. ‘Does he know that you’re allergic to roses? Does he know that when your nostrils flare like that it’s because you’re trying to stop from crying and that when you say “yeah, sure” it usually means “no”?’ He takes a step nearer. ‘Does he make you see stars?’ he asks in a low voice. ‘Does he call you his north star? Because that’s what you are to me. You’re the reason I made it home.’ I squeeze my eyes shut. ‘Does he know exactly where to kiss you?’ Kit mur-murs and startles me by brushing his hand just beneath my ear. ‘Just here?’ My eyes flash open as I suppress a shudder. ‘Does he know exactly how to touch you?’ he asks, his gaze falling to my mouth. ‘Does he tell you that you’re all he thinks about? Does he tell you that he lives for you? That he breathes for you? That he dreams of you every damn moment, awake and asleep? Does he tell you any of that?’ He pauses to look at me and I try to keep a blank face. ‘No, I didn’t think so,’ he says quietly

Something creaked beneath me! A soft step on rotting wood! I jumped startled, scared, and turned, expecting to see-God knows what! Then I sighed, for it was only Chris standing in the gloom, silently staring at me. Why? Did I look prettier than usual? Was it the moonlight, shining through my airy clothes? All random doubts were cleared when he said in a voice gritty and low, "You look beautiful sitting there like that." He cleared the frog in his throat. "The moonlight is etching you with silver-blue, and I can see the shape of your body through your clothes." Then, bewilderingly, he seized me by the shoulders, digging in his fingers, hard! They hurt. "Damn you, Cathy! You kissed that man! He could have awakened and seen you, and demanded to know who you were! And not thought you only a part of his dream!" Scary the way he acted, the fright I felt for no reason at all. "How do you know what I did? You weren't there; you were sick that night." He shook me, glaring his eyes, and again I thought he seemed a stranger. "He saw you, Cathy-he wasn't soundly asleep!" "He saw me?" I cried, disbelieving. It wasn't possible . . . wasn't! "Yes!" he yelled. This was Chris, who was usually in such control of his emotions. "He thought you a part of his dream! But don't you know Momma can guess who it was, just by putting two and two together-just as I have? Damn you and your romantic notions! Now they're on to us! They won't leave money casually about as they did before. He's counting, she's counting, and we don't have enough-not yet!" He yanked me down from the widow sill! He appeared wild and furious enough to slap my face-and not once in all our lives had he ever struck me, though I'd given him reason to when I was younger. But he shook me until my eyes rolled, until I was dizzy and crying out: "Stop! Momma knows we can't pass through a looked door!" This wasn't Chris . . . this was someone I'd never seen before . . . primitive, savage. He yelled out something like, "You're mine, Cathy! Mine! You'll always be mine! No matter who comes into your future, you'll always belong to me! I'll make you mine . . . tonight . . . now!" I didn't believe it, not Chris! And I did not fully understand what he had in mind, nor, if I am to give him credit, do I think he really meant what he said, but passion has a way of taking over. We fell to the floor, both of us. I tried to fight him off. We wrestled, turning over and over, writhing, silent, a frantic strug- gle of his strength against mine. It wasn't much of a battle. I had the strong dancer's legs; he had the biceps, the greater weight and height . . . and he had much more determination than i to use something hot, swollen and demanding, so much it stile reasoning and sanity from him. And I loved him. I wanted what he wanted-if he wanted it that much, right and wrong. Somehow we ended up on that old mattress-that filthy, smelly, stained mattress that must have known lovers long before this night. And that is where he took me, and forced in that swollen, rigid male sex part of him that had to be satisfied. It drove into my tight and resisting flesh which tore and bled. Now we had done what we both swore we'd never do.

Ruby?” His hair was pale silver in this light, curled and tangled in its usual way. I couldn’t hide from him. I had never been able to. “Mike came and got me,” he said, taking a careful step toward me. His hands were out in front of him, as if trying to coax a wild animal into letting him approach. “What are you doing out here? What’s going on?” “Please just go,” I begged. “I need to be alone.” He kept coming straight at me. “Please,” I shouted, “go away!” “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on!” Liam said. He got a better look at me and swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Where were you this morning? Did something happen? Chubs told me you’ve been gone all day, and now you’re out here like…this…did he do something to you?” I looked away. “Nothing I didn’t ask for.” Liam’s only response was to move back a few paces back. Giving me space. “I don’t believe you for a second,” he said, calmly. “Not one damn second. If you want to get rid of me, you’re going to have to try harder than that.” “I don’t want you here.” He shook his head. “Doesn’t mean I’m leaving you here alone. You can take all the time you want, as long as you need, but you and me? We’re having this out tonight. Right now.” Liam pulled his black sweater over his head and threw it toward me. “Put it on, or you’ll catch a cold.” I caught it with one hand and pressed it to my chest. It was still warm. He began to pace, his hands on his hips. “Is it me? Is it that you can’t talk to me about it? Do you want me to get Chubs?” I couldn’t bring myself to answer. “Ruby, you’re scaring the hell out of me.” “Good.” I balled up his sweater and threw it into the darkness as hard as I could. He blew out a shaky sigh, bracing a hand against the nearest tree. “Good? What’s good about it?” I hadn’t really understood what Clancy had been trying to tell me that night, not until right then, when Liam looked up and his eyes met mine. The trickle of blood in my ears turned into a roar. I squeezed my eyes shut, digging the heels of my palms against my forehead. “I can’t do this anymore,” I cried. “Why won’t you just leave me alone?” “Because you would never leave me.” His feet shuffled through the underbrush as he took a few steps closer. The air around me heated, taking on a charge I recognized. I gritted my teeth, furious with him for coming so close when he knew I couldn’t handle it. When he knew I could hurt him. His hands came up to pull mine away from my face, but I wasn’t about to let him be gentle. I shoved him back, throwing my full weight into it. Liam stumbled. “Ruby—” I pushed him again and again, harder each time, because it was the only way I could tell him what I was desperate to say. I saw bursts of his glossy memories. I saw all of his brilliant dreams. It wasn’t until I knocked his back into a tree that I realized I was crying. Up this close, I saw a new cut under his left eye and the bruise forming around it. Liam’s lips parted. His hands were no longer out in front of him, but hovering over my hips. “Ruby…” I closed what little distance was left between us, one hand sliding through his soft hair, the other gathering the back of his shirt into my fist. When my lips finally pressed against his, I felt something coil deep inside of me. There was nothing outside of him, not even the grating of cicadas, not even the gray-bodied trees. My heart thundered in my chest. More, more, more—a steady beat. His body relaxed under my hands, shuddering at my touch. Breathing him in wasn’t enough, I wanted to inhale him. The leather, the smoke, the sweetness. I felt his fingers counting up my bare ribs. Liam shifted his legs around mine to draw me closer. I was off-balance on my toes; the world swaying dangerously under me as his lips traveled to my cheek, to my jaw, to where my pulse throbbed in my neck. He seemed so sure of himself, like he had already plotted out this course.

In the absence of this depth of community, the safe container is difficult to find. By default, we become the container ourselves, and when this happens, we cannot drop into the well of grief in which we can fully let go of the sorrows we carry. We recycle our grief, moving into it and then pulling it back into our bodies unreleased. Frequently in my practice patients tell me that they often cry in private. I ask them whether, at some point in this process, they ever allow their grief to be witnessed and shared with others. There is usually a quick retort of “No, I couldn’t do that. I don’t want to be a burden to anyone else.” When I push it a little further and ask them how it would feel if a friend came to them with his or her sorrows and pain, they respond that they would feel honored to sit with their friend and offer support. This disconnection between what we would offer others and what we feel we can ask for is extreme. We need to recover our right to ask for help in grief, otherwise it will continue to recycle perpetually. Grief has never been private; it has always been communal. Subconsciously, we are awaiting the presence of others, before we can feel safe enough to drop to our knees on the holy ground of sorrow.

He glared down at her. “Yes. But you must not cry. I won’t get you any dresses if you cry.” “I don’t normally cry.” “You will never do it.” “Well, I’m afraid I may sometimes,” she said apologetically. “Women need to cry.” Lines formed between his brows. “How many times in a year?”“Maybe five or six,” she said, thinking about it. “But really, it’s usually a very small cry and not in front of anyone At that, his scowl grew even darker. “I will permit you to cry four times a year. And you will do it when I am here.

Clowns.” Clowns? “Really?” I tried to imagine a tiny Aiden crying over men and women with overly painted faces and red noses, but I couldn’t. The big guy was still facing me. His expression clear and even, as he dipped his chin. “Eh.” God help me, he’d gone Canadian on me. I had to will my face not to react at the fact he’d gone with the one word he usually used only when he was super relaxed around other people. “I thought they were going to eat me.” Now imagining that had me cracking a little smile. I slid my palm under my cheek. “How old were you? Nineteen?” Those big chocolate-colored eyes blinked, slow, slow, slow. His dark pink lips parted just slightly. “Are you making fun of me?” he drawled. “Yes.” The fractures of my grin cracked into bigger pieces. “Because I was scared of clowns?” It was like he couldn’t understand why that was amusing. But it was. “I just can’t imagine you scared of anything, much less clowns. Come on. Even I’ve never been scared of clowns.” “I was four.” I couldn’t help but snicker. “Four… fourteen, same difference.” Based on the mule-ish expression on his face, he wasn’t amused. “This is the last time that I come over to save you from the boogeyman.” Shocked out of my mind for a split second, I tried to pretend like I wasn’t, but… I was. He was joking with me. Aiden was in bed joking around. With me. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I was just messing with you.” I scooted one more millimeter closer to him, drawing my knees up so that they hit his thighs. “Please don’t leave yet.” “I won’t,” he said, settling on his pillow with his hands under his cheek, his eyes already drifting to a close. I didn’t need to ask him to promise not to leave me; I knew he wouldn’t if he said so. That was just the kind of man he was. “Aiden?” I whispered. “Hmm?” he murmured. “Thank you for coming in here with me.” “Uh-huh.” That big body adjusted itself just slightly before he let out a long, deep exhale. Without turning around, I laid the flashlight down behind me and aimed the beam toward the wall. He didn’t ask if I was really going to leave the flashlight on all night—or at least however long the battery lasted—instead, I just smiled at him as I took my glasses off and set them on the unused nightstand behind me. Then I tucked my hands under my cheek and watched him. “Good night. Thank you again for staying with me.” Peeking one eye open, just a narrow slit, he hummed. “Shh.” That ‘shh’ was about as close to a ‘you’re welcome’ as I was going to get. I closed my eyes with a little grin on my face. Maybe five seconds later, Aiden’s spoke up. “Vanessa?” “Hmm?” “Why was I saved on your work phone as Miranda P.?” That had my eyes snapping open. I hadn’t deleted that entry off the contacts when I quit, had I? “It’s a long, boring story, and you should go to sleep. Okay?” The “uh-huh” out of him sounded as disbelieving as it should have. He knew I was full of shit, but somehow, knowing he knew, wasn’t enough to keep me from falling asleep soon after

Being gay. This has surprisingly little to do with what you do with your private parts (or, more accurately, what you’d like to do with your private parts). Being gay is more a state of mind, or sometimes, less often, a state of body. You could almost include it as a sub-crime in 2) and 3), but really, it goes beyond both of these categories. And because of the number of times it crops up as a specific accusation, it definitely deserves its own special category. But the best way to explain what ‘being gay’ means is to tell you some of the things that are gay. If you’re a boy, any display of sensitivity is gay. Compassion is gay. Crying is supergay. Reading is usually gay. Certain songs and types of music are gay. ‘Enola Gay’ would certainly be thought gay. Love songs are gay. Love itself is incredibly gay, as are any other heartfelt emotions. Singing is gay, but chanting is not gay. Wanking contests are not gay. Neither is all-male cuddling during specially designated periods in football matches, or communal bathing thereafter. (I didn’t invent the rules of gay–I’m just telling you what they are.) Girls can be gay too, but it’s much harder for them. And girls don’t tend to call each other gay as much as boys do. When a girl is gay, she’s called a dyke. Reasons for being a dyke include having thick limbs, bad hair or flat shoes.

Can people be persuaded?' is a very different question from 'Can arguments be won?' People change their minds about things all the time, but I'm not sure that anybody ever wins an argument. Persuasion is not a zero-sum game. It occurs when somebody moves, even slightly, away from one position and toward another. It is entirely possible for two (or more) people to move closer to each other's positions during an argument without either one being able to claim victory over the other. But we like to win, and we hate to lose, so the fact that people don't usually win arguments doesn't stop most of us from trying. And we all think we know what winning means: It means crushing opponents and making them cry. It means humiliating them in front of a crowd. And it means displaying our power and our rightness for all the world to see and acknowledge. And this means that we often end up trying to win by employing rhetorical strategies that are fundamentally incapable of persuading anybody of anything. And that looks a lot like losing.

I turned toward her with red, puffy eyes. Her own eyes widened with concern, and she froze as she watched me walk into the kitchen, like she was waiting for me to crumple onto the floor and shatter into pieces. “I’m fine,” I said. “It’s an emotional book. I’m just getting a glass of water.” I reached for the tequila. She got up and followed me into the kitchen. “That’s not water.” “And?” “It’s ten a.m.” “And?” “You look like you’ve been crying for an hour straight . . . and you’re hitting the hard stuff at—and I repeat—ten a.m.” “Cara, you have the most amazing powers of perception.” I looked at the bottle in one hand and the glass in the other, shrugged, set the glass down, and headed back to my room with the bottle only. “I’m worried about you,” Cara called out as I walked away. “I’m fine. Just gonna sit in here, read, and have myself a little mental health day.” I turned and smiled and then locked myself in my room. “Mental health days don’t usually involve tequila at ten a.m.!” she yelled through the door. “I’m fine!

Try another Subtraction sum. Take a bone from a dog: what remains?' Alice considered. 'The bone wouldn't remain, of course, if I took it—and the dog wouldn't remain; it would come to bite me—and I'm sure I shouldn't remain!' 'Then you think nothing would remain?' said the Red Queen. 'I think that's the answer.' 'Wrong, as usual,' said the Red Queen: 'the dog's temper would remain.' 'But I don't see how—' 'Why, look here!' the Red Queen cried. 'The dog would lose its temper, wouldn't it?' 'Perhaps it would,' Alice replied cautiously. 'Then if the dog went away, its temper would remain!' the Queen exclaimed triumphantly. Alice said, as gravely as she could, 'They might go different ways.' But she couldn't help thinking to herself, 'What dreadful nonsense we ARE talking!

This is how my day usually goes. I leave the faucet open and know what it’s like to have my fingers around a minuscule whirlpool, and I cry, hoping if I do it for hours the water will end up tasting like the ocean, just so I could get myself half-drowning. I don’t know how to float on water. This is the closest thing I will ever get to breathing without forcing my lungs to turn into a garbage truck, or a car alarm, or anything that can get my neighbors out of their doors. Maybe if I blink my eyes as fast as I can, I will end up having lightning for tears because that’s how much they hurt. There is the constant banging on my door. On my bedside table is an empty mug that was once made with everything close to tasting like beautiful and patient and calm. And I am not. I am stepping on my own leash. my skin has purple circles, my eyes has been spending too many hours pretending to be an Olympic pool, when it’s too little to even be a sink. Last night, I realized, the tap water will never taste like tears, no matter how many hours I spent bending. The banging on my bedroom door will never stop. I wonder how long I can keep this up until I remember that there’s always a limit to pain, and none to love.

I’m like him,” she’d whispered. “You’re not,” Wren said. “I am. I’m crazy like him.” She was already having panic attacks. She was already hiding at parties. In seventh grade, she’d been late to class for the first two weeks because she couldn’t stand being in the halls with everyone else during passing periods. “It’s probably going to get worse in a few years. That’s when it usually kicks in.” “You’re not,” Wren said. “But what if I am?” “Decide not to be.” “That’s not how it works,” Cath argued. “Nobody knows how it works.” “What if I don’t even see it coming.” “I’ll see it coming.” Cath tried to stop crying, but she’d been crying so long, the crying had taken over, making her bvreathe in harsh sniffs and jerks. “If it takes you,” Wren said. “I won’t let go.” A few months later, Cath gave that line to Simon in a scene about Baz’s bloodlust. Wren was still writing with Cath back then, and when she got to the line, she snorted. “I’m here for you if you go manic,” Wren said. “But you’re on your own if you become a vampire.” “What good are you anyway,” Cath said. Their dad was home by then. And better. And Cath didn’t feel, for the moment, like her DNA was a trap ready to snap closed on her. “Apparently, I’m good for something,” Wren said. “You keep stealing all my best lines.

Peeta, how come I never know when you’re having a nightmare?” I say. “I don’t know. I don’t think I cry out or thrash around or anything. I just come to, paralyzed with terror,” he says. “You should wake me,” I say, thinking about how I can interrupt his sleep two or three times on a bad night. About how long it can take to calm me down. “It’s not necessary. My nightmares are usually about losing you,” he says. “I’m okay once I realize you’re here.

Жираф Сегодня, я вижу, особенно грустен твой взгляд, И руки особенно тонки, колени обняв. Послушай: далёко, далёко на озере Чад Изысканный бродит жираф. Ему грациозная стройность и нега дана, И шкуру его украшает волшебный узор, С которым равняться осмелиться только Луна, Дробясь и качаясь на влаге широких озёр. Вдали он подобен цветным парусам корабля, И бег его плавен, как радостный птичий полёт. Я знаю, что много чудесного видит земля, Когда на закате он прячется в мраморный грот. Я знаю весёлые сказки таинственных стран Про чёрную деву, про страсть молодого вождя, Но ты слишком долго вдыхала тяжёлый туман, Ты верить не хочешь во что-нибудь, кроме дождя. И как я тебе расскажу про тропический сад, Про стройный пальмы, про запах немыслимых трав... Ты плачешь? Послушай... далёко, на озере Чад Изысканный бродит жираф. The Giraffe O, the look in your eyes this morning is more than usually sad, With your little arms wrapped round your knees and body bent in half. Let me tell you a story: far, far away, on the distant shores of Lake Chad, There roams a most majestic giraffe Blessed with a handsome build and graceful carriage And a coat painted hypnotic, magical patterns, With which none but the moon above dare compare When her light falls down to be scattered and rocked on the waters, Passing like a blazing sail far out at sea As she runs by, nimble and carefree as a bird in flight. I hear tell the earth has seen many wonderful things When the giraffe hides herself away and the sun sets into night. I know fabulous tales of far off, alien lands, Of a dark maiden, of a young captain’s burning desire, all this I know, But you’ve breathed in the damp marsh air for so long You don’t want to believe in anything but the rain out your window. I still haven’t told you about her tropic garden, with the slenderest palm trees, The sweetest wildflowers, meadows of unbelievable grass . . . Are you crying? Let me tell you a story: far away, on the distant shores of Lake Chad, There roams a most majestic giraffe.

Mary Anne is a real worrywart. Not to mention shynesswart and politenesswart. The teeniest things can make her cry, too — movies, books, you name it. Whisper the words “Old Yeller” to her and watch her eyes well up. Usually I have no patience for people like that. I’m the opposite — tearless and fearless, loud and proud. But I’ve known Mary Anne since we were babies, and she happens to be my best friend in the world. As you may have guessed, I have a forceful personality. My friends say I’m bossy and stubborn, but don’t listen to

She could have shot herself, scratched herself, or indulged in other forms of self mutilation, but she chose what she probably felt was the weakest option-to at least endure the discomfort of the weather." "The minutes were cruel. Hours were punishing. Standing above him at all moments of awakeness was the hand of time, and it didn't hesitate to wring him out. It smiled and squeezed and let him live. What great malice there could be in allowing someone to live." "And I stop listening to me, because to put it bluntly, i tire me. When I start thinking like that, I become so exhausted, and I don't have the luxury of indulging fatigue. I am compelled to continue on, because although it's not true for every person on earth, it's true for the vast majority-that death waits for no man-and if he does, he doesn't usually wait very long." "Please believe me when I say I picked up each soul that day as if it were newly born. I even kissed a few weary, poisoned cheeks. I listened to their last, gasping cries. Their vanishing words. I watched their love visions and freed them from their fear.

Okay, big guy," I said, after taking in the view for a minute or two and listening to the soothing pulse of the waves. "Go put on your swim trunks. We're hitting the pool. It's too nice out to stay inside." Jack, as usual, looked as if I'd pinched him rather than suggested a fun day at the pool. "But why?" he cried. "You know I can't swim." "Which is exactly," I said, "why we're going. You're eight years old today. An eight-year-old who can't swim is nothing but a loser. You don't want to be a loser, do you?" Jack opined that he preferred being a loser to going outdoors, a fact with which I was only too well acquainted.

Has he invited you to dinner, dear? Gifts, flowers, the usual?” I had to put my cup down, because my hand was shaking too much. When I stopped laughing, I said, “Curran? He isn’t exactly Mr. Smooth. He handed me a bowl of soup, that’s as far as we got.” “He fed you?” Raphael stopped rubbing Andrea. “How did this happen?” Aunt B stared at me. “Be very specific, this is important.” “He didn’t actually feed me. I was injured and he handed me a bowl of chicken soup. Actually I think he handed me two or three. And he called me an idiot.” “Did you accept?” Aunt B asked. “Yes, I was starving. Why are the three of you looking at me like that?” “For crying out loud.” Andrea set her cup down, spilling some tea. “The Beast Lord’s feeding you soup. Think about that for a second.” Raphael coughed. Aunt B leaned forward. “Was there anybody else in the room?” “No. He chased everyone out.” Raphael nodded. “At least he hasn’t gone public yet.” “He might never,” Andrea said. “It would jeopardize her position with the Order.” Aunt B’s face was grave. “It doesn’t go past this room. You hear me, Raphael? No gossip, no pillow talk, not a word. We don’t want any trouble with Curran.” “If you don’t explain it all to me, I will strangle somebody.” Of course, Raphael might like that . . . “Food has a special significance,” Aunt D said. I nodded. “Food indicates hierarchy. Nobody eats before the alpha, unless permission is given, and no alpha eats in Curran’s presence until Curran takes a bite.” “There is more,” Aunt B said. “Animals express love through food. When a cat loves you, he’ll leave dead mice on your porch, because you’re a lousy hunter and he wants to take care of you. When a shapeshifter boy likes a girl, he’ll bring her food and if she likes him back, she might make him lunch. When Curran wants to show interest in a woman, he buys her dinner.” “In public,” Raphael added, “the shapeshifter fathers always put the first bite on the plates of their wives and children. It signals that if someone wants to challenge the wife or the child, they would have to challenge the male first.” “If you put all of Curran’s girls together, you could have a parade,” Aunt B said. “But I’ve never seen him physically put food into a woman’s hands. He’s a very private man, so he might have done it in an intimate moment, but I would’ve found out eventually. Something like that doesn’t stay hidden in the Keep. Do you understand now? That’s a sign of a very serious interest, dear.” “But I didn’t know what it meant!” Aunt B frowned. “Doesn’t matter. You need to be very careful right now. When Curran wants something, he doesn’t become distracted. He goes after it and he doesn’t stop until he obtains his goal no matter what it takes. That tenacity is what makes him an alpha.” “You’re scaring me.” “Scared might be too strong a word, but in your place, I would definitely be concerned.” I wished I were back home, where I could get to my bottle of sangria. This clearly counted as a dire emergency. As if reading my thoughts, Aunt B rose, took a small bottle from a cabinet, and poured me a shot. I took it, and drained it in one gulp, letting tequila slide down my throat like liquid fire. “Feel better?” “It helped.” Curran had driven me to drinking. At least I wasn’t contemplating suicide.

DEATH’S DIARY: THE PARISIANS Summer came. For the book thief, everything was going nicely. For me, the sky was the color of Jews. When their bodies had finished scouring for gaps in the door, their souls rose up. When their fingernails had scratched at the wood and in some cases were nailed into it by the sheer force of desperation, their spirits came toward me, into my arms, and we climbed out of those shower facilities, onto the roof and up, into eternity’s certain breadth. They just kept feeding me. Minute after minute. Shower after shower. I’ll never forget the first day in Auschwitz, the first time in Mauthausen. At that second place, as time wore on, I also picked them up from the bottom of the great cliff, when their escapes fell awfully awry. There were broken bodies and dead, sweet hearts. Still, it was better than the gas. Some of them I caught when they were only halfway down. Saved you, I’d think, holding their souls in midair as the rest of their being—their physical shells—plummeted to the earth. All of them were light, like the cases of empty walnuts. Smoky sky in those places. The smell like a stove, but still so cold. I shiver when I remember—as I try to de-realize it. I blow warm air into my hands, to heat them up. But it’s hard to keep them warm when the souls still shiver. God. I always say that name when I think of it. God. Twice, I speak it. I say His name in a futile attempt to understand. “But it’s not your job to understand.” That’s me who answers. God never says anything. You think you’re the only one he never answers? “Your job is to …” And I stop listening to me, because to put it bluntly, I tire me. When I start thinking like that, I become so exhausted, and I don’t have the luxury of indulging fatigue. I’m compelled to continue on, because although it’s not true for every person on earth, it’s true for the vast majority—that death waits for no man—and if he does, he doesn’t usually wait very long. On June 23, 1942, there was a group of French Jews in a German prison, on Polish soil. The first person I took was close to the door, his mind racing, then reduced to pacing, then slowing down, slowing down …. Please believe me when I tell you that I picked up each soul that day as if it were newly born. I even kissed a few weary, poisoned cheeks. I listened to their last, gasping cries. Their vanishing words. I watched their love visions and freed them from their fear. I took them all away, and if ever there was a time I needed distraction, this was it. In complete desolation, I looked at the world above. I watched the sky as it turned from silver to gray to the color of rain. Even the clouds were trying to get away. Sometimes I imagined how everything looked above those clouds, knowing without question that the sun was blond, and the endless atmosphere was a giant blue eye. They were French, they were Jews, and they were you.

Now that is a sword,” Freddy said in awe as he went to look at an impressive saber hanging from the hat rack near the door. “Stay away from it,” she cautioned. “I’m sure it’s sharper than yours.” As usual, Freddy ignored her. “Just think what I could do with this,” he said as he lifted it off its hook. “So far I haven’t seen you do anything with a sword, my boy,” Oliver remarked dryly. “Though I shudder to think what your cousin would attempt.” Maria glared at Oliver, which only made him laugh. Meanwhile, Freddy unsheathed the saber with a flourish. “Curse it, Freddy, put it back,” Maria ordered. “What a fine piece of steel.” Freddy swished it through the air. “Even the one Uncle Adam gave me isn’t near so impressive.” Maria appealed to Oliver. “Do something, for pity’s sake. Make him stop.” “And get myself skewered for the effort? No, thank you. Let the pup have his fun.” Freddy cast him a belligerent glance. “You wouldn’t call me a pup if I came at you with this.” “No, I’d call you insane,” Oliver drawled. “But you’re welcome to try and see what happens.” Don’t encourage him,” Maria told Oliver. The door opened suddenly, and Freddy whirled with the sword in hand, knocking a lamp off the desk. As the glass chimney shattered, spilling oil in a wide arc, the wick lit the lot, and fire sprang to life. Maria jumped back with a cry of alarm while Oliver leaped out of his chair to stamp it out, first with his boots and then with his coat. A string of curses filled the air, most of them Oliver’s, though Freddy got in a few choice ones as the fire licked at his favorite trousers. When at last Oliver put the flames out and nothing was left but a charred circle on the wood floor, dotted with shards of glass, the three of them turned to the door to find a dark-haired man observing the scene with an expression that gave nothing away. “If you hoped to catch my attention,” he remarked, “you’ve succeeded.” “Mr. Pinter, I presume?” Oliver said, tossing his now ruined coat and singed gloves into a nearby rubbish pail. “I hope you’ll forgive us for the dramatic intrusion. I’m Stonevi-“ “I know who you are, my lord,” he interrupted. “It’s what you’re doing here setting fire to my office that I’m not certain of.

Amy found out she had cancer not long after finishing Textbook, and she called me. She knew that in the years after my book The Fault in Our Stars was published, I’d come to know many young people who were gravely ill, and she wanted to know if I had advice for her. I told her what I think is true—that love survives death. But she wanted to know how young people react to death. How her kids would. She wanted to know if her kids and her husband would be okay, and that ripped me up. Although I’m usually quite comfortable talking with sick people, with my friend I found myself stumbling over words, overwhelmed by my own sadness and worry. They won’t be okay, of course, but they will go on, and the love you poured into them will go on. That’s what I should’ve said. But what I actually said, while crying, was, “How can this be happening? You do so much yoga.” In my experience, dying people often have wonderful stories of the horrible things healthy people say to them, but I’ve never heard of anybody saying something as stupid as, “You do so much yoga.” I hope that Amy at least got some narrative mileage out of it. But I also know I failed her, after she was there for me so many times. I know she forgives me—present tense—but still, I desperately wish I could’ve said something useful. Or perhaps not said anything at all. When people we love are suffering, we want to make it better. But sometimes—often, in fact—you can’t make it better. I’m reminded of something my supervisor said to me when I was a student chaplain: “Don’t just do something. Stand there.

I’m like him,” she’d whispered. “You’re not,” Wren said. “I am. I’m crazy like him.” She was already having panic attacks. She was already hiding at parties. In seventh grade, she’d been late to class for the first two weeks because she couldn’t stand being in the halls with everyone else during passing periods. “It’s probably going to get worse in a few years. That’s when it usually kicks in.” “You’re not,” Wren said. “But what if I am?” “Decide not to be.” “That’s not how it works,” Cath argued. “Nobody knows how it works.” “What if I don’t even see it coming?” “I’ll see it coming.” Cath tried to stop crying, but she’d been crying so long, the crying had taken over, making her breathe in harsh sniffs and jerks. “If it tries to take you,” Wren said, “I won’t let go.

The usual short story cannot have a complex plot, but it often has a simple one resembling a chain with two or three links. The short short, however, doesn't as a rule have even that much - you don't speak of a chain when there's only one link. ... Sometimes ... the short short appears to rest on nothing more than a fragile anecdote which the writer has managed to drape with a quantity of suggestion. A single incident, a mere anecdote - these form the spine of the short short. Everything depends on intensity, one sweeping blow of perception. In the short short the writer gets no second chance. Either he strikes through at once or he's lost. And because it depends so heavily on this one sweeping blow, the short short often approaches the condition of a fable. When you read the two pieces by Tolstoy in this book, or I.L. Peretz's 'If Not Higher,' or Franz Kafka's 'The Hunter Gracchus,' you feel these writers are intent upon 'making a point' - but obliquely, not through mere statement. What they project is not the sort of impression of life we expect in most fiction, but something else: an impression of an idea of life. Or: a flicker in darkness, a slight cut of being. The shorter the piece of writing, the more abstract it may seem to us. In reading Paz's brilliant short short we feel we have brushed dangerously against the sheer arbitrariness of existence; in reading Peretz's, that we have been brought up against a moral reflection on the nature of goodness, though a reflection hard merely to state. Could we say that the short short is to other kinds of fiction somewhat as the lyric is to other kinds of poetry? The lyric does not seek meaning through extension, it accepts the enigmas of confinement. It strives for a rapid unity of impression, an experience rendered in its wink of immediacy. And so too with the short short. ... Writers who do short shorts need to be especially bold. They stake everything on a stroke of inventiveness. Sometimes they have to be prepared to speak out directly, not so much in order to state a theme as to provide a jarring or complicating commentary. The voice of the writer brushes, so to say, against his flash of invention. And then, almost before it begins, the fiction is brought to a stark conclusion - abrupt, bleeding, exhausting. This conclusion need not complete the action; it has only to break it off decisively. Here are a few examples of the writer speaking out directly. Paz: 'The universe is a vast system of signs.' Kafka in 'First Sorrow': The trapeze artist's 'social life was somewhat limited.' Paula Fox: 'We are starving here in our village. At last, we are at the center.' Babel's cossack cries out, 'You guys in specs have about as much pity for chaps like us as a cat for a mouse.' Such sentences serve as devices of economy, oblique cues. Cryptic and enigmatic, they sometimes replace action, dialogue and commentary, for none of which, as it happens, the short short has much room. There's often a brilliant overfocussing. ("Introduction")

That we never allowed," answered Somel quietly. "Allowed?" I queried. "Allowed a mother to rear her own children?" "Certainly not," said Somel, "unless she was fit for that supreme task." This was rather a blow to my previous convictions. "But I thought motherhood was for each of you--" "Motherhood--yes, that is, maternity, to bear a child. But education is our highest art, only allowed to our highest artists." "Education?" I was puzzled again. "I don't mean education. I mean by motherhood not only child-bearing, but the care of babies." "The care of babies involves education, and is entrusted only to the most fit," she repeated. "Then you separate mother and child!" I cried in cold horror, something of Terry's feeling creeping over me, that there must be something wrong among these many virtues. "Not usually," she patiently explained. "You see, almost every woman values her maternity above everything else. Each girl holds it close and dear, an exquisite joy, a crowning honor, the most intimate, most personal, most precious thing. That is, the child-rearing has come to be with us a culture so profoundly studied, practiced with such subtlety and skill, that the more we love our children the less we are willing to trust that process to unskilled hands--even our own." "But a mother's love--" I ventured. She studied my face, trying to work out a means of clear explanation. "You told us about your dentists," she said, at length, "those quaintly specialized persons who spend their lives filling little holes in other persons' teeth--even in children's teeth sometimes." "Yes?" I said, not getting her drift. "Does mother-love urge mothers--with you--to fill their own children's teeth? Or to wish to?" "Why no--of course not," I protested. "But that is a highly specialized craft. Surely the care of babies is open to any woman --any mother!" "We do not think so," she gently replied. "Those of us who are the most highly competent fulfill that office; and a majority of our girls eagerly try for it--I assure you we have the very best." "But the poor mother--bereaved of her baby--" "Oh no!" she earnestly assured me. "Not in the least bereaved. It is her baby still--it is with her--she has not lost it. But she is not the only one to care for it. There are others whom she knows to be wiser. She knows it because she has studied as they did, practiced as they did, and honors their real superiority. For the child's sake, she is glad to have for it this highest care.

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.

The next morning I showed up at dad’s house at eight, with a hangover. All my brothers’ trucks were parked in front. What are they all doing here? When I opened the front door, Dad, Alan, Jase, and Willie looked at me. They were sitting around the living room, waiting. No one smiled, and the air felt really heavy. I looked to my left, where Mom was usually working in the kitchen, but this time she was still, leaning over the counter and looking at me too. Dad spoke first. “Son, are you ready to change?” Everything else seemed to go silent and fade away, and all I heard was my dad’s voice. “I just want you to know we’ve come to a decision as a family. You’ve got two choices. You keep doing what you’re doing--maybe you’ll live through it--but we don’t want nothin’ to do with you. Somebody can drop you off at the highway, and then you’ll be on your own. You can go live your life; we’ll pray for you and hope that you come back one day. And good luck to you in this world.” He paused for a second then went on, a little quieter. “Your other choice is that you can join this family and follow God. You know what we stand for. We’re not going to let you visit our home while you’re carrying on like this. You give it all up, give up all those friends, and those drugs, and come home. Those are your two choices.” I struggled to breathe, my head down and my chest tight. No matter what happened, I knew I would never forget this moment. My breath left me in a rush, and I fell to my knees in front of them all and started crying. “Dad, what took y’all so long?” I burst out. I felt broken, and I began to tell them about the sorry and dangerous road I’d been traveling down. I could see my brothers’ eyes starting to fill with tears too. I didn’t dare look at my mom’s face although I could feel her presence behind me. I knew she’d already been through the hell of addiction with her own mother, with my dad, with her brother-in-law Si, and with my oldest brother, Alan. And now me, her baby. I remembered the letters she’d been writing to me over the last few months, reaching out with words of love from her heart and from the heart of the Lord. Suddenly, I felt guilty. “Dad, I don’t deserve to come back. I’ve been horrible. Let me tell you some more.” “No, son,” he answered. “You’ve told me enough.” I’ve seen my dad cry maybe three times, and that was one of them. To see my dad that upset hit me right in the gut. He took me by my shoulders and said, “I want you to know that God loves you, and we love you, but you just can’t live like that anymore.” “I know. I want to come back home,” I said. I realized my dad understood. He’d been down this road before and come back home. He, too, had been lost and then found. By this time my brothers were crying, and they got around me, and we were on our knees, crying. I prayed out loud to God, “Thank You for getting me out of this because I am done living the way I’ve been living.” “My prodigal son has returned,” Dad said, with tears of joy streaming down his face. It was the best day of my life. I could finally look over at my mom, and she was hanging on to the counter for dear life, crying, and shaking with happiness. A little later I felt I had to go use the bathroom. My stomach was a mess from the stress and the emotions. But when I was in the bathroom with the door shut, my dad thought I might be in there doing one last hit of something or drinking one last drop, so he got up, came over, and started banging on the bathroom door. Before I could do anything, he kicked in the door. All he saw was me sitting on the pot and looking up at him while I about had a heart attack. It was not our finest moment. That afternoon after my brothers had left, we went into town and packed up and moved my stuff out of my apartment. “Hey bro,” I said to my roommate. “I’m changing my life. I’ll see ya later.” I meant it.

Ballad" Oh dream, why do you do me this way? Again, with the digging, again with the digging up. Once more with the shovels. Once more, the shovels full of dirt. The vault lid. The prying. The damp boards. Mother beside me. Like she’s an old hat at this. Like all she’s got left is curiosity. Like curiosity didn’t kill the red cat. Such a sweet, gentle cat it was. Here we go again, dream. Mother, wearing her take-out-the-garbage coat. I haven’t seen that coat in years. The coat she wore to pick me up from school early. She appeared at the back of the classroom, early. Go with your mother, teacher said. Diane, you are excused. I was a little girl. Already a famous actress. I looked at the other kids. I acted lucky. Though everyone knows what an early pick-up means. An early pick-up, dream. What’s wrong, I asked my mother. It is early spring. Bright sunlight. The usual birds. Air, teetering between bearable and unbearable. Cold, but not cold enough to shiver. Still, dream, I shiver. You know, my mother said. Her long garbage coat flying. There was a wind, that day. A wind like a scurrying grandmother, dusting. Look inside yourself, my mother said. You know why I have come for you. And still I acted lucky. Lucky to be out. Lucky to be out in the cold world with my mother. I’m innocent, I wanted to say. A little white girl, trying out her innocence. A white lamb, born into a cold field. Frozen almost solid. Brought into the house. Warmed all night with hair dryers. Death? I said. Smiling. Lucky. We’re barely to the parking lot. Barely to the car ride home. But the classroom already feels like the distant past. Long ago, my classmates pitying me. Arriving at this car full of uncles. Were they wearing suits? Death such a formal occasion. My sister, angry-crying next to me. Me, encountering a fragment of evil in myself. Evilly wanting my mother to say it. What? I asked, smiling. My lamb on full display at the fair. He’s dead! my sister said. Hit me in the gut with her flute. Her flute case. Her rental flute. He’s dead! Our father. Our father, who we were not supposed to know had been dying. He’s dead! The flute gleaming in its red case. Here, my mother said at home. She’d poured us each a small glass of Pepsi We normally couldn’t afford Pepsi. Lucky, I acted. He’s no longer suffering, my mother said. Here, she said. Drink this. The little bubbles flew. They bit my tongue. My evil persisted. What is death? I asked. And now, dream, once more you bring me my answer. Dig, my mother says. Pry, she says. I don’t want to see, dream. The lid so damp it crumbles under my hands. The casket just a drawerful of bones. A drawerful. Just bones and teeth. That one tooth he had. Crooked like mine.

I began to see that the stronger a therapy emphasized feelings, self-esteem, and self-confidence, the more dependent the therapist was upon his providing for the patient ongoing, unconditional, positive regard. The more self-esteem was the end, the more the means, in the form of the patient’s efforts, had to appear blameless in the face of failure. In this paradigm, accuracy and comparison must continually be sacrificed to acceptance and compassion; which often results in the escalation of bizarre behavior and bizarre diagnoses. The bizarre behavior results from us taking credit for everything that is positive and assigning blame elsewhere for anything negative. Because of this skewed positive-feedback loop between our judged actions and our beliefs, we systematically become more and more adapted to ourselves, our feelings, and our inaccurate solitary thinking; and less and less adapted to the environment that we share with our fellows. The resultant behavior, such as crying, depression, displays of temper, high-risk behavior, or romantic ventures, or abandonment of personal responsibilities, which seem either compulsory, necessary, or intelligent to us, will begin to appear more and more irrational to others. The bizarre diagnoses occur because, in some cases, if a ‘cause disease’ (excuse from blame) does not exist, it has to be 'discovered’ (invented). Psychiatry has expanded its diagnoses of mental disease every year to include 'illnesses’ like kleptomania and frotteurism [now frotteuristic disorder in the DSM-V]. (Do you know what frotteurism is? It is a mental disorder that causes people, usually men, to surreptitiously fondle women’s breasts or genitals in crowded situations such as elevators and subways.) The problem with the escalation of these kinds of diagnoses is that either we can become so adapted to our thinking and feelings instead of our environment that we will become dissociated from the whole idea that we have a problem at all; or at least, the more we become blameless, the more we become helpless in the face of our problems, thinking our problems need to be 'fixed’ by outside help before we can move forward on our own. For 2,000 years of Western culture our problems existed in the human power struggle constantly being waged between our principles and our primal impulses. In the last fifty years we have unprincipled ourselves and become what I call 'psychologized.’ Now the power struggle is between the 'expert’ and the 'disorder.’ Since the rise of psychiatry and psychology as the moral compass, we don’t talk about moral imperatives anymore, we talk about coping mechanisms. We are not living our lives by principles so much as we are living our lives by mental health diagnoses. This is not working because it very subtly undermines our solid sense of self.

When you first get down there, just let her talk,” Caroline said. She’d been unlucky enough to stop in that morning en route from the beach house, walking right into this maelstrom. Now we were in the bathroom, where I was devoting twice as much time as usual to brushing my teeth as I attempted to put off the inevitable. “Sit and listen. Don’t nod. Oh, and don’t smile. That really makes her mad.” I rinsed, then spit. “Right.” “You have to apologize, but don’t do it right off, because it seems really ungenuine. Let her blow it out of her system, and then say you’re sorry. Don’t make excuses, unless you have a really valid one. Do you?” “I was at the hospital,” I said, picking up the bottle of mouthwash. If I was going down, at least I’d have nice breath. “My friend was giving birth.” “Was there not a phone there?” she asked. “I called her!” I said. “An hour after you were supposed to be at the picnic,” she pointed out. “God, Caroline. Whose side are you on?” “Yours! That’s why I’m helping you, can’t you see?” She sighed impatiently. “The phone thing is so basic, she’ll go to that right off. Don’t even try to make an excuse; there isn’t one. You can always find a phone. Always.” I took in a mouthful of Listerine, then glared at her. “Tears help,” she continued, leaning against the doorjamb and examining her fingernails, “but only if they’re real. The fake cry only makes her more angry. Basically, you just have to ride it out. She’s always really harsh at first, but once she starts talking she calms down.” “I’m not going to cry,” I told her, spitting. “And, oh, whatever you do,” she said, “don’t interrupt her. That’s, like, lethal.

BEST FRIENDS SHOULD BE TOGETHER We’ll get a pair of those half-heart necklaces so every ask n’ point reminds us we are one glued duo. We’ll send real letters like our grandparents did, handwritten in smart cursive curls. We’ll extend cell plans and chat through favorite shows like a commentary track just for each other. We’ll get our braces off on the same day, chew whole packs of gum. We’ll nab some serious studs but tell each other everything. Double-date at a roadside diner exactly halfway between our homes. Cry on shoulders when our boys fail us. We’ll room together at State, cover the walls floor-to-ceiling with incense posters of pop dweebs gone wry. See how beer feels. Be those funny cute girls everybody’s got an eye on. We’ll have a secret code for hot boys in passing. A secret dog named Freshman Fifteen we’ll have to hide in the rafters during inspection. Follow some jam band one summer, grooving on lawns, refusing drugs usually. Get tattoos that only spell something when we stand together. I’ll be maid of honor in your wedding and you’ll be co-maid with my sister but only cause she’d disown me if I didn’t let her. We’ll start a store selling just what we like. We’ll name our firstborn daughters after one another, and if our husbands don’t like it, tough. Lifespans being what they are, we’ll be there for each other when our men have passed, and all the friends who come to visit our assisted living condo will be dazzled by what fun we still have together. We’ll be the kind of besties who make outsiders wonder if they’ve ever known true friendship, but we won’t even notice how sad it makes them and they won’t bring it up because you and I will be so caught up in the fun, us marveling at how not-good it never was.

Uh, yeah,” I say awkwardly into my cell. “He’s, uh, really great in bed. Like, the greatest.” “Oh, brother,” Liam mutters under his breath. “How do I get myself into these things?” “There’s a porno that starts just like this!” Owen whispers excitedly to his friend. Carmen sighs happily. “This is such good news, darling!” she says in a wavering voice. “I’m—I’m sorry to have called so late. I know I probably woke you up. I—I just wanted to hear your voice. I’m so glad you’re coming. I have been hoping and praying to see you again for the longest time.” She begins to cry again softly. “Carm?” I say in concern. “Are you sure everything’s good?” “Oh, yes. I’m just—just don’t mind me. You know weddings make me emotional. I’ll see you soon, Hellie? You and your dashing doctor?” “Yeah. See you soon.” She hangs up the phone, and I do too. I let my head fall into my hands for a moment, as I go over the entire conversation a few times in my mind. I am left with the urge to scream at the top of my lungs, and run out into the forest, never to see these doctors again. “This is so humiliating,” I whisper. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I said that. Carmen just gets under my skin.” “Why didn’t you pick me?” Owen said in disappointment. “Liam’s more suitable,” I explain with a groan. “He’s read my books, so he knows a little about me. He can bullshit that we have some previous connection. And also, he’s less likely to talk about porn.” “Fair enough,” Owen said unhappily, “but I would have liked to be a wedding crasher.” “Is your sister okay?” Liam asks. “Does she usually call you at 5 AM?” “Whoa,” I say in surprise. “Is it 5 AM?” My first thought is that something must be terribly wrong. I consider this for a moment. “It’s probably just pre-wedding jitters,” I tell the guys, trying to brush it off. “So you really want me to come

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

What are you doing here?” He wasn’t annoyed, exactly. He just seemed to find my presence unexpected, the way you might be surprised to discover your dog in the living room instead of in its crate. A different young staffer would have handled the situation gracefully. Perhaps they might have tried a high-minded approach: “I’m here to serve my country.” Or they might have kept things simple: “I’m hoping to catch typos.” Here is what I did instead. First, in a misguided effort to appear casual, I gave the leader of the free world a smile reminiscent of a serial killer who knows the jig is up. Then I said the following: “Oh, I’m just watching.” POTUS took a shallow breath through his nose. He raised his eyebrows, looked at our cameraman, and sighed. “It always makes me nervous when Litt’s around.” I’m 90 percent sure President Obama was half joking. Still, two months later, on my final POTUS trip, my stomach full of arugula and Brie, I was careful to avoid his eyes. Backstage in Detroit, POTUS went through his usual prespeech routine, shaking hands with the prompter operators and joking with personal aides. Then he stepped onstage to remind a roomful of autoworkers about the time he saved their industry seven years before. I had written plenty of auto speeches for President Obama. There was nothing especially new in this one. But as POTUS reached his closing paragraph, my eyes filled with tears. I had tried to prepare myself for each milestone: my last set of remarks for the president, my last ride in the motorcade, my last flight on Air Force One. Still, the nostalgia left me reeling. I fled the staff viewing area and found a men’s room. With my left hand, I steadied myself against the sink. With my right, I held all but the first page of my speech. You’re supposed to be an adult, I reminded myself. And adults don’t cry in front of their boss’s boss.

O dear, soft people, full of meat and blood, with white beds and airy rooms waiting you each night, how can I make you know what it is to suffer as you would suffer if you spent a weary night on London's streets? Believe me, you would think a thousand centuries had come and gone before the east paled into dawn; you would shiver till you were ready to cry aloud with the pain of each aching muscle; and you would marvel that you could endure so much and live. Should you rest upon a bench, and your tired eyes close, depend upon it the policeman would rouse you and gruffly order you to 'move on.' You may rest upon the bench, and benches are few and far between; but if rest means sleep, on you must go, dragging your tired body through the endless streets. Should you, in desperate slyness, seek some forlorn alley or dark passageway and lie down, the omnipresent policeman will rout you out just the same. It is his business to rout you out. It is a law of the powers that be that you shall be routed out. But when the dawn came, the nightmare over, you would hale you home to refresh yourself, and until you died you would tell the story of your adventure to groups of admiring friends. It would grow into a mighty story. Your little eight-hour night would become an Odyssey and you a Homer. Not so with these homeless ones who walked Poplar Workhouse with me. And there are thirty-five thousand of them, men and women, in “London Town this night. Please don't remember it as you go to bed; if you are as soft as you ought to be, you may not rest so well as usual. But for old men of sixty, seventy, and eighty, ill-fed, with neither meat nor blood, to greet the dawn unrefreshed, and to stagger through the day in mad search for crusts, with relentless night rushing down upon them again, and to do this nights and days- O dear, soft people, full of meat and blood, how can you ever understand?

I opened the door with a smile on my face that soon melted when I saw his messy appearance. The doorframe held him up as he leaned all of his weight against it. Expressionless, bloodshot eyes stared back at me as he lifted his hand and ran it roughly down his unshaved face. His hair was disheveled and there was blood on the front of his shirt. Panic rose up as I took him in. I rushed to him and ran my fingers down his body, as I checked for injuries. “You’re bleeding! Oh my God, Devin! What happened? Are you OK?” “It’s not my blood,” he slurred. I took a better look at his gorgeous face. His unfocused eyes attempted to meet mine and it was then that the smell of liquor reached me. “You’re drunk?” “Abso-fucking-lutely.” He attempted to move toward me and almost fell over. I wrapped my arms around him and helped him into my apartment. Once we made it to the couch I let him collapse onto the cushion before I went straight to work on his clothes. I removed his blood-stained shirt first and threw it to the side. Quickly checked him over again just to be sure that he wasn’t injured somewhere. His skin felt cold and clammy against my fingertips. His knuckles were busted open, so I went to the bathroom and got a wet towel and the first aid kit. I cleaned his fingers then wrapped them up. I felt fingers in my hair and looked up to see a very drunk Devin staring back at me. “You’re so fucking beautiful,” he whispered as his heavy head fell against the back of my couch again. Shaking my head, I dropped onto my knees on the floor and removed his boots. Once I was done getting Devin out of his shoes, I went to the hallway closet and pulled out a blanket for him. When I got back to the couch, he was standing there looking back at me in all his tattooed, muscled glory. He was still leaning a bit to the side when his eyes locked on mine. “Come here,” he rasped. He looked as if he was about to crumble and I couldn’t tell if it was the alcohol or if something was really breaking him down. “Are you OK, baby?” I asked. He closed his eyes and sighed. “I love it when you call me baby.” I went to him and he groaned as I softly ran my hands up his chest and put my arms around his neck. On my tiptoes, I softly kissed the line of his neck and his chin. “Tell me what happened, Devin.” When he finally opened his eyes, he looked at me differently. The calm and collected Devin was gone and an anxiety-ridden shell of a man stood before me. His shoulders felt tense beneath my fingers and his eyes held a crazed demeanor. “I need you, Lilly.” He captured my face softly in his hands as he slurred the words. “Please tell me what happened?” “Make it go away, baby,” he whispered as he leaned in and started to kiss me. I let him as I melted against his body. He collapsed against the couch once more, but this time he took me with him. Not once did he break our kiss, and soon, I felt his velvet tongue against mine. I kissed him back and let my fingers play in the hair at the back of his neck. He broke the kiss and started down the side of my neck. “I need you, Lilly,” he repeated against my skin. “I’m here.” I bit at my bottom lip to stop myself from moaning. “Please, just make it all go away,” he drunkenly begged. “I don’t know what’s going on, but tell me what to do to make it better. I want to make it better, Devin.” I stopped him and stared into his eyes as I waited for his response. “Don’t leave me,” he said desperately. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m here. I’ll do whatever it takes to make it better.” I wanted to cry. He looked so hurt and afraid. It was strange to see such a strong, confident man so lost and unsure. He flipped me onto my back on the couch and crawled on top of me. His movements were less calculated—slower than usual. “I want you. I need to be inside you,” he said aggressively.

No, no. It has quite healed over again. I am very well. It is only that I don’t sleep. Toss, turn, can’t get off, then ill dreams and I wake up some time in the middle watch – never get off again, and I am stupid all the rest of the day. And damned ill-tempered, Stephen; I sway away on all top-ropes for a nothing, and then I am sorry afterwards. Is it my liver, do you think? Not yesterday, but the day before I had a damned unpleasant surprise: I was shaving, and thinking of something else; and Killick had hung the glass aft the scuttle instead of its usual place. So just for a moment I caught sight of my face as though it was a stranger looking in. When I understood it was me, I said, “Where did I get that damned forbidding ship’s corporal’s face?” and determined not to look like that again – it reminded me of that unhappy fellow Pigot, of the Hermione. And this morning there it was again, glaring back at me out of the glass. That is another reason why I am so glad to see you: you will give me one of your treble-shotted slime-draughts to get me to sleep. It’s the devil, you know, not sleeping: no wonder a man looks like a ship’s corporal. And these dreams – do you dream, Stephen?’ ‘No, sir.’ ‘I thought not. You have a head-piece . . . however, I had one some nights ago, about your narwhal; and Sophie was mixed up with it in some way. It sounds nonsense, but it was so full of unhappiness that I woke blubbering like a child. Here it is, by the way.’ He reached behind him and passed the long tapering spiral of ivory. Stephen’s eyes gleamed as he took it and turned it slowly round and round in his hands. ‘Oh thank you, thank you, Jack,’ he cried. ‘It is perfect – the very apotheosis of a tooth.’ ‘There were some longer ones, well over a fathom, but they had lost their tips, and I thought you would like to get the point, ha, ha, ha.’ It was a flash of his old idiot self, and he wheezed and chuckled for some time, his blue eyes as clear and delighted as they had been long ago: wild glee over an infinitesimal grain of merriment.

It makes me more than sad, it makes my heart burn within me, to see that folk can make a jest of earnest men; of chaps who comed to ask for a bit o' fire for th' old granny, as shivers in th' cold; for a bit o' bedding, and some warm clothing to the poor wife as lies in labour on th' damp flags; and for victuals for the childer, whose little voices are getting too faint and weak to cry aloud wi' hunger. For, brothers, is not them the things we ask for when we ask for more wage? We donnot want dainties, we want bellyfuls; we donnot want gimcrack coats and waistcoats, we want warm clothes, and so that we get 'em we'd not quarrel wi' what they're made on. We donnot want their grand houses, we want a roof to cover us from the rain, and the snow, and the storm; ay, and not alone to cover us, but the helpless ones that cling to us in the keen wind, and ask us with their eyes why we brought 'em into th' world to suffer?" He lowered his deep voice almost to a whisper. "I've seen a father who had killed his child rather than let it clem before his eyes; and he were a tender-hearted man." He began again in his usual tone. "We come to th' masters wi' full hearts, to ask for them things I named afore. We know that they've gotten money, as we've earned for 'em; we know trade is mending, and that they've large orders, for which they'll be well paid; we ask for our share o' th' payment; for, say we, if th' masters get our share of payment it will only go to keep servants and horses, to more dress and pomp. Well and good, if yo choose to be fools we'll not hinder you, so long as you're just; but our share we must and will have; we'll not be cheated. We want it for daily bread, for life itself; and not for our own lives neither (for there's many a one here, I know by mysel, as would be glad and thankful to lie down and die out o' this weary world), but for the lives of them little ones, who don't yet know what life is, and are afeard of death. Well, we come before th' masters to state what we want, and what we must have, afore we'll set shoulder to their work; and they say, 'No.' One would think that would be enough of hard-heartedness, but it isn't. They go and make jesting pictures of us! I could laugh at mysel, as well as poor John Slater there; but then I must be easy in my mind to laugh. Now I only know that I would give the last drop o' my blood to avenge us on yon chap, who had so little feeling in him as to make game on earnest, suffering men!

for later. Keep it safe. If the child has collapsed into a tantrum in a place where he might hurt himself, move him to an area where he will be safe—an open, carpeted area, away from the glass coffee table. A child in the midst of a tantrum often flails, grabs for things to throw, or reaches for people to hit. Keep the child away from everything, including your body.       Sometimes very young children feel totally out of control and will need you to contain them. Sit on the floor and gently but firmly hold your child’s back to your front, on the floor between your legs, both arms crossed in front of him. This is not an angry hold, but rather one that says I am keeping you safe. Soon (or maybe not so soon!) he will stop resisting you, relax a bit, and take it down a notch to crying. This hold should not become a physical battle. It is, instead, a form of support and safety that you provide for your child. Do not leave the child alone. There are those who believe in sending the child to his room to have the meltdown. I believe the child is better served by your not abandoning him to his out-of-control feelings and behavior. Stay close by. Even though you are not talking to him, he knows you are there, and your presence is comforting. He might command you to “Go away” or “Leave me alone,” but he doesn’t mean it. Sit in a chair across the room and pick up a magazine. If the child is holding on to your leg, try to ignore it. In fact, try to ignore him altogether as best as you can. You can say: “You are really angry right now. I will wait until you are done.” Or, “Let me know when you are done.”       If the child is trying to hurt you, hit you, or grab at you, stand up and step away. Tell him: “I will not let you hurt me. Let me know when you are done, and we can talk.”       When you are standing, your legs are the only target he can reach. He’ll wrap his arms around your calves in a death grip. Ignore it. It will end eventually, I promise. The End Save. You can usually tell when the tantrum is winding down. When you hear and see that your child is starting to come back down to earth—his crying has calmed to sobs, his breaths are broken and quick, he is sniffling a bit—it is a good time to step in and accompany him on his journey back. Scoop him up and say something diverting, like: “C’mon, Sam, let’s go see if there are any squirrels outside.” By this point, most children are ready to be saved. They just don’t know how to do so gracefully. A paradigm shift offers the child the chance to reenter the world and save face.

One day, because I was bored in our usual spot, next to the merry-go-round, Françoise had taken me on an excursion – beyond the frontier guarded at equal intervals by the little bastions of the barley-sugar sellers – into those neighbouring but foreign regions where the faces are unfamiliar, where the goat cart passes; then she had gone back to get her things from her chair, which stood with its back to a clump of laurels; as I waited for her, I was trampling the broad lawn, sparse and shorn, yellowed by the sun, at the far end of which a statue stands above the pool, when, from the path, addressing a little girl with red hair playing with a shuttlecock in front of the basin, another girl, while putting on her cloak and stowing her racket, shouted to her, in a sharp voice: ‘Good-bye, Gilberte, I’m going home, don’t forget we’re coming to your house tonight after dinner.’ That name, Gilberte, passed by close to me, evoking all the more forcefully the existence of the girl it designated in that it did not merely name her as an absent person to whom one is referring, but hailed her directly; thus it passed close by me, in action so to speak, with a power that increased with the curve of its trajectory and the approach of its goal; – transporting along with it, I felt, the knowledge, the notions about the girl to whom it was addressed, that belonged not to me, but to the friend who was calling her, everything that, as she uttered it, she could see again or at least held in her memory, of their daily companionship, of the visits they paid to each other, and all that unknown experience which was even more inaccessible and painful to me because conversely it was so familiar and so tractable to that happy girl who grazed me with it without my being able to penetrate it and hurled it up in the air in a shout; – letting float in the air the delicious emanation it had already, by touching them precisely, released from several invisible points in the life of Mlle Swann, from the evening to come, such as it might be, after dinner, at her house; – forming, in its celestial passage among the children and maids, a little cloud of precious colour, like that which, curling over a lovely garden by Poussin,15 reflects minutely like a cloud in an opera, full of horses and chariots, some manifestation of the life of the gods; – casting finally, on that bald grass, at the spot where it was at once a patch of withered lawn and a moment in the afternoon of the blonde shuttlecock player (who did not stop launching the shuttlecock and catching it again until a governess wearing a blue ostrich feather called her), a marvellous little band the colour of heliotrope as impalpable as a reflection and laid down like a carpet over which I did not tire of walking back and forth with lingering, nostalgic and desecrating steps, while Françoise cried out to me: ‘Come on now, button up your coat and let’s make ourselves scarce’, and I noticed for the first time with irritation that she had a vulgar way of speaking, and alas, no blue feather in her hat.

am full beyond words. And as is usual with me, I wept just a little. It’s silly weak, kiddish and all that, but, gee, to have done something real … One can if one will. Now I know it. We measure by material accomplishments, that is, in the eyes of society.… I think I am registering a comeback, to employ the vernacular. Now to burst into print and to begin—not to shine—but to show phosphorescent tendencies that may assemble into a little glow. Big fires from little sparks grow. You’re with me, dad’s with me; and there are many I rather feel will jump on top when my bus gets going. I have youth; I am acquiring faith, i.e. courage, confidence, right’s might: I am learning every day and developing every hour.… Fool that I am, I’d like to cry for a week, just from sheer happiness.… This year I am sure is the most glorious in my college so far after all.—If only I could find a girl, now. That is a big problem for me to thrash out—and it must be for myself, by myself, and with no other source or guide, less perchance it be Experience. I have so long avoided and put off telling this to you: but you must see it. After Emma, I have lost faith in your sex. That affair you never knew in detail. I can tell you of it some day, but not here and now.… Why I write this, I cannot say. I don’t know. But as I see engagements about me by the score—not that I think it even tolerable in one so young—but because I realize that I of equal age (in years) do not feel the slightest attraction or inclination to … (page missing)

She started coughing and water burst from her mouth like she’d been drowning. I pulled her forward, slapping her back to help her get it all up and the tremors rocking her body reverberated through mine as she pressed against my chest. More cold water flooded from her, drenching her as she cried out in panic and I pulled her against me more firmly. “You need to wake up,” I commanded. “I don’t want to die like this,” she breathed and my heart lurched as the ice thickened around us again. This wasn’t a dream she was having. It was a nightmare. And I got the sinking feeling that I knew exactly what it was about. The ice kept thickening and I was shivering now too. If she didn’t snap out of this soon she could really hurt herself and it would be my fucking fault. “Shit,” I breathed, taking her hand in mine and squeezing her cold fingers as I pushed my magic into hers. For once the well of her power didn’t burn with overwhelming magic and I thanked the stars that she’d obviously gotten through a good amount of her reserves today. The display she was currently putting on was clearly burning through her power and I’d only topped mine up after class so I was confident that I could wrangle hers under control. I pressed my magic into her body, expecting the fight she’d put up when we trained together but to my surprise, her power welcomed mine like greeting an old friend. The surge of excited energy I felt when power sharing with her zipped through me but this was even more intense than usual because she wanted it. On some base level, at this moment in time, she fully trusted me. I tried not to focus on how good that felt and shifted my attention to helping her reshape her magic instead. I had to fight to pull her away from her water magic which clearly wasn’t helping anything right now but she started to writhe in my arms, looking for an outlet for this panic that gripped her. My natural inclination was to encourage her towards fire but if she managed to overwhelm my control with that Element then it could be disastrous. I’d had a little practice with the other Heirs in power sharing and had managed to help them wield the Elements I didn’t possess more than once even though it wasn’t as easy. Essentially as I wasn’t the one shaping the power, it was doable, so all I had to do was encourage her towards it. I decided that Earth magic was probably the safest bet while she was so out of control and fought to push her towards that. My grip on her tightened and I ground my teeth as I twisted my power in the unnatural direction but all of a sudden, Roxy grabbed onto my suggestion and I felt the magic flooding from her. I opened my eyes, glancing around to find the entire Orb springing to life with flowers of every colour imaginable. (Darius)

I fell to my knees, hugged Uncle Roman, and wept. July 1, 1941 The day after Uncle Roman’s funeral, I went out to take Krasa to the pasture as usual, but a crowd of people stood in front of our church, hugging one another, laughing, and crying.

Listening When we speak of listening with compassion, we usually think of listening to someone else. But we must also listen to the wounded child inside of us. Sometimes the wounded child in us needs all our attention. That little child might emerge from the depths of your consciousness and ask for your attention. If you are mindful, you will hear his or her voice calling for help. At that moment, instead of paying attention to whatever is in front of you, go back and tenderly embrace the wounded child. You can talk directly to the child with the language of love, saying, “In the past, I left you alone. I went away from you. Now, I am very sorry. I am going to embrace you.” You can say, “Darling, I am here for you. I will take good care of you. I know that you suffer so much. I have been so busy. I have neglected you, and now I have learned a way to come back to you.” If necessary, you have to cry together with that child. Whenever you need to, you can sit and breathe with the child. “Breathing in, I go back to my wounded child; breathing out, I take good care of my wounded child.” You have to talk to your child several times a day. Only then can healing take place. Embracing your child tenderly, you reassure him that you will never let him down again or leave him unattended. The little child has been left alone for so long. That is why you need to begin this practice right away. If you don’t do it now, when will you do it? If you know how to go back to her and listen carefully every day for five or ten minutes, healing will take

Until Mack finally bursts out, “What the hell is going on over there?” There’s no over there. I’m snuggled right up against him. But I know what he means anyway. “Nothing’s going on!” “Then why are you getting all upset for no reason! Are the cramps worse? Or are you sick again? Like yesterday?” It is kind of like yesterday when I was crying in the bathroom. “I’m not sick. I’m fine. I was trying to sleep. I thought you were asleep.” “Well, I was, but then I was getting hit by all these stressed vibes from you. It was very disturbing.” I sigh and give up trying to convince him of something that isn’t true. “I wasn’t really stressed. Just a bad memory. Sometimes they hit me, and I can’t push them away, and I feel it all again.” “Yeah. That happens to everyone, I think. What bad memory are you thinking about right now?” He asks the questions as if he’s absolutely certain that he has a right to the answer. I exhale deeply again. Stroke his hip. His lower back. His tight butt, completely bare as usual. “Honestly, I was thinking about when I broke up with you.” “Why were you thinking about that?” “I don’t know. Just a random, passing thought. But once it was lodged in my brain, it wouldn’t budge.” “And it upset you that much?” “Of course it upset me! It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.” He’s fully awake now. He eases me onto my back and rolls over on top of me, propping himself up on his arms so he can look down at me. “It was hard for me too.” “I know it was. I felt like shit for doing that to you. And I felt like shit for not realizing the way things… things really were a lot sooner.” “No, that part is my fault. All mine. I’m the one who told you all I wanted was the casual thing. I had my own self half-convinced it was the truth. Why wouldn’t you have believed me?” “I don’t know. But I felt guilty anyway. Still do a little.

A moment later, the glass door opens again. Tobias and Uriah storm in as if to fight a battle--Uriah coughing, probably from the poison--but the battle is done. Jeanine is dead, Tori is triumphant, and I am a Dauntless traitor. Tobias stops in the middle of a step, almost stumbling over his feet, when he sees me. His eyes open wider. “She is a traitor,” says Tori. “She just almost shot me to defend Jeanine.” “What?” says Uriah. “Tris, what’s going on? Is she right? Why are you even here?” But I look only at Tobias. A sliver of hope pierces me, strangely painful, when combined with the guilt I feel for how I deceived him. Tobias is stubborn and proud, but he is mine--maybe he will listen, maybe there’s a chance that all I did was not in vain-- “You know why I’m here,” I say quietly. “Don’t you?” I told out Tori’s gun. He walks forward, a little unsteady on his feet, and takes it. “We found Marcus in the next room, caught in a simulation,” Tobias says. “You came up here with him.” “Yes, I did,” I say, blood from Tori’s bite trickling down my arm. “I trusted you,” he says, his body shaking with rage. “I trusted you and you abandoned me to work with him?” “No.” I shake my head. “He told me something, and everything my brother said, everything Jeanine said while I was in Erudite headquarters, fit perfectly with what he told me. And I wanted--I needed to know the truth.” “The truth.” He snorts. “You think you learned the truth from a liar, a traitor, and a sociopath?” “The truth?” says Tori. “What are you talking about?” Tobias and I stare at each other. His blue eyes, usually so thoughtful, are now hard and critical, like they are peeling back layer after layer of me and searching each one. “I think,” I say. I have to pause and take a breath, because I have not convinced him; I have failed, and this is probably the last thing they will let me say before they arrest me. “I think that you are the liar!” I say, my voice quaking. “You tell me you love me, you trust me, you think I’m more perceptive than the average person. And the first second that belief in my perceptiveness, that trust, that love is put to the test, it all falls apart.” I am crying now, but I am not ashamed of the tears shining on my cheeks or the thickness of my voice. “So you must have lied when you told me all those things…you must have, because I can’t believe your love is really that feeble.” I step closer to him, so that there are only inches between us, and none of the others can hear me. “I am still the person who would have died rather than kill you,” I say, remembering the attack simulation and the feel of his heartbeat under my hand. “I am exactly who you think I am. And right now, I’m telling you that I know…I know this information will change everything. Everything we have done, and everything we are about to do.” I stare at him like I can communicate the truth with my eyes, but that is impossible. He looks away, and I’m not sure he even heard what I said. “Enough of this,” says Tori. “Take her downstairs. She will be tried along with all the other war criminals.” Tobias doesn’t move. Uriah takes my arm and leads me away from him, through the laboratory, through the room of light, through the blue hallway. Therese of the factionless joins us there, eyeing me curiously. Once we’re in the stairwell, I feel something nudge my side. When I look back, I see a wad of gauze in Uriah’s hand. I take it, trying to give him a grateful smile and failing. As we descend the stairs, I wrap the gauze tightly around my hand, sidestepping bodies without looking at their faces. Uriah takes my elbow to keep me from falling. The gauze wrapping doesn’t help with the pain of the bite, but it makes me feel a little better, and so does the fact that Uriah, at least, doesn’t seem to hate me.

Of the tendency, Angus said, of things to get better Dogs and the optimistic are usually convinced; Others, perhaps, are more cautious: When I was your age I remember Thinking that most of life’s problems Would be over by the next day; I still think that, I suppose, And am often pleasantly surprised To discover that it is occasionally true; Thinking something, you see, Can make it happen, or so we believe, Though how that works, I doubt If I shall ever find out. From your perspective, where you are Is probably the only place It is possible to be; some time soon You will discover that we can, if lucky, Decide who we shall become. A word of warning here: Of all the tempting roles You will be offered, being yourself Is unquestionably the safest, Will bring the most applause Will make you feel best; Greasepaint, dear Bertie, is greasy: Leave it to the actors; The most comfortable face to wear, You’ll find, is your own. So what do I wish for you? Freedom? I imagine You know all about that Even if so far you’ve had To contemplate it from a distance. I could think of other things; I might wish, for example, That you should be whatever You fervently want to be: a sailor, A fireman, an explorer? You may live, you know, To seventy-seven and beyond: What, I wonder, will Scotland Be like seven decades from now? I’ll never know, but what I wish Is that some of it will be left for you, Some of the things we’ve loved. Happy birthday, then, Bertie: Be strong, be thoughtful; Don’t be afraid to cry, when necessary: In operas, as in life, it is the strong Who are always the first to weep. Be kind, which you already are, Even to those who deserve it least; Kindness, you see, Bertie, is a sort of love, That is something I have learned, And you’ll learn too if you listen To the teacher we all should trust: The human heart, my dear, the human heart, Where kindness makes its home.

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

One reason Bonhoeffer wished to spend a year as a pastor in Barcelona was that he believed communicating what he knew theologically—whether to indifferent businessmen, teenagers, or younger children—was as important as the theology itself. His success in children’s ministry shows this, and this letter to his future brother-in-law Walter Dress gives us a glimpse into this aspect of his year in Barcelona: 86 Today I encountered a completely unique case in my pastoral counseling, which I’d like to recount to you briefly and which despite its simplicity really made me think. At 11:00 a.m. there was a knock at my door and a ten-year-old boy came into my room with something I had requested from his parents. I noticed that something was amiss with the boy, who is usually cheerfulness personified. And soon it came out: he broke down in tears, completely beside himself, and I could hear only the words: “Herr Wolf ist tot” [Mr. Wolf is dead.], and then he cried and cried. “But who is Herr Wolf?” As it turns out, it is a young German shepherd dog that was sick for eight days and had just died a half-hour ago. So the boy, inconsolable, sat down on my knee and could hardly regain his composure; he told me how the dog died and how everything is lost now. He played only with the dog, each morning the dog came to the boy’s bed and awakened him—and now the dog was dead. What could I say? So he talked to me about it for quite a while. Then suddenly his wrenching crying became very quiet and he said: “But I know he’s not dead at all.” “What do you mean?” “His spirit is now in heaven, where it is happy. Once in class a boy asked the religion teacher what heaven was like, and she said she had not been there yet; but tell me now, will I see Herr Wolf again? He’s certainly in heaven.” So there I stood and was supposed to answer him yes or no. If I said “no, we don’t know” that would have meant “no.” . . . So I quickly made up my mind and said to him: “Look, God created human beings and also animals, and I’m sure he also loves animals. And I believe that with God it is such that all who loved each other on earth—genuinely loved each other—will remain together with God, for to love is part of God. Just how that happens, though, we admittedly don’t know.” You should have seen the happy face on this boy; he had completely stopped crying. “So then I’ll see Herr Wolf again when I am dead; then we can play together again”—in a word, he was ecstatic. I repeated to him a couple of times that we don’t really know how this happens. He, however, knew, and knew it quite definitely in thought. After a few minutes, he said: “Today I really scolded Adam and Eve; if they had not eaten the apple, Herr Wolf would not have died.” This whole affair was as important to the young boy as things are for one of us when something really bad happens. But I am almost surprised—moved, by the naïveté of the piety that awakens at such a moment in an otherwise completely wild young boy who is thinking of nothing. And there I stood—I who was supposed to “know the answer”—feeling quite small next to him; and I cannot forget the confident expression he had on his face when he left.

The good news is my almost-boyfriend was ready to pound Eric’s face for you.” “Almost-boyfriend? Don’t you gays usually move a lot faster than this? I thought you were supposed to shack up together on the second date and adopt a cat so you had something to dress up in a tutu.

You always know what to do,” she said. “Not always,” he said, holding her close. “Right now, for example. I’m not sure what to do.” “Why?” she asked, her eyes still closed, her face buried in his chest. “When are you going to tell me?” She lifted her head. “Tell you?” “About the baby.” “But Jack, you know the baby and mother are—” “The baby inside of you,” he said, placing a large hand over her flat tummy. A startled look crossed her features. She pushed him away a little bit. “Did someone say something to you?” she asked. “No one had to say anything. Please tell me I’m not the last to know.” “I just saw John yesterday—and how in the world would you know?” “Mel,” he said, running the back of one knuckle along her cheek, “your body’s changing. You haven’t had a period. For a while, I thought maybe you’d had a hysterectomy or something because I haven’t noticed a period since the first time we made love, but there’s a blue box under the bathroom sink. You don’t drink your beer, and you get nauseous from time to time. Not to mention being more tired than usual.” “Lord,” she said. “You never think a man will notice. Not things like that.” “Well?” She sighed. “I went to see John yesterday to confirm what I already suspected. I’m pregnant. Three months.” “You’re a midwife. How could you not know at three weeks?” “Because I assumed I was sterile. Infertile. Mark and I did everything to try to get a baby—even in vitro fertilization. To no avail. This was the last thing I ever expected.” “Ah,” he said, finally clear on why she might keep it from him. “So, here we are,” he said. “I’m sorry, Jack. You must think I’m an idiot.” He kissed her. “Of course not. Mel, I’m in love with you.” She was frozen for a second. “Oh, God,” she finally said, plummeted into tears. “Oh, God, Jack!” She buried her face in his chest and wept. “Hey, no reason to cry, baby. You a little surprised? No more than me,” he laughed. “I never thought this could happen to me. It hit me so hard, I damn near fell down. But I love you.” She continued to softly cry. “It’s okay, honey. It’ll be okay.” He stroked her hair. “You want to have a baby, obviously.” She lifted her head. “I wanted a baby so badly, I ached. But do you?” she asked. “I mean, you’re forty.” “I want everything with you. Everything. Besides, I like babies. And I’m wild about pregnant women.” “When did you decide you knew for sure?” she asked him. “At least a month ago.” He put a hand over her breast. “Sore? Haven’t you noticed the changes? Your nipples have darkened.” “I was in denial,” she said, wiping at her tears.

The two men stared at each other. “I’m surprised you didn’t kill him,” Myron said. “Then you really don’t know me.” A horse whinnied. Win turned and looked at the magnificent animal. Something strange came across his face, a look of loss. “What did she do to you, Win?” Win kept staring. They both knew whom Myron was talking about. “What did she do to make you hate so much?” “Don’t engage in too much hyperbole, Myron. I am not that simple. My mother is not solely responsible for shaping me. A man is not made up of one incident, and I am a far cry from crazy, as you suggested earlier. Like any other human being, I choose my battles. I battle quite a bit—more than most—and usually on the right side. I battled for Billy Waters and Tyrone Duffy. But I do not wish to battle for the Coldrens. That is my choice. You, as my closest friend, should respect that. You should not try to prod or guilt me into a battle I do not wish to fight.” Myron

Rachel,” he said, cutting me off. Abruptly he’d stopped pacing and placed a hand on each side of me, his face directly in front of me. “I refuse to take care of myself alone. You take care of me, and I’ll take care of you, and together we’ll take care of Trip.” “Okay . . .” “And don’t ever tell me again to love another woman the way I have loved you, and will always love you. There is no way you could have expected me to move on after you.” “You say that now, but you don’t know how you would have felt in a few years.” He grabbed my face in his hands and his voice shook as he shouted, “I don’t give a shit! I know I don’t know how I would feel in that situation, there’s no way to know that. But I know that no matter what happens in our lives, if you were taken from me for good, there would never be anyone else like you. There would never be anyone else I could love the way I love you.” “Kash, okay. I’m sorry,” I whispered and brushed the tips of my fingers against the angry set of his face. Something in my touch broke him, because a pained cry burst from his chest at the same time heavy tears fell down his cheeks. He dropped to his knees on the floor and pressed his head against my stomach, his hands gripping my back as he cried into my lap. “I’ve come too close to losing you too many times,” he forced out. “I will do anything to keep you by my side for the rest of my life.” Looking up at me, I felt helpless staring back at his broken expression. “Knowing that you even had to consider me moving on with someone else because you might die, kills me. I hate that you went through that, and I hate that you prepared yourself for that.” “Okay, but I’m—” My voice gave out and I had to clear my throat. “I’m here, we’re together.” “I’m not letting you go, Rachel, for anything. It’s you and me. Always, got it?” I nodded, unable to respond, and his head dropped back against my stomach as another sob ripped through him. I’d only ever seen Kash begin to cry twice. Usually when he was upset, he got angry. So to see him break like this was absolutely breaking my heart. I kept one hand holding his head in my lap, and ran the other over his back. The muscles bunched and shuddered beneath my fingertips as he let everything out. As

She’s freaking out. If she cries, I won’t know what to do. I’m not used to crying chicks. I don’t think Carmen cried once during our entire relationship. In fact, I’m not sure Carmen has tear ducts. “Um…you okay?” I ask. “If this gets around, I’m never going to live it down. Oh, God, if Mrs. Peterson calls my parents I’m dead. Or at least I’ll wish I was dead.” She keeps talking and shaking, as if she’s a car with bad shocks and no brakes. “Brittany?” “…and my mom’ll blame it on me. It’s my fault, I know. But she’ll freak out on me and then I’ll have to explain and hope she--” Before she can get another word out I yell, “Brittany!” The girl looks up at me with an expression so confused I don’t know whether to feel sorry for her or stunned she’s rambling and can’t seem to stop. “You’re the one freakin’ out,” I comment, stating the obvious. Her eyes are usually clear and bright, but now they’re dull and blank as if she’s not all here. She looks down and around and everywhere except directly at me. “No, I’m not. I’m fine.” “The hell you are. Look at me.” She hesitates. “I’m fine,” she says, now focused on a locker across the hall. “Just forget everything I just said.” “If you don’t look at me, I’m gonna bleed all over the floor and need a fuckin’ transfusion. Look at me, dammit.” Her breathing is still heavy as she focuses on me. “What? If you want to tell me my life is out of control, I’m already aware of it.” “I know you didn’t mean to hurt me,” I tell her. “Even if you did, I probably deserved it.” I’m hoping to lighten the mood so the girl doesn’t have a complete breakdown in the hallway. “Makin’ mistakes ain’t a crime, you know. What’s the use in having a reputation if you can’t ruin it every now and then?” “Don’t try and make me feel better, Alex. I hate you.” “I hate you, too. Now please move out of the way so the janitor doesn’t have to spend all day moppin’ up my blood. He’s a relative, you know.

Every Night I Die At Miyagis" would you like to be mine okay then, i'll be yours for just one day haha, just joking tell me when to start oh-oh, you're just playing hard to get yeah i know i've been told off in the world... off in the world the girls adjust i'm lost for words when you're sitting alone don't you know the boys will cry but not I i just want to see the smile on your face yes i see through all the trends let's be friends don't say no off in the world... off in the world the girls adjust i'm lost for words "i give dirty pussy to everyone! i crazy like gideon! ha ha i chomp on punani, bloody vagina me feast on placenta, placent-" give me what you are but oh no i'm not usually this way, i'm okay it just happens every time that i try did they make a life tonight i won't lie but i'm sold off in the world... off in the world the girls adjust i'm lost for words

It wasn't the worst time when Melody left me," the Professor said. "The worst time was the years before. Because I didn't know I couldn't hate anybody that much; it was like she'd stuck a sword into me, one of those Japanese samurai swords, do you know the kind I mean? Heavy and razor sharp-and she'd stuck it in me and then she was...pushing it around." His hand rested on his stomach, remembering. "I couldn't get free from the feelings. I didn't know how frightened I could be, all the time. But whenever we had to go out together, she'd smile at me and talk to me and listen and look at me the way she did-and I wanted to hit her," he said, his voice low and ashamed. Jeff let his head down to rest on his fists. "When I found out how many lies she was telling me, I finally realized that she had always lied to me. About my lectures. About boyfriends; and even after she knew I knew, she'd still lie about it. I hated her. Or the bills she ran up, without asking, without telling; then she'd say she'd taken care of them but she just-ignore them. I know I looked all right to other people-maybe more of a dry stick than usual, maybe even more of boring than usual-but inside I was knotted up, all the time, because I hated her so much, and I hated myself, and I was scared." Jeff looked up at his father. "I didn't think she'd do that to you, Jeff," the Professor said. "But she did, didn't she." Jeff nodded. He knew he was crying, but he didn't know what to do about it. Neither did the Professor. He just sat and waited, until Jeff got up to blow his nose. "It was the lies," the Professor said. "They were what really scared me. Even now, if I think about her-and the kinds of things she says....I don't know what she told you, but I never was sorry I'd married her or loved her because of you. You always made a difference, made a real difference, from the very beginning. I always knew that, inside me, but I didn't bother to learn how to show you. I'm sorry, Jeff, I should have taken the trouble.

Take a break for a second.” I gingerly sit down next to him. He scoots closer until his hip touches mine. I scoot away from him, but he scoots even closer. I look up, and I can’t keep from grinning at him. “You’re in my space,” I warn. “I like being in your space. I kind of want to be all up in your space,” he says, his voice teasing and playful. But then he pats his shoulder. “God didn’t give me broad shoulders just to hold up my T-shirts.” He uses his hand to push my head onto his shoulder. He’s quiet for a moment, but then he says, “Let me take some of your burden, Sky. Tell me what’s wrong.” He sits quietly and just breathes. He doesn’t say anything more. I sit there and take in the scent of him. It’s woodsy and manly and clean. It’s Matt, and I like it. I don’t want to cry anymore. I want to climb into his lap and kiss him. “Oh God,” I moan. “Nope. I’m just Matt,” he says with a chuckle. I punch his shoulder playfully. He pretends to fall to the side, but he pops right back up, getting even more in my space. “Is this about your boyfriend?” he asks quietly. I shake my head. I had almost forgotten about Phillip. “No,” I start. But I can’t get the words together. “Never mind.” He sits quietly, and then he starts to whistle. He’s not letting me off without an explanation. “It’s just that I never had a family.” There. I said it. Now he can pity me. “So when Seth was worried, not just about his sisters but about me too, it made me feel a little emotional.” I shrug. It sounds even more stupid now that it’s out of my mouth. “That’s all. I know it’s stupid.” He doesn’t say anything. He just nods. “I just am having a hard time finding my place in this situation. But I think I’m finding it, and it feels good.” He arches his brow. “So, that was a good cry?” he asks. “That was a very good cry.” A grin tugs at the corners of my lips even though I’m still feeling really emotional. “Okay,” he says with a nod. He pats his shoulder. “You want to cry on me some more? I kind of like having you touch me.” He grins and opens his arms in invitation. “I’m really good at hugs, too.” I bite my lower lip, trying not to grin. “I’ll pretend it’s a chore if it’ll make you feel better. I’ll even groan out loud.” This time I laugh. I can’t help it. He’s so damn sweet. “Is that a no?” he asks, deadpan. “I’m not usually this emotional,” I say. He shrugs. “All women say that. It usually precedes an episode of batshit craziness.” “Are you calling me crazy?” He shakes his head vehemently. “Definitely not.” He smiles. “There are a lot of words I would call you. Crazy isn’t one of them.” Now I’m intrigued. “Do tell.” “You’re fucking gorgeous as hell,” he says. His eyes drag up and down my body. Heat creeps up my cheeks. “And you’re smart. And loyal. And you’ve bitten off more than you can chew by taking on three kids that aren’t even yours.” I like that he thinks I’m smart. And loyal. “And you’re not mine.” He gets to his feet and reaches down to take my hand. “So we had better get out of the stairwell before I do something stupid like kiss you.

When I Need to Be Delivered from Bad Habits For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do…But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. ROMANS 7:15,17 AT ONE TIME OR ANOTHER in our lives, we women struggle with some kind of habit or behavior we don’t like, don’t want, and don’t know how to overcome. We usually know when we are doing something that is not good for our body, health, finances, or marriage, because after we do it we feel guilty to the point of self-flagellating regret. We beat ourselves up all day long about it. In the verses above, Paul describes our situation when we don’t do the things we know we should, and we do the things we know we shouldn’t. It happens when sin gets control over us, or our flesh cries loudly for what it wants, or the enemy takes advantage of our weakness and we don’t resist him. If we attempt to handle this on our own without God’s help, even if we do well for a time, we may eventually fall back into the same bad habit. Paul, however, gives us reason to hope, because a few verses later he asks, “Who will deliver me from this?” And he answers his own question saying, “Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 7:24-25). Jesus can set us free from all that is destructive in our lives, including our tendency toward any bad habits. The best news is that even though our own strength fails, the power of the Holy Spirit in us never fails. Ask God to set you free from any bad habit or craving that you know is not God’s will for your life. Thank Him that because of Jesus, you don’t have to give in to the dictates of your own flesh. Jesus has not only set you free, He can also help you walk in the freedom He has given you. My Prayer to God LORD, I pray You would expose any bad habits I have to Your light. Burn them out of my life. For the habit I struggle with most that I would like to see broken, help me to gain control over it so it cannot control me anymore. Show me how to rise up in the power of Your Spirit and resist this weakness head on. Take away whatever is in me that draws me to do anything that is not Your best for my life. Fill what is missing in me with more of You so that I stop trying to fill any empty place in my life with something that turns into an undesirable habit. Destroy the conflict in me that causes me to do what I don’t want to do and not do what I do want to do. Enable me to be strong and not give in to weakness. I release to You all my desires and needs, and recognize that my true need will always be for more of You. Thank You, Jesus, for setting me free from captivity to sin and delivering me from all that is not good for me, and therefore not good for my husband and children. Protect me from anything that would drive me back into old habits that only destroy my peace, health, security, and future. Lift me above my weaknesses so that Your strength will be clearly manifested in me. In Jesus’ name I pray.

When we’re outside, I hear Brittany take a deep breath. I swear it sounds as if she’s holding herself together by a thin thread. Not the way it’s supposed to go down: bring girl home, kiss girl, mom insults girl, girl leaves crying. “Don’t sweat it. She’s just not used to me bringin’ girls in the house.” Brittany’s expressive blue eyes appear remote and cold. “That shouldn’t have happened,” she says, throwing back her shoulders in a stance as stiff as a statue’s. “What? The kiss or you likin’ it so much?” “I have a boyfriend,” she says as she fidgets with the strap on her designer book bag. “You tryin’ to convince me, or yourself?” I ask her. “Don’t turn this around. I don’t want to upset my friends. I don’t want to upset my mom. And Colin…I’m just really confused right now.” I hold out my hands and raise my voice, something I usually avoid because like Paco says, it means I actually care. I don’t care. Why should I? My mind says to shut the fuck up at the same time words spout from my mouth. “I don’t get it. He treats you like you’re his damn prize.” “You don’t even know what it’s like with me and Colin…” “Tell me, dammit,” I say, unable to hide the edge to my voice. Initially I hold myself back from what I really want to say, but I can’t resist and tell it to her straight up. “’Cause that kiss back there…it meant somethin’. You know it as well as I do. I dare you to tell me bein’ with Colin is better than that.” She looks away hastily. “You wouldn’t understand.” “Try me.” “When people see Colin and me together, they comment on how perfect we are. You know, the Golden Couple. Get it?” I stare at her in disbelief. That is beyond fucked up. “I get it. I just can’t believe I’m hearin’ it. Does bein’ perfect mean that much to you?” There’s a long, brittle silence. I catch a flicker of sadness in those sapphire eyes, but then it’s gone. In an instant her expression stills and grows serious. “I haven’t been doing a bang-up job at it lately, but yes. It does,” she finally admits. “My sister isn’t perfect, so I have to be.” That is the most pathetic shit I’ve ever heard. I shake my head in disgust and point to Julio. “Get on and I’ll take you back to school to get your car.” Silently, Brittany straddles my motorcycle. She holds herself so far away from me I can barely feel her behind me. I almost take a detour to make the ride last longer. She treats her sister with patience and adoration. God knows I wouldn’t be able to spoon-feed one of my brothers and wipe his mouth. The girl I once accused of being self-absorbed is not one-dimensional. Dios mío, I admire her. Somehow, being with Brittany brings something to my life that’s missing, something…right. But how am I going to convince her of that?

No." Callie's tone was as firm as it had ever been. "Listen to me, Harleigh. What happened is what happened. We were both his victims. We both forgot how bad it was because that was the only way we could survive." "It wasn't—" Leigh stopped herself, because there was no counter-argument. They had both been children. They had both been victims. All she could do was go back to where she started. "I'm sorry." "You can't be sorry for something that you couldn't control. Don't you get that?" Leigh shook her head, but part of her desperately wanted to believe what Callie was saying was true. "I want you to hear me," Callie said. "If this is the guilt you've been carrying around for your entire adult life, then set it the fuck down, because it doesn't belong to you. It belongs to him." Leigh was so used to crying that she didn't notice her own tears. "I'm so sorry." "For what?" Callie demanded. "It's not your fault. It was never your fault." The twist on her familiar mantra broke something inside of Leigh. She put her head in her hands. She started to sob so hard that she couldn't hold herself up. Callie wrapped her arms around Leigh, taking some of the burden. Her lips pressed into the top of Leigh's head. Callie had never held her before. Usually, it was the other way around. Usually, it was Leigh providing the comfort, because Walter was right. From the beginning, Phil had never been their mother. It was only Leigh and Callie, back then, and it was only Leigh and Callie right now.

I’m okay. I usually try to forget all of that stuff, but with Poppy being in this situation, I felt I had to speak up, you know?” “You did the right thing,” Bree says. “Those dumbasses will thank you someday.” Rider coughs dramatically, and Bree smirks. “Yeah, you heard me right back there.” I glance behind me and see Rider’s lips tugging up. Bree nudges me. “How’d you end up doing so well in school given everything you went through? Going through foster care? Not having parents?” “I kept to myself mostly.” I shrug. “School and studying were always safe. Books don’t level you with a backhand to the face or a kick to the ribs.” When I see the horrified look on her face, I cringe. “Bree, I survived. A lot of other kids have it worse. Which is why I’m really glad we’re protecting Poppy.” She stops to hug me, and I smile. I’ve had so few hugs in my life, I forgot how good they feel. She sniffles and waves her hand at me. “Ignore me. I’m not crying.” Over her shoulder, I catch Rider’s fierce expression, but I don’t want his sympathy. I don’t need anybody’s sympathy.

There are two sides to every story, but usually, only one of them is true. I’ve given you my truth, written my words, told you my tale. It’s up to you to decide what to do it with it. The world is built of stories, crafted of pain, outlined with beauty; every story deserves to be heard. This one, this one is mine. There’s one word you don’t utter at Prescott High, not unless you want them to own you. H.A.V.O.C. Hael, Aaron, Victor, Oscar, Callum. And of course, Bernadette. Cry ‘Havoc’ and set us loose, baby. Blood in, blood out.

until one of us leaves crying. Usually it’s Mark, but this time I am afraid it will be me. Please, please don’t let it be me. “You’re the one who could

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

Happiness, I decided years ago, is unattainable and I don’t wish to seek it through the usual methods. Peace is a reflection of our souls, leaving me a non-entity. I cry because people want to feel and I join them in their fears and private agonies and I wish for death and pray for life and hope to God that God even gives a shit and before I die and receive my judgment I just want to help 1 person FEEL, to know what it is to be alive and to ease their suffering as only a tormented soul can.

I don’t cry a lot. I’m not a very weepy girl in general because my usual response to feeling pain is to lash out and cause some of my own. But

The past is prelude and now we are leaving the restaurant and the fog is rolling out toward the Southern Ocean. When he kisses me, it feels natural, inevitable. It doesn’t feel like a stranger has his mouth on mine; he doesn’t taste old or male or alien. I go to see his cottage, and it is just as he described it in his letters: “I keep my horse riding tack and saddles on wooden brackets mounted on one wall, and there is usually a surfboard leaning in a corner and a wetsuit hanging in the shower. When I added the wooden loft as a bedroom, I forgot to leave space for the staircase; it now has what is essentially a ladder going up the one side. Chickens roost in the chimney’s ash trap and they emerge from their egg-laying speckled grey.” It is a home, but a wild home, cheerful, peculiar—like Pippi Longstocking’s Villa Villekulla, with a horse on the porch in an overgrown garden on the edge of town, where it “stood there ready and waiting for her.” And then what? I move to South Africa? He teaches me to ride horses and I have his baby? I become a foreign correspondent! I start a whole new life, a life I never saw coming. Either that, or I am isolated and miserable, I’ve destroyed my career, and I spend my days gathering sooty chicken eggs. A different fantasy: I fly to Cape Town. It is not as I remember it. It’s just a place, not another state of being. I am panicky and agitated. I cry without warning, and once I start, I can’t stop. It is not at all clear that my story will work out. Now I have lost my powers in that department, too. Dr. John and I make a plan to meet. But in this fantasy, I arrive at the restaurant and find it intimidating and confusing: I don’t know if I’m supposed to wait to be seated and I can’t get anyone’s attention. I’m afraid of being rude, wrong, American. When John arrives he is a stranger. I don’t know him and I don’t really like him, or worse, I can tell that he doesn’t like me. Our conversation is stilted. I know (and he suspects) that I have come all this way for an encounter that isn’t worth having, and a story that isn’t worth telling, at least not by me. I have made myself ridiculous. My losing streak continues.

The Manipulative Response Style A fourth way of responding to differences in expectations between people is by manipulation. Whereas aggressive people attempt to coerce someone to change by angry threats and intimidation, manipulative persons use more indirect, frequently psychological means to get their way. For example, one mother would never tell her daughter openly and directly what she wanted, but whenever the daughter would deviate very far from what the mother wanted, the mother would rush into her bedroom, fling herself onto the bed, and cry hysterically “I don’t know what I’m going to do with you” or “You’re going to drive me crazy.” A father told his ten-year-old daughter that he would return to the family if she got straight A’s in school. Another mother claimed to have heart pains whenever her family or friends broached a subject she didn’t want to talk about. Aggressive people usually try to produce fear of themselves as a way of getting what they want. Manipulative people usually try to control others by producing a different kind of fear—the fear that if other people do not change, something terrible will happen. Manipulation can take several forms. We can compare the other person with some hypothetical ideal: “Any Christian who really loves the Lord would/ wouldn’t . . . Any good husband would/wouldn’t . . . Why can’t you be like your brother (sister, kids at church)?” Children quickly learn to use the same manipulative strategy: “I wish you were like my friends’ parents. They let them . . .

Mary Catherine took a moment and managed to gather everyone’s attention without saying a word. Then she said, “Listen, everyone. I know we’re worried about Brian. You can believe your father is doing everything he can to help him. But sometimes things don’t work out the way we expect them to. Not better, not worse—just not like we expect.” Now she was playing to the crowd’s full attention. “My brother Ken wanted to come to America. He’s a big, burly lad and a great fan of the Kennedys. All he talked about was coming to Boston. But he got in trouble.” Shawna said, “What kind of trouble?” We were all hooked. “It was a bar fight, and Ken punched a man who hit his head when he fell on the floor. My brother was charged with assault and later convicted. He didn’t have to go to jail, but he had a conviction on his record, and that kept him from doing what he expected to do. That conviction kept him from coming to America. But you know what?” Chrissy and Bridget both said, “What?” “Things turned out differently for him. He met a lovely girl. And now he lives right there in Dublin with two beautiful kids. He has a good job and is happier than he could ever think of being. It’s different from what he expected, but certainly not worse. Sometimes things happen in life, and we just have to accept them.” I could almost see the kids understanding what she was saying and feeling better. It felt like the pace of eating even picked up. But Seamus was still quiet. None of his usual silly quips or semi-risqué jokes. When I looked at him, I could see why. He was silently crying, trying to hide it from the kids.

Janner rubbed his eyes and shook his head, still not sure whether or not he was dreaming. “What just happened?” he asked. “I don’t know,” Tink said, “but they’re taking Nugget to a cave.” “How do you know that?” Leeli asked in a quiet voice. “I’m not sure. They showed me. I saw them carry his body deep into the sea and into a cave, where they laid Nugget on a pile of rocks. The cave was full of bones, and the bones were covered with some kind of markings. Writing, maybe.” “I asked them to take care of Nugget,” Leeli said, “with my song. I told them who he was, what he did for us.” “I can’t remember what they looked like anymore,” Janner said. Tink stared out at the horizon. “I can still see them. Their fins—did you see the fins? They were huge. Eight sea dragons. Three silver, two reddish gold, an orange, and a blue. Then that last one—the old gray one.” He paused. “And I saw other things, Janner. Awful things.” He shuddered. “What? What did you see? Was it Gnag the Nameless?” Janner asked. “Gnag? No…I don’t know.” Tink shook his head and closed his eyes. A short distance away, Nia cried out. “Where’s your grandfather? Papa!” Podo emerged from the trees. The old man was winded, his limp more pronounced than usual as he made his way toward them. His eyes were downcast. “Boys, set up the tent. It’ll soon be too dark to see.” “Grandpa, something weird just happened,” Janner said. “The dragons—

I'm glad you see that; and I'm glad you did it. You don't believe me, of course. Why do men think life can be only the one thing to women? And if you come to the selfish view, who are the happy women? I'm sure that if work doesn't fail me, health won't, and happiness won't." "But you could work on with me—" "Second fiddle. Do you suppose I shouldn't be woman enough to wish my work always less and lower than yours? At least I've heart enough for that!" "You've heart enough for anything, Alma. I was a fool to say you hadn't." "I think the women who keep their hearts have an even chance, at least, of having heart—" "Ah, there's where you're wrong!" "But mine isn't mine to give you, anyhow. And now I don't want you ever to speak to me about this again." "Oh, there's no danger!" he cried, bitterly. "I shall never willingly see you again." "That's as you like, Mr. Beaton. We've had to be very frank, but I don't see why we shouldn't be friends. Still, we needn't, if you don't like." "And I may come—I may come here—as—as usual?" "Why, if you can consistently," she said, with a smile, and she held out her hand to him.

His attitude towards her changed. When they had been settled for less than a month at La Fiorita, as their villa was called, they were sitting out one night in the belvedere at the end of their pergola watching the full moon climb above the mountains of Sorrento. The night was not chilly; but fearing that Willoughby might take cold, she came down the garden with an Alpine cloak that she had bought for him in Munich. She found him rapt, gazing at the snaky track of yellow moonlight on the water. Even before he spoke she was aware of something tense and emotional in the air; but when she threw the cloak over his shoulders he did not thank her as usual. He stood gazing down at her with a look in his eyes that she had never seen before except when he was playing. She felt herself blushing beneath his gaze. Then, clasping her in his arms, he kissed her lips. It was the kiss of a lover, the like of which she had never known before, and she, with her curious, spinsterly instinct, shrank from it. “What are you doing?” he cried. “What’s the matter with you? Can’t I kiss you?” “Julian, you’re so rough. I don’t understand kisses like that.” “Aren’t you my wife?” he said. “Is there any reason why I shouldn’t love you?

Fussing over children who cry only encourages them, she told us. That's positive reinforcement for negative behavior. I never believed in Santa Claus. None of us kids did. Mom and Dad refused to let us. They couldn't afford expensive presents, and they didn't want us to think we weren't as good as other kids who, on Christmas morning, found all sorts of fancy toys under the tree that were supposedly left by Santa Claus...Pick out your favorite star, Dad said it was my Christmas present....Years from now, when all the junk they got is broken and long forgotten, Dad said, you'll still have your stars. Some babies are premature. Mine were all postmature. That's why they're so smart. Their brains had longer to develop. It's not being prejudiced, Mom said. It's a matter of accuracy in labeling. When Dad went crazy, we all had our own ways of shutting down and closing off, and that was what we did that night. I didn't feel like celebrating. After all he'd put himself through, I couldn't believe Dad had gone back to the booze. Dad, please come, we need you! I hollered. We need you! we shouted. You're the head of the family! You're the dad! I had to believe they'd come back, I told myself. If I didn't believe, then they might not return. They might leave us forever. Mom...Things usually work out in the end. What if they don't?...That just means you haven't come to the end yet.

It was the senior stew's position to be at the top of the ramp when the men got off in Vietnam. But when we were about two hours out she would usually ask for a volunteer to take the forward door. All you had to do is stand at the door and say good-bye, but nobody wanted that job. It's nothing disparaging about the other gals, but many just couldn't do it. I'd always take the forward door and I was good at it. I never said "good-bye" or "good luck." I would shake their hand, look them in the eye, smile and say, "See you later." Sometimes I'd say, "See you in twelve months." They really wanted somebody to look at them. At the top of the ramp was the world, at the bottom of the ramp was the war. I saw eyes full of fear, some with real terror. And maybe this sounds crazy, but I saw death in some of those eyes. At that moment, at the top of the ramp, I was their wife, their sister, their girlfriend, and for those troops who had no one else -- and there were many -- I was their mother. That was the most important thing I´ve ever done. I can't imagine doing anything more important than to nudge a troop into war. If he wasn't lucky, I was nudging him to his death with the best "It will be okay" smile I could conjure up. I don't think there was one of us who did not want to keep them on the plane. That's why some of the girls were back in the bathroom crying. They couldn't stand to watch them leave. We were very aware we were sending them to war and that some would never come back. Therein lies the guilt. [Helen Tennant Hegelheimer, World Airways flight attendant accompanying American troops to Vietnam, 1966-67.]