I Hate Attachments Quotes

She wasn’t made to be alone.” “I guess none of us are.” Our eyes meet and an electric tingle runs through me. “She missed you,” I say in a whisper. “Did she?” His voice is a soft caress. His gaze into my eyes is so intense that I swear he sees straight into my soul. “Yes.” Warmth flushes my cheeks. I… “She thought about you all the time.” The candlelight flickers a soft glow along his jawline, along his lips. “I hated losing her.” His voice is a low growl. “I hadn’t realized just how attached I’d gotten.” He reaches and moves a strand of wet hair out of my face. “How dangerously addictive she could be.

Jennifer to Beth: Ech. I don't like Tom Cruise. Beth to Jennifer: Me neither. But I usually like Tom Cruise movies. Jennifer to Beth: Me too... Huh, maybe I do like Tom Cruise. But I hate feeling pressured to find him attractive. I don't. Beth to Jennifer: Nobody does. It's a lie perpetuated by the American media. Tom Cruise and Julia Roberts. Jennifer to Beth: Men don't like Julia Roberts? Beth to Jennifer: Nope. Her teeth scare them. Jennifer to Beth: Good to know.

A mature person has the integrity to be alone. And when a mature person gives love, he gives without any strings attached to it: he simply gives. And when a mature person gives love, he feels grateful that you have accepted his love, not vice versa. He does not expect you to be thankful for it – no, not at all, he does not even need your thanks. He thanks you for accepting his love. And when two mature persons are in love, one of the greatest paradoxes of life happens, one of the most beautiful phenomena: they are together and yet tremendously alone, they are together so much so that they are almost one. But their oneness does not destroy their individuality; in fact, it enhances it: they become more individual. Two mature persons in love help each other to become more free. There is no politics involved, no diplomacy, no effort to dominate. How can you dominate the person you love? Just think over it. Domination is a sort of hatred, anger, enmity. How can you even think of dominating a person you love? You would love to see the person totally free, independent; you will give him more individuality. That’s why I call it the greatest paradox: they are together so much so that they are almost one, but still in that oneness they are individuals. Their individualities are not effaced; they have become more enhanced. The other has enriched them as far as their freedom is concerned. Immature people falling in love destroy each other’s freedom, create a bondage, make a prison. Mature persons in love help each other to be free; they help each other to destroy all sorts of bondages. And when love flows with freedom there is beauty. When love flows with dependence there is ugliness. Remember, freedom is a higher value than love. That’s why, in India, the ultimate we call moksha. Moksha means freedom. Freedom is a higher value than love. So if love is destroying freedom, it is not of worth. Love can be dropped, freedom has to be saved; freedom is a higher value. And without freedom you can never be happy, that is not possible. Freedom is the intrinsic desire of each man, each woman – utter freedom, absolute freedom. So anything that becomes destructive to freedom, one starts hating it. Don’t you hate the man you love? Don’t you hate the woman you love? You hate; it is a necessary evil, you have to tolerate it. Because you cannot be alone you have to manage to be with somebody, and you have to adjust to the other’s demands. You have to tolerate, you have to bear them. Love, to be really love, has to be being-love, gift-love. Being-love means a state of love. When you have arrived home, when you have known who you are, then a love arises in your being. Then the fragrance spreads and you can give it to others. How can you give something which you don’t have? To give it, the first basic requirement is to have it.

To my embarrassment, I was crying again. Real girl tears for the second time, these ones born out of frustration. That didn't happen to me very often, but I hated it when it did. It was faulty wiring in the female body, tear ducts attached directly to the frustration meter. Trying to explain to men that no, I wasn't being manipulative, I just couldn't stop my eyes from leaking salt water, only added to the aggravation.

However, displayed right alongside all the Confederate flag paraphernalia is a bunch of American flag merch – American flag place mats, patriotic “body crystals,” flag stickers you attach to your skin. Personally, I’m small-minded and literal enough that I see the two symbols as contradictory, especially in a time of war. But I fear that the consumer who buys a Confederate flag coffee cup, which she will then put on her American flag place mat, is the sort of sophisticated thinker who is open-minded enough that she is capable of hating blacks and Arabs at the same time.

I am here and I have been here long before this moment, the first people were black and queerness predates its modern meaning. Queerness predates its derogatory meaning. Queerness predates colonialism and Christianity. Queerness predates any hate attached to it.

I want him captured; I don’t care who he is. Looking at such a man’s face is anticlimactic; attaching a name, even more so. We know what he did; any information beyond that will inevitably feel pedestrian, pale, somehow cliché: “My mother was cruel. I hate women. I never had a family. . . .” And so on. I want to know more about true, complete people, not dirty scraps of humans.

THE FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS I. Suffering does exist. II. Suffering arises from "attachment" to desires. III. Suffering ceases when "attachment" to desire ceases. IV. Freedom from suffering is possible by practicing the eightfold path: 1. Right understanding (view). 2. Right intention (thought). 3. Right speach. 4. Right action. 5. Right livelihood. 6. Right effort. 7. Right mindfulness. 8. Rght meditation (concentration). Buddha's fourfold consolation: With a mind free from greed and unfriendliness, incorruptible, and purified, the noble disciple is already during this lifetime assure of a fourfold consolation: “If there is another world (heaven), and a cause and effect (Karma) of good and bad actions, then it may be that, at the dissolution of the body, after death, I shall be reborn in a happy realm, a heavenly world.” Of this first consolation (s)he is assured. “And if there is no other world, no reward and no punishment of good and bad actions, then I live at least here, in this world, an untroubled and happy life, free from hate and unfriendliness.” Of this second consolation (s)he is assured. “And if bad things happen to bad people, but I do not do anything bad (or have unfriendliness against anyone), how can I, who am doing no bad things, meet with bad things?” Of this third consolation (s)he is assured. “And if no bad things happen to bad people, then I know myself in both ways pure.” Of this fourth consolation (s)he is assured.

Me, too...Huh, maybe I do like Tom Cruise. But I hate feeling pressured to find him attractive. I don't.

I believe we will become more compassionate. I believe we will fight smarter. I believe that in the deepest place of our souls, we are not cowardly or hateful or cruel to our neighbors. I believe we are kind and smart and brave. I believe that as long as we follow those instincts and do not give in to terror and blame, we can triumph over diseases and the stigmas attached to them. When we fight plagues, not each other, we will not only defeat diseases but preserve our humanity in the process.

I just want to tell you I'm quitting.' 'What? You can't quit,' Chuck said. 'I hate working here.' 'We all hate working here. That doesn't mean we quit. Only quitters quit.' 'I'm quitting.

Gardens come and go, but I find myself getting attached to certain perennials. My tulips are bridesmaids, with fat faces and good posture. Hollyhocks are long necked sisters. Daffodils are young girls running out of a white church, sun shining on their heads. Peonies are pink-haired ladies, so full and stooped you have to tie them up with string. And roses are nothing but (I hate to say it) bitches--pretty show-offs who'll draw blood if you don't handle them just right. -Vangie Galliard Nepper, From her "Garden Diary," March 1952

Couples in distress too often turn to solutions that can be summed up by "You do your thing and I'll do my thing" or "You take care of yourself and I'll take care of myself." We hear pop psychology pronouncements such as "I'm not ready to be in a relationship" and "You have to love yourself before anyone can love you." Is any of this true? Is it really possible to love yourself before someone ever loves you? Think about it. How could this be true? If it were true, babies would come into this world already self-loving or self-hating. And we know they don't. In fact, human beings don't start by thinking anything about themselves, good or bad. We learn to love ourselves precisely because we have experienced being loved by someone. We learn to take care of ourselves because somebody has taken care of us.

Hate can become so ingrained in you that it becomes part of your identity, your psyche. You define yourself with that hatred, so that if it leaves and there is nothing else to replace it, you lose a piece of yourself. I think when you feel anything strong enough it becomes its opposite. I think you can love someone so hard that you hate them. And I think you can hate someone so hard you grow attached. That’s why some people spend their whole lives hating someone they repeatedly invite into their lives: they don’t even know who they are without it.

The one great advantage of Bhakti is that it is the easiest and most natural way to reach the great divine end in view; it's great disadvantage is that in its lower forms it oftentimes degenerates into hideous fanaticism. The fanatical crew in Hinduism, Mohammedanism, or Christianity, have always been almost exclusively recruited from these worshippers [sic] on the lower planes of Bhakti. That singleness of attachment (Nishthâ) to a loved object, without which no genuine love can grow, is very often also the cause of the denunciation of everything else. All the weak and undeveloped minds in every religion or country have only one way of loving their own ideal, i.e., by hating every other ideal. Herein is the explanation of why the same man who is so lovingly attached to his own ideal of God, so devoted to his own ideal of religion, becomes a howling fanatic as soon as he sees or hears anything of any other ideal.

The god Krishna says: I love the man who hates not nor exults, who mourns not nor desires … who is the same to friend and foe, [the same] whether he be respected or despised, the same in heat and cold, in pleasure and in pain, who has put away attachment and remains unmoved by praise or blame … contented with whatever comes his way.33

I forgive you.’ This statement suggests attachment. If you have forgiven someone to close their chapter from your life, you won’t feel the need of saying it to them. They will just stop existing for you.

Time and again, I have asked myself why therapy works for some people while others remain the prisoners of their symptoms despite years of analysis or therapeutic care. In each and every case I examined, I was able to establish that when people found the kind of therapeutic care and companionship that enabled them to discover their own story and give free expression to their indignation at their parents’ behavior, they were able to liberate themselves from the maltreated child’s destructive attachment. As adults they were able to take their lives into their own hands and did not need to hate their parents. The opposite was the case with people whose therapists enjoined them to forgive and forget, actually believing that such forgiveness could have a salutary, curative effect. They remained trapped in the position of small children who believe they love their parents but in fact allow themselves to be controlled all their lives by the internalized parents and ultimately develop some kind of illness that leads to premature death. Such dependency actively fosters the hatred that, though repressed, remains active, and it drives them to direct their aggression at innocent people. We only hate as long as we feel totally powerless. I

This time, after a moment, he called her bluff. “Perhaps Philippa and I should be thrown together a little more. She might become attached to me if she knew me better.” Kate, brightening visibly, ignored the gleam in his eye. “That would make her sorry for you?” “It might. The object of any sort of clinical study deserves compassion, don’t you think?” “Snakes don’t,” said Katherine inconsequently. “I hate snakes.” “And yet you feed them on honey cakes and forbid them to defend themselves.” “Defencelessness is not a noted characteristic of serpents. Anyhow, I can’t have them lying rattling about the house. It gets on the nerves.” “It does if you handle it by rattling back.

I’m not at a place where I can start any kind of romantic attachment to any of them. No matter what level that may be at. Except Bram. His attractive kind of angry just makes me want to have lots of hate sex with him until it all fades away.

Rape. It brings with it connotations, assumptions, a whole steamer trunk full of other people's ideas of it, because other people only know it as a word. A concept that's discussed, argued, demonized. If you actually know what it is, if you live and experience it and know what it is beyond a word, you have to carry that word with you. You're now "rape victim", "rape survivor." Your identity is attached permanently to a word you hate. I'm also a murder victim, but murder carries with it what it is. People don't debate what defines murder. Politicians don't argue the body's ability to fight off being killed. There's no talk of a "murder culture." No one says that you asked for murder. What you wear doesn't excuse being killed.

It's not about love. Of course I love the little shit. But he knows too much about me that no one else on the planet knows, and when he's around I have no choice but to think about everything I hate about myself and my past. He's a gangrenous leg attached to my psyche, and I need to hack him off before he infects my whole fucking soul.

When I said I wasn’t with another girl the January after we fell in love for the 3rd time, it’s because it wasn’t actual sex. In the February that began our radio silence, it was actual sex. I hate the tight shirts that go below your waistline. Not only do they make you look too young, but then your torso is a giraffe’s neck attached to tiny legs. I screamed at myself in the subway for writing poems about you still. I made a scene. I think about you almost each morning, and roughly every five days, I still believe you’re there. I still masturbate to you. When we got really bad, I would put another coat of mop water on the floor of the bar to make sure you were asleep when I got to my side of the bed. You are the only person to whom I’ve lied, knowing I was telling the truth. I miss the way your neck wraps around my face like a cave we are both lost in. I remember when you said being with me is like being alone with company. My friend Sarah wrote a poem about pink ponies. I’m scared you’re my pink pony. Hers is dead. It is really sad. You’re not dead. You live in Ohio, or Washington, or Wherever. You are a shadow my body leaves on other girls. I have a growing queue of things I know will make you laugh and I don’t know where to put them. I mourn like you’re dead. If you had asked me to stay, I would not have said no. It would never mean yes.

I picked fights with them, because I was terrified of connecting with them.

I didn’t have a problem with no strings attached sex. Hell, that was all I’d indulged in since I started having sex. But with Jules, it felt wrong, like a custom-made suit that still didn’t fit right.

Ahhhh! I fucking hate that phrase. I don’t make love. I fuck. That’s it. Plain and simple. Fuck. Clearly defined. No strings attached. As in rut and grunt and get my rocks off. I’m the caveman. I’m the sexual barbarian.

Rape. It brings with it connotations, assumptions, a whole steamer trunk full of other people's ideas of it, because other people only know it as a word. A concept that's discussed, argued, demonized. If you actually know what it is, if you live it and experience it and know what it is beyond a word, you have to carry that word with you. You're now 'rape victim', 'rape survivor'. Your identity is attached permanently to a word you hate.

By the second day, the song lyrics had faded, but in their place came darker irritations. Gradually, I started to become aware of a young man sitting just behind me and to the left. I had noticed him when he first entered the mediation hall, and had felt a flash of annoyance at the time: something about him, especially his beard, had struck me as too calculatedly dishevelled, as if he were trying to make a statement. Now his audible breathing was starting to irritate me, too. It seemed studied, unnatural, somehow theatrical. My irritation slowly intensified - a reaction that struck me as entirely reasonable and proportionate at the time. It was all beginning to feel like a personal attack. How much contempt must the bearded meditator have for me, I seethed silently, deliberately to decide to ruin the serenity of my meditation by behaving so obnoxiously? Experienced retreat-goers, it turns out, have a term for this phenomenon. The call it 'vipassana vendetta'. In the stillness tiny irritations become magnified into full-blown hate campaigns; the mind is so conditioned to attaching to storylines that it seizes upon whatever's available. Being on retreat had temporarily separated me from all the real causes of distress in my life, and so, apparently, I was inventing new ones. As I shuffled to my narrow bed that evening, I was still smarting about the loud-breathing man. I did let go of the vendetta eventually - but only because I'd fallen into an exhausted and dreamless sleep

I hated this love that I had for my parents—love that demanded my time and energy, that sought to control my life down to every thought and action. I now realize that it was not love but an unhealthy attachment, born out of a need for security and a sense of duty.

And yet, as I was returning in the car to Florence, I had the impression that there in the neighborhood, between backwardness and modernity, she had more history than I did. How much I had lost by leaving, believing I was destined for who knows what life. Lila, who had remained, had a very new job, she earned a lot of money, she acted in absolute freedom and according to schemes that were indecipherable. She was very attached to her son, she had been extremely devoted to him in the first years of his life, and she still kept an eye on him; but she seemed capable of being free of him as and when she wanted, he didn’t cause her the anxieties my daughters caused me. She had broken with her family, and yet she took on their burden and the responsibility for them whenever she could. She took care of Stefano who was in trouble, but without getting close to him. She hated the Solaras and yet she submitted to them. She was ironic about Alfonso and was his friend. She said she didn’t want to see Nino again, but I knew it wasn’t so, that she would see him. Hers was a life in motion, mine was stopped.

Most people are like this. Something they have made in their minds over and over again strongly prevents them from having a complete life. They are desperately trying to get out of a suffering realm that they have made themselves by becoming blindly attached to sensations. But it doesn’t work that easily. The simple reason for their difficulties is that they don’t understand impermanence. This is the path of human beings’ suffering. Everything in this world happens by natural process. You make everything, so you get everything, which means you get some kind of suffering. “I don’t like getting old.” “Oh, my relationship with him ended. I feel so miserable.” “I hate being sick like this.” “I don’t like him.” “I can’t believe my grandmother died.” We all suffer. But if you correctly attain this insight into impermanence, then you can take away these Eight Sufferings. If you don’t understand that all things are impermanent, however, then you become easily attached to things that must eventually pass. As a result, you cannot take away your suffering, and you only continue to make more suffering for yourself and for this whole world.

I hate the drawn-out process of packing up and moving out and those unavoidable postmortems that turn into teary-eyed pleas to stay together; above all I hate the lingering pretense of an attachment after we don’t even want to be touched by someone we no longer recall wanting to sleep with.

I think about you all the time. I hear your voice in my head, I rehearse conversations with you, I talk to myself, and imagine I’m talking to you. And I wish you felt like this about me, but I know you don’t and I don’t think you ever will. I think you’re happy giving people your scraps. I think that’s easy for you, and I don’t blame you, because I hate being like this, and I wish I was more like you.

I’m allowed to be hesitant, and I’m sure as hell allowed to say “No, this isn’t for me,” or “No, I’m not ready.” But Carter stood there, begging for me to stay, to communicate, to give him a damn chance, to prove that he could be different. And instead of sitting with my fear, talking through it, I gave it wings, tied myself to it, and watched it take flight with me attached. I let it control me, and I hate that.

When I look at our whole Earth, the galaxy and even the universe, full of beautiful constellations and Earth-like planets, I can't stop questioning why do people think they are so important to the point of using others, feeling jealousy and hatred towards those who expose them to something they can't confront, such as their weaknesses, imperfections, failures, fears and attachments. But whichever path I choose, the answer always comes as one: Everyone's reality matches them, and they will never recover from whatever occurs to them for as long as they call home to this Mental Institution called Earth, for as long as they call normal to what is abnormal, and for as long as they are satisfied with themselves. Earth can show mercy but never regret or remorse, for whenever death approaches with its message, the message always says the same, independently of who reads it: start again.

I’ve always hated it when authors seem to find joy In killing my favorite characters. With gleaming eyes they toy With turmoil in every chapter. Just when they’ve got you attached To the character’s quirks and flaws To their words and their demons Just when you’ve fallen in love With the character’s identity— With a cruel turn of the lip The author smirks and kills them off And at our gasped pleas, merely scoffs. But the author was God And my favorite character was you And I still can’t believe You’re gone.

She had survived to age twenty-two with only the usual signs of wear: mild nutritional deficiencies, self-diagnosed anxious attachment style, self-diagnosed avoidant attachment style, stiff neck from excessive phone use. She googled things like “wildfires europe” and “heat wave crop failure famine” and “when will dublin underwater” and “will england fuck ireland over” and “will WHAT IS HAPPENING IN england fuck ireland over” and “why am i lonely” and “why do i hate existing” and “how many painkillers to die” and “how much carpet cleaner to die” and “why wont the government let me die.

We've simply become too attached to work," I explained. "We've become too addicted to working and we need to balance our lives with a little idle activity like sitting on porches or chatting with neighbors." "I would HATE that!" she answered with a moo of disgust. "I LOVE to work! I can't stand just sitting around. Work makes me happy." This woman, by the way, is one of the most grounded, cheerful, and talented people I know. She's also not an outlier. I've had this conversation many times over the past few years with both friends and strangers and I often get some version of, "but I love to work!" in response. The question for me wasn't whether people enjoyed their work but whether they needed it. That was the question that drove my research. The question I asked hundreds of people around the country and the essential question of this book: Is work necessary? A lot of people will disagree with my next statement to the point of anger and outrage: Humans don't need to work in order to be happy. At this point, in our historical timeline, that claim is almost subversive. The assumption that work is at the core of what it means to lead a useful life underlies so much of our morality that it may feel I'm questioning our need to breathe or eat or sleep. But as I examined the body of research of what we know is good for all humans, what is necessary for all humans, I noticed a gaping hole where work was supposed to be. This lead me to ask some pointed questions about why most of us feel we can't be fully human unless we're working. Please note that by "work" I don't mean the activities we engage in to secure our survival: finding food, water, or shelter. I mean the labor we do to secure everything else beyond survival or to contribute productively to the broader society - the things we do in exchange for pay.

Whatever a relationship may be, it certainly entails two things: clarity of perception (inasmuch as we’re capable of it; some people would dispute to what extent we can attain clarity of perception, but I don’t think anyone would dispute that it is desirable that we move toward it) and accuracy of response. You’re more likely to respond accurately when you perceive clearly. When your perception is distorted, you’re not likely to respond accurately. How can you love someone whom you do not even see? Do you really see someone you’re attached to? Do you really see someone you’re afraid of and therefore dislike? We always hate what we fear.

Remember, please remember, you do not (you must not!) fear, attack, or hate the False Self. That would only continue a negative and arrogant death energy, and it is delusional and counterproductive anyway. It would be trying to “drive out the devil by the prince of devils,” as Jesus puts it. In the great economy of grace, all is used and transformed, and nothing is wasted. God uses your various False Selves to lead you beyond them. Note that Jesus' clear message to his beloved, Mary Magdalene, is not that she squelch, deny, or destroy her human love for him. He is much more subtle than that. He just says to her, “Do not cling to me” (John 20:17). He is saying, “Don't hold on to your needy False Self. We are all heading for something much bigger and much better, Mary.” This is the spiritual art of detachment, which is not taught much in capitalistic worldview where clinging and possessing are not just the norm but even the goal. You see how trapped we are. Great love is both very attached (“passionate”) and yet very detached at the same time. It is love but not addiction. The soul, the True Self, has everything, and so it does not require any particular thing. When you have all things, you do not have to protect any one thing. True Self can love and let go. The False Self cannot do this. The “do not cling to me” encounter between Jesus and Mary Magdalene is the most painted Easter scene, I am told. The artistic imagination knew that a seeming contradiction was playing out here: intense love and yet appropriate distance. The soul and the spirit tend to love and revel in paradoxes; they operate by resonance and reflection. The ego (False Self) wants to resolve all paradoxes in a most glib way and thinks that it can. It operates in a way that is mechanical and instrumental. This is not always bad, but it is surely limited. The ego would like Mary Magdalene and Jesus to be caught up in a passionate love affair. Of course they are, in the deepest sense of the term, but only the True Self knows how to enjoy and picture “a love of already satisfied desire.” The True Self and False Self see differently; both are necessary, but one is better, bigger, and even eternal.

The first thing he taught me was how to make love. 　　Before you laugh, know that I’d always hated that phrase. It sounded so corny, so old. Hippies made love. People my mom’s age, though I preferred to believe I was an immaculate conception. 　　People my age hooked up, fucked, had sex. We didn’t attach frilly ideas of oneness and eternity to a basic biological act. Most of us were from single-parent homes. Those who weren’t wished they were when their parents screamed and beat the shit out of each other. We grew up sexualized, from toddler beauty pageants to the constant reminder that adults were waiting to lure us into vans with candy. The invention of MMS gave us a platform for the distribution of amateur porn. 　　That’s a lot of conditioning to break through.

Yes, you do hate Switzerland. And," doctor Messerli paused for effect, "you love it. You love it and you hate it. What you don't feel is apathy. You're not indifferent. You're ambivalent." Anna had thought about this before, when nights came during which she could do nothing but wander Dietlikon's sleeping streets or hike the hill behind her house to sit upon the bench where most often she went to weep. She'd considered her ambivalence many, many times, and in the end, she's diagnosed herself with a disease that she'd also invented. Switzerland syndrome. Like Stockholm syndrome. But instead of my captors, I'm attached to the room in which I'm held captive. It's the prison I'm bound to, not the warden. Anna was absolutely right. It was the landscape. it was the geography. The fields, the streams, the lakes, the forests. And the mountains. On exceptionally clear days when the weather was right, if you walked south on Dietlikon's Bahnhofstrasse you could see the crisp outlines of snow-capped Alps against a blazing blue horizon eighty kilometers away. On these certain days it was something in the magic of the atmosphere that made them tangible and moved them close. The mutability of those particular mountains reminded Anna of herself. And it wasn't simply the natural landscape that she attached herself to emotionally. It was the cobblestone roads of Zürich's old town and the spires of this church and the towers of that one. And the trains, the trains, the goddamn trains. She could take the train anywhere she wanted to go.

But I attach myself only to names and faces; and hoard them like amulets against disaster. I choose out across the hall some unknown face and can hardly drink my tea when she whose name I do not know sits opposite. I choke. I am rocked from side to side by the violence of my emotion. I imagine these nameless, these immaculate people, watching me from behind bushes. I leap high to excite their admiration. At night, in bed, I excite their complete wonder. I often die pierced with arrows to win their tears. If they should say, or I should see from a label in their boxes, that they were in Scarborough last holidays, the whole town runs gold, the whole pavement is illuminated. Therefore, I hate my looking-glasses which show me my real face. Alone, I often fall down into nothingness.

He found it impossible to believe that a world so full of evil was the work of an Author combining infinite power with perfect goodness and righteousness. His intellect spurned the subtleties by which men attempt to blind themselves to this open contradiction. The Sabæan, or Manichæan theory of a Good and an Evil Principle, struggling against each other for the government of the universe, he would not have usually condemned; and I have heard him express surprise, that no one revived it in our time. He would have regarded it as a mere hypothesis; but he would have ascribed to it no depraving influence. As it was, his aversion to religion, in the sense usually attached to the term, was of same kind with that of Lucretius: he regarded it with the feelings due not to a mere mental delusion, but to a great moral evil. He looked upon it as the greatest enemy of morality: first, by setting up factitious excellencies,—belief in creeds, devotional feelings, and ceremonies, not connected with the good of human kind,—and causing these to be accepted as substitutes for genuine virtues: but above all, by radically vitiating the standard of morals; making it consist in doing the will of a being, on whom it lavishes indeed all the phrases of adulation, but whom in sober truth it depicts as eminently hateful. I have a hundred times heard him say, that all ages and nations have represented their gods as wicked, in a constantly increasing progression; that mankind have gone on adding trait after trait till they reached the most perfect conception of wickedness which the human mind could devise, and have called this God, and prostrated themselves before it.

There is a rustle beside me and then the water moves. When I open my eyes, Wes is naked and standing in the shower stall, too. He’s unhooked the showerhead, which is attached to a hose. Humming to himself, he eases it around to rain down on my shoulders. “Tip your head back,” he says softly. When I do, he wets my hair. The water disappears a moment later, and then Wes’s hands are lathering up my head. We’ve showered together a hundred times, but never like this. I hate being dependent on him like this. Leaning forward, I rest my forehead on his hip bone and sigh. He just keeps going. The strong hands that I love so much skim the back of my neck, my shoulders, behind my ears. He rinses me next, shielding my forehead with his palm to keep the soap out of my eyes. They sting anyway from frustration. Then he kneels in front of me. When I look up, a serious pair of gray eyes are right there, level with mine. “Hey,” he says softly. “H-hey,” I stammer. Don’t mind me, I’m just having a fucking breakdown.

My arm reaches up. I don't know if I'm reaching for the pipe or for him. I want to touch his skin. I want to breathe in what he breathes. The yellow swirl. I want to be the yellow swirl. I want him to breathe me in, be sent riding on oxygen molecules deep into lungs. I want to travel through his body, seeing what makes him happy, attaching myself to whatever place in him sparks to life on my arrival. His blood. His tissues. His muscles. I want to burrow inside the folds like a wind-blown dusting of snow so that each time I melt away, he seeks me out again. There's no delineation between the pipe and the smoke and his body. It's all whole, I want in. I want him. 'Please,' I say softly, 'let me try.' Without letting go of the pipe, he swings his hand holding the lighter with incredible force, backhanding my face. My jaw pops. The lighter swings back under the pipe undulating back and forth, inhaling the curl as it rises from the tar, exactly the same as before he hit me, only now he's staring at me, hating me.

Summer is like a slow-cooker bringing everything in the world to a boil 1 degree at a time. It promises a million happy adjectives only to pour stench and sewage into your nose for dinner. I hate the heat and the sticky, sweaty mess left behind. I hate the lackadaisical ennui of a sun too preoccupied with itself to notice the infinite hours we spend in its presence. The sun is an arrogant thing, always leaving the world behind when it tires of us. The moon is a loyal companion. It never leaves. It’s always there, watching, steadfast, knowing us in our light and dark moments, changing forever just as we do. Every day it’s a different version of itself. Sometimes weak and wan, sometimes strong and full of light. The moon understands what it means to be human. Uncertain. Alone. Cratered by imperfections. I stare out the window for so long I forget myself. I hold out my hand to catch a snowflake and my fist closes around the icy air. Empty. I want to put this fist attached to my wrist right through the window. Just to feel something. Just to feel human.

Do you know how men like Webb end up?"I thought: 'And men like my father.' "In the river," I answered flippantly. "A time comes when they are no longer attractive or in good form. They can't drink any more, and they still hanker after women, only then they have to pay and make compromises in order to escape from their loneliness: they have become just figures of fun. They grow sentimental and hard to please. I have seen many who have gone the same way." "Poor Webb!" I said. I was impressed. So that was the fate in store for my father? Or at least the fate from which Anne was saving him. "You never thought of that, did you?" said Anne, with a little smile of commiseration. "You don't think much about the future, do you? That is the privilege of youth." "Please don't throw my youth at me like that! I use it neither as an excuse, nor as a privilege. I just don't attach any importance to it." "To what do you attach importance? To your peace of mind? Your independence?" I dreaded conversations of this sort, especially with Anne. "To nothing at all," I said. "You know I hardly ever think." "You and your father irritate me at times: 'You haven't given it a thought . . . you're not worth much . . . you don't know.' Are you satisfied to be like that?" "I'm not satisfied with myself. I don't like myself, and I don't try to. At moments you force me to complicate my life, and I almost hate you for it.

I do not expect everyone to like me; but I would be extremely surprised if a person whom I consider highly spiritual, a person that I properly evaluate and conclude to be mentally healthy and very sane, a person that is mostly and foremost good at heart, hated me. That is an impossibility, as I have confirmed after traveling the whole world and meeting thousands of human beings. Evil and good do not resonate at the same frequency, and that is what disgust, distrust and lower affinity mean. And so, we are then allowed to conclude that whoever loves everyone doest not know himself, and whoever hates everyone doest not understand the purpose of life; but one who can see this polarity and interfere with its order without being a part of it, has transcended the trap of attachment, a trap which can only be conquered once we conquer our need for a personality and the attachment to the ego; a trap from which nobody seeking for selfish gains in the wilderness of attachment can escape from. Only then, such enlightened soul will understand that the outer world is merely reflecting the inner world, and a soul cannot conquer one without conquering the other. In other words, the spirit must conquer the personality, as much as the personality must accept the spirit, for victory over life to come as much as we reach for it. Only when a marriage between the willpower of the personality with the sensitive loving need of the spirit is accomplished, can a human being transcend his nature, and in doing so, transcend the nature of the world.

You may find this hard to believe, Mr. Pinter," she went on defensively, "but some men enjoy my company. They consider me easy to talk to." A ghost of a smile touched his handsome face. "You're right. I do find that hard to believe." Arrogant wretch. "All the same, there are three men who might consider marrying me, and I could use your help in securing them." She hated having to ask him for that, but he was necessary to her plan. She just needed one good offer of marriage, one impressive offer that would show Gran she was capable of gaining a decent husband. Gran didn't believe she could, or she wouldn't be holding to that blasted ultimatum. If Celia could prove her wrong, Gran might allow her to choose a husband in her own good time. And if that plan didn't work, Celia would at least have a man she could marry to fulfill Gran's terms. "So you've finally decided to meet Mrs. Plumtree's demands," he said, his expression unreadable. She wasn't about to let him in on her secret plan. Oliver might have employed him, but she was sure Mr. Pinter also spied for Gran. He would run right off and tell her. "It's not as if I have a choice." Bitterness crept into her tone. "In less than two months, if I remain unmarried, my siblings will be cut off. I can't do that to them, no matter how much I resent Gran's meddling." Something that looked oddly like sympathy flickered in his gaze. "Don't you want to marry?" "Of course I want to marry. Doesn't every woman?" "You've shown little interest in it before," he said skeptically. That's because men had shown little interest in her. Oh, Gab's friends loved to stand about with her at balls and discuss the latest developments in cartridges, but they rarely asked her to dance, and if they did, it was only to consult her on rifles. She'd tried flirting, but she was terrible at it. It seemed so...false. So did men's compliments, the few that there were. It was easier to laugh them off than to figure out which ones were genuine, easier to pretend to be one of the lads. She secretly wished she could find a man she could love, who would ignore the scandals attached to he family's name and indulge her hobby of target shooting. One who could shoot as well as she, since she could never respect a man who couldn't hit what he aimed at. I'll bet Mr. Pinter knows his way around a rifle.

Catastrophizing. Predicting extremely negative future outcomes, such as “If I don’t do well on this paper, I will flunk out of college and never have a good job.”   All-or-nothing. Viewing things as all-good or all-bad, black or white, as in “If my new colleagues don’t like me, they must hate me.” Personalization. Thinking that negative actions or words of others are related to you, or assuming that you are the cause of a negative event when you actually had no connection with it. Overgeneralizations. Seeing one negative situation as representative of all similar events. Labeling. Attaching negative labels to ourselves or others. Rather than focusing on a particular thing that you didn’t like and want to change, you might label yourself a loser or a failure. Magnification/minimization. Emphasizing bad things and deemphasizing good in a situation, such as making a big deal about making a mistake, and ignoring achievements. Emotional reasoning. Letting your feelings about something guide your conclusions about how things really are, as in “I feel hopeless, so my situation really must be hopeless.” Discounting positives. Disqualifying positive experiences as evidence that your negative beliefs are false—for example, by saying that you got lucky, something good happened accidentally, or someone was lying when giving you a compliment. Negativity bias. Seeing only the bad aspects of a situation and dwelling on them, in the process viewing the situation as completely bad even though there may have been positives. Should/must statements. Setting up expectations for yourself based on what you think you “should” do. These usually come from perceptions of what others think, and may be totally unrealistic. You might feel guilty for failing or not wanting these standards and feel frustration and resentment. Buddhism sets this in context. When the word “should” is used, it leaves no leeway for flexibility of self-acceptance. It is fine to have wise, loving, self-identified guidelines for behavior, but remember that the same response or action to all situations is neither productive nor ideal. One size never fits all.  Jumping to conclusions. Making negative predictions about the outcome of a situation without definite facts or evidence. This includes predicting a bad future event and acting as if it were already fact, or concluding that others reacted negatively to you without asking them. ​Dysfunctional automatic thoughts like these are common. If you think that they are causing suffering in your life, make sure you address them as a part of your CBT focus.

Perhaps the hardest part of the job was simply being attached to and dependent on people who didn’t think much of you. Virginia Woolf’s diaries are almost obsessively preoccupied with her servants and the challenge of maintaining patience with them. Of one, she writes: “She is in a state of nature: untrained; uneducated … so that one sees a human mind wriggling undressed.” As a class they were as irritating as “kitchen flies.” Woolf’s contemporary Edna St. Vincent Millay was rather more blunt: “The only people I really hate are servants. They are not really human beings at all.” It was unquestionably a strange world. Servants constituted a class of humans whose existences were fundamentally devoted to making certain that another class of humans would find everything they desired within arm’s reach more or less the moment it occurred to them to desire it. The recipients of this attention became spoiled almost beyond imagining. Visiting his daughter in the 1920s, in a house too small to keep his servants with him, the tenth Duke of Marlborough emerged from the bathroom in a state of helpless bewilderment because his toothbrush wasn’t foaming properly. It turned out that his valet had always put the toothpaste on the brush for him, and the Duke was unaware that toothbrushes didn’t recharge automatically. The servants’ payoff for all this was often to be treated appallingly. It was common for mistresses to test the honesty of servants by leaving some temptation where they were bound to find it—a coin on the floor, say—and then punishing them if they pocketed it. The effect was to instill in servants a slightly paranoid sense that they were in the presence of a superior omniscience. Servants were also suspected of abetting burglars by providing inside information and leaving doors unlocked. It was a perfect recipe for unhappiness on both sides. Servants, especially in smaller households, tended to think of their masters as unreasonable and demanding. Masters saw servants as slothful and untrustworthy. Casual humiliation was a regular feature of life in service. Servants were sometimes required to adopt a new name, so that the second footman in a household would always be called “Johnson,” say, thus sparing the family the tedium of having to learn a new name each time a footman retired or fell under the wheels of a carriage. Butlers were an especially delicate issue. They were expected to have the bearing and comportment of a gentleman, and to dress accordingly, but often the butler was required to engage in some intentional sartorial gaucherie—wearing trousers that didn’t match his jacket, for instance—to ensure that his inferiority was instantly manifest.* One handbook actually gave instructions—in fact, provided a working script—for how to humiliate a servant in front of a child, for the good of both child and servant.

I do not expect everyone to like me; but I would be extremely surprised if a person whom I consider highly spiritual, a person that I properly evaluate and conclude to be mentally healthy and very sane, a person that is mostly and foremost good at heart, hated me. That is an impossibility, as I have confirmed after traveling the whole world and meeting thousands of human beings. Evil and good do not resonate at the same frequency, and that is what disgust, distrust and lower affinity mean. And so, we are then allowed to conclude that whoever loves everyone does not know himself, and whoever hates everyone doest not understand the purpose of life; but one who can see this polarity and interfere with its order without being a part of it, has transcended the trap of attachment, a trap which can only be conquered once we conquer our need for a personality and the attachment to the ego; a trap from which nobody seeking for selfish gains in the wilderness of attachment can escape from. Only then, such enlightened soul will understand that the outer world is merely reflecting the inner world, and a soul cannot conquer one without conquering the other. In other words, the spirit must conquer the personality, as much as the personality must accept the spirit, for victory over life to come as much as we reach for it. Only when a marriage between the willpower of the personality with the sensitive loving need of the spirit is accomplished, can a human being transcend his nature, and in doing so, transcend the nature of the world.

Every person in an organization has the right to be the company’s top expert at something,” John Shook, who trained Madrid as one of Toyota’s first Western employees, told me. “If I’m attaching mufflers or I’m a receptionist or a janitor, I know more about exhaust systems or receiving people or cleaning offices than anyone else, and it’s incredibly wasteful if a company can’t take advantage of that knowledge. Toyota hates waste. The system was built to exploit everyone’s expertise.

Must I go over this again? I can walk.” No, I couldn’t. “I was an early walker.” I wasn’t. “I’ll give you my mom’s number.” I wouldn’t. “You can call her to confirm.” Good luck. One more attempt, and Jackson gave up. I wouldn’t say he scooped me into his arms; that isn’t exactly how it went. I stumbled when he leaned down. I bumped his forehead with my knee. Then I elbowed him in the head when he lifted me up. Up, however, I was. And soon, too, could be my lunch. “Just relax.” Jackson stretched a kink I’d put in his neck. “Sorry about your head.” I mumbled around the saliva flooding my mouth. He popped it once. “It’s still attached.” “Positive thinker.” I took a deep, calming breath. “I hate those.” The

Eww!” Kendra says, shuddering and clamping her hands on her hair, as if a swarm of bats is about to fly in and try to nest there. “I hate bats!” “I bet you’ve never even seen a bat,” Kelly says pragmatically. “Anyway, they don’t want us. They want the mosquitos. You heard her.” “Come outside!” Luca calls over his shoulder. “It’s very lovely out here!” Kelly and Paige need no encouragement, and both shoot out onto the terrace. Kelly wants to watch the bats; Paige wants to try to pry Luca from Elisa, as far as I can make out. “The bats sleep in the cipressi,” Luca explains, his voice carrying clearly in the still night air. “Because it is dark in there, and they like the dark. And in Italy, we have the cipressi always by the cimiteri--” “Cemeteries,” Elisa translates, still clinging proprietorially to his arm. “So people think, oh, bats love the cimiteri, they are very Gotici.” “Gothic,” Elisa prompts. “Got-tic,” Luca attempts. “But really, the bats like the cipressi. They are not really Gotici. They just like the dark inside.” “Well, that’s a pretty good definition of Gothic,” Kelly observes, and Luca turns to her. I step back, farther inside the salon. Watching Luca surrounded by girls, all vying for his attention, Elisa attached to him like a nasty growth that will need extensive surgery to remove, is not my idea of a fun time.

I hate that it bothers me. I hate that I can feel myself getting attached to him when he clearly isn’t feeling the same.

It didn’t take me long to realize that alcohol never brought me one good thing. It was attached to every compromising choice I made in college. It never made me a better person. It never moved me closer to Jesus. It never made me feel like I was strong. It never nurtured my soul. It never made me feel real and true. It never held me for the long haul. It never brought out my best. I hated it, and I thought I needed it at the same time.

Effectively communicate feelings and needs: Visiting the sister-in-law Because Tom’s job is so hectic, Rebecca barely gets to see him during the week, and she often feels very alone. On Saturdays, she usually visits her sister, who lives close by. Tom doesn’t typically join her for these visits; he likes to stay home and veg out on the couch. Generally, this is fine with her, but this Saturday, after a particularly long week at work, when Tom was even more absent than usual, she becomes very insistent that he come along. Tom, exhausted from his work week, is adamant about not wanting to go. Rebecca won’t take no for an answer and pushes the issue. He reacts by clamming up even more. Finally she tells him he’s being selfish, he ends up in front of the TV not talking, and she ends up going alone. Rebecca acts in a way that is very typical of people with an anxious attachment style. Because her husband’s being at work more than usual during the week has activated her attachment system, she feels a need to reconnect. What she needs most is to feel that Tom is available to her—that he cares and wants to be with her. However, instead of saying this directly and explaining what is bothering her, she uses protest behavior—accusing him of being selfish and insisting that he come to her sister’s. Tom is bewildered that Rebecca is suddenly behaving so irrationally—after all, they have an understanding that he doesn’t have to go to her sister’s. How different Tom’s reaction might be if Rebecca simply said, “I know you hate going to my sister’s, but it would mean the world to me if you could come this one time. I’ve hardly seen you all week and I don’t want to miss out on any more time together.” Effectively expressing your emotional needs is even better than the other person magically reading your mind. It means that you’re an active agent who can be heard, and it opens the door for a much richer emotional dialogue. Even if Tom still chose not to join Rebecca, if he understood how she felt, he could find another way to reassure her: “If you really want me to go, I will. But I also want to relax. How about we go out tonight—just the two of us? Would that make you feel better? You don’t really want me at your sister’s anyway, do you? I will get in the way of the two of you catching up.

The horrible mismanagement of the AIDS crisis makes me want to grab [disease minimizers] by the shoulders and shake them and say, “Why haven’t you read about what worked or did not work every time a plague cropped up before this one? Why aren’t you paying attention? Do not do the same stupid stuff people did before! We know what works and what doesn’t! Be smarter, please, please, be smarter, be kinder, be kinder and smarter, I am begging you.” I find the forgetfulness of people, especially in true matters of life and death, so frustrating. Sometimes I look at these histories and think, People are just going to keep making the same dumb mistakes every single time. And one day those mistakes will doom us all. And I feel sad and furious and frightened for what will happen next. But then I think about how polio is almost eradicated. Or that penicillin exists. And I remember that we are progressing, always, even if that progress is sometimes slower and more uneven than we might wish. I remind myself, too, of all the ways people have persevered and survived in conditions that are surely as bad as anything that is to come. Whenever I am most disillusioned, I look to one of my favorite quotes from The World of Yesterday (1942) by Stefan Zweig. When Zweig was fleeing from the Nazis and living in exile he wrote: “Even from the abyss of horror in which we try to find our way today, half-blind, our hearts distraught and shattered, I look up again to the ancient constellations of my childhood, comforting myself that, some day, this relapse will appear only an interval in the eternal rhythm of progress onward and upward.” I have to believe that the missteps are only intermittent relapses as we grow stronger and smarter and better. We do get better. At everything. Combatting diseases fits somewhere among “everything.” I believe there will be a day when we will see diseases as what they are—an enemy of all of humanity. Not of perceived sinners, not of people who are poor or have a different sexual orientation, not of those who we somehow decided “have it coming” because they’re “not like us.” Diseases are at war with all of us. Diseases don’t care about any of the labels, so it makes no sense for us to. I believe we will become more compassionate. I believe we will fight smarter. I believe that in the deepest place of our souls, we are not cowardly or hateful or cruel to our neighbors. I believe we are kind and smart and brave. I believe that as long as we follow those instincts and do not give in to terror and blame, we can triumph over diseases and the stigmas attached to them. When we fight plagues, not each other, we will not only defeat diseases but preserve our humanity in the process. Onward and upward.

I always saw black excellence around me and online but it didn’t feel like it was mine because I was not perceived as fully black. I felt queerness made me even less black. Being both black and queer, affirming that I exist, I am here and I have been here long before this moment, the first people were black and queerness predates its modern meaning. Queerness predates its derogatory meaning. Queerness predates colonialism and Christianity. Queerness predates any hate attached to it. I call myself black. I call myself queer. I call myself beautiful. I call myself eternal. I call myself iconic. I call myself futuristic.

The only way to know yourself in and as the light is to let go of all your attachments to who you think you are in this world. You know the sayings: hate your entire life, deny yourself, take up the cross. All these mean the same thing. Let go of the meaning you give life in all your judgments of value based on the knowledge of good and evil. You’ve heard this?” “Jesus said those things,” I said, knowing the verses well.

You’re not ready, Skayld. You say you aren’t damaged, but you are. You’re terrified of forming emotional attachments. You might be ready to sleep with Helki, because his idea of an emotional connection is two people … I don’t know … setting something on fire together, or making something bleed together.

You don’t ever have to feel guilty about removing toxic people from your life. It’s one thing if a person owns up to their behavior and makes an effort to change. But if a person disregards your feelings, ignores your boundaries, and continues to treat you in a harmful way, they need to go.” – Daniell Koepke Hate is the complement of fear and narcissists like being feared. It imbues them with an intoxicating sensation of omnipotence.” – Sam Vaknin The happy family is a myth for many - Carolyn spring “You’re just like a penny, two-faced and worthless.” - unknown Toxic people attach themselves like cinder blocks tied to your ankles, and then invite you for a swim in their poisoned waters. - John Mark Green Some people play victims of crimes they committed - unknown Just because someone gives you life doesn’t mean they will love you the right way - unknown You can’t change someone that doesn’t see a problem with there actions - unknown Let’s get out of the habit of telling people, “that’s still your mom, your dad, or your sister.” Toxic is toxic. You are allowed to walk away from people that constantly hurt you - unknown Ask yourself, “will you do this to your family?” If not, why let them do this to yours? - unknown Living well is the best revenge - unknown Sharni, Nevera and Isaiah you are the best gift I’ve ever received no work is more important then my love for yourselves I made a wish on a star and got youse to god I am grateful.

Before Echo, I never felt truly attached to anything, not even this world. But she’s the cord. The sole being breathing life through my otherwise cold veins. She’s got me thinking dangerous shit like ‘til death. And she has the fucking nerve to tell me she thinks I lack commitment.

If I am honest, it's hard for me to keep my promise to myself and to Gail to hate my father and only love my mother, especially on the days Gail takes everything out on me. Instead of blaming her, I learn to blame myself. After all, I am the one who swore total allegiance to her.

Yes, sir. Well, when we knew where our sector was going to be, I gathered all my officers and senior NCOs, and some junior NCOs and troops as well, and told them what I wanted. I told them we had to operate in a way that would not make the locals hate us enough to fight us. Then I asked how we could do that. They talked, and I listened. I had an advantage in that we have a company of National Guardsmen attached. A lot of them are cops. I think cops understand this kind of situation better than a lot of soldiers do. “The cops made one very important point right at the beginning. They said the key to keeping the peace is to de-escalate situations rather than escalate them. Soldiers are taught to escalate. If something isn’t working, bring in more firepower. Cops don’t do that, because it enrages the community and turns it against them. So that was one piece of the puzzle.

Ignoring all the whispering couples around him, Vaughn taught me to bowl while I faked like I cared. We were both on the outs and I suspected he wanted to find a new buddy now that Judd was attached to his angel. Every time Tawny laughed, Vaughn’s frown darkened. “You should be happy for them,” I said as he guided me towards the alley. “I am. Fucking overwhelmed with happiness. Now, pay attention.” When I flinched at his tone, Vaughn sighed. “It gets boring when your best friend is busy mating like a rabbit.” “My best friend ditched me too, so I found new friends. Maybe you should too.” “Crap no. Sounds like too much effort.” I grinned. “You could play with Bailey. Here, she comes.” Vaughn didn’t even glance at the arriving blonde who threw her hands in the air. “I got dumped again! Men suck! I hate them all!” she cried, enjoying a hug from Tawny. “Who wants to set me up now?” “I thought you hated men,” Tucker mumbled with his mouth full of a hot dog. “I do, but one of them has got to work, right? Everyone in the world gets someone good, but I get shit. It’s not fair. I’m nicer than anyone ever.” This comment elicited laughter from the crew including Vaughn who took my bowling ball and rolled it for me. “Look,” he said,” you got a strike. I’m an excellent teacher.” “Best ever.

Free,' Wing protested, shaking himself as if to throw off his own shock in order to protect Darsey. She sensed his anger at any blame being attached to her and it made her cringe with guilt. She had done this to him and she deserved to be blamed. Horror rose in her, pushing its way past shock and carrying her voice with it. 'I crippled you. I stole your frond,' she choked, still struggling to absorb what had happened. 'I'm so sorry. It's all my fault-' Her mind was almost screaming, much louder than her words, but she didn't understand why Free staggered back and Wing's remaining frond furled tight, to tuck hard against his throat. It was only when he hurled the row of seats between them and gripped her by the arms that she became aware of his distress 'Darse, calm,' he ordered, releasing her, but mentally underlining his demand until the thoughts roaring through all their minds grew quieter. However, despite being muted, they were still there, running frantically fast from Darsey's head to her frond. 'Calm,' Wing instructed more soothingly and then frowned at the words he could still sense. 'None such,' he denied vehemently. 'I don't hate you. Not ever and you're not the...the alien in some monster movie. And you don't eat your mates.' He paused and raised an eyebrow at her. 'Do you?

What’s bothering you?” “I’ve been watching Preacher,” he said. “Ah. Lots of people have.” “What’s up with that?” “Well, it seems pretty apparent. He’s growing very attached to his houseguests.” “Yeah. That’s what I think, too. I have a feeling he doesn’t know what hit him.” She reached for Jack’s hand. “He’ll work it out.” “Mel, I’m not sure the looks Paige gives him mean anything but thank-you. I mean, Preacher—he’s the kind of guy you want around when someone’s about to take you out.” “Turns out feeling safe for once is a big item,” Mel said. “That was one of the things you gave me that meant the most.” “But she’s been hurt bad, Mel. Real bad. When the damage heals and she isn’t afraid anymore—” “Jack, stop. I was damaged. You never let it discourage you for a second.” “Maybe this is different....” “You’re worried that he’s going to get hurt,” she said. “Yeah, I might be.” She laughed, but she squeezed his hand. “You’re a mother hen,” she said. “He’s a big boy. Let him be. Let her be.” “I saw the way that woman was beat up. You know the guy who did that to her is obsessed. Mean as the devil himself. She’s going to have some crazy bastard after her and I’d hate to have Preacher caught in the cross fire.” “Jack, you’d better listen to me—this isn’t up to you.” “I’ve been watching out for that guy for years now,” he said. “This just surprises the hell out of me. Preacher never had much traffic with women. I’m not sure he knows the score.” “He doesn’t have to know the score, but I bet you’re wrong about that, too,” she said, laughing. “He just has to know how he feels and what he wants. This isn’t your bone, Jack—don’t chew on it. And if you try to warn him off, he’s going to break your jaw.” “Yeah,” he said sullenly. “Yeah.” He

What’s wrong?” Jake’s voice, deep as thunder, unsettled her. Why did he have to be so handsome? She wanted to fall right inside those brown eyes. “I saw you in the living room with Ben . . . earlier.” His lips pulled upward, no doubt remembering Ben’s belly laughs. “He’s a fun kid.” She hated to wipe the smile from his face. “I know you mean well, Jake, but I think it’s best if you avoid spending time with the children.” The smile slid south. “We were just playing around.” “The children are getting attached to you. I don’t think it’s healthy.” His jaw flexed, his shoulders squared. “They need relationships now more than ever.” “Not from someone who’ll soon exit their lives.” He flinched. She hated to hurt his feelings, had a physical ache from wounding him. “It doesn’t have to be that way,” he said finally. “I don’t want to exit their lives. I don’t want to exit your life.” Maybe he thought they could be some happy family or something. It was time to tell him everything. “I’m selling Summer Place. We’ll be leaving the island soon. The Goldmans—our guests over the daffodil weekend—made an offer, and I accepted. I haven’t told the children yet, so I’d appreciate if you wouldn’t mention it. We’ll stay through closing in late June.” Jake’s lips parted. A second later they pressed together. He walked to the end of the porch and back. He reminded her of a caged tiger, constricted by the boundary of the porch. She hadn’t expected him to be so upset. When he passed, she set her hand on his bare arm, stopping him. The muscles flexed beneath her palm. He was so strong. She had the sudden image of him hitting Sean, using those muscles to protect her. She pulled her hand away as if his skin burned her. “They’ve had enough loss. They’ve already become attached to you, and that’s only going to hurt them more when we leave.” His face softened as he stared, his lips slackening, his eyes growing tender. His face had already darkened under the sun. Faint lines fanned the corner of his eyes. He reached toward her and ran his finger down the side of her face. “Don’t leave.” His touch left a trail of fire. She pressed her spine to the column. How could she want to dive into his arms and run away at the same time? Inside a riot kicked up. She was back in the apartment on Warren Street, coming home from school, slipping in the door, unsure if she’d find her mom racing around the kitchen, slumped on the bathroom tile, or just gone. The same uncertainty roiled in her now. “I have to.” “This is their home. Your engagement is over,” he said gently. “Is what you’re going back to as important as what you’re leaving?” He didn’t have to say he meant them. Us. She shook her head, dislodging his hand. How had he turned this all around? She

It is 32c today, and the only thing keeping me from hanging myself is the small sense of relief I glean from attaching my body to the vents of my delicious cooling piece. It is a stunning unit, exquisite in all its forms, exceptional in its application, and effective in all its functions. I would marry it, if only I knew it would not die on me sometime within the next five years. Appliances, like obedient children or silent extroverts, cannot last forever, and while my unbidden affection kept my other air conditioner alive for the better part of ten years, not all inanimate objects can be fueled by my love.

It is 32c today, and the only thing keeping me from hanging myself is the small sense of relief I glean from attaching my body to the vents of my delicious cooling piece. It is a stunning unit, exquisite in all its forms, exceptional in its application, and effective in all its functions. I would marry it, if only I knew it would not die on me sometime within the next five years. Appliances, like obedient children or silent extroverts, cannot last forever, and while my unbidden affection kept my other air conditioner alive for the better part of ten years, not all inanimate objects can be fueled by my love.

It took you long enough to come back,” Lexy tells me bitingly. The girl is ruining my meal. Ever since the stable girls showed up, she’s been attached like glue to Vin’s side. I recognize it for what it is—infatuation. No way Vin is leading her on. He barely tolerates her, which isn’t to say he isn’t sleeping with her, but he definitely isn’t putting pretty pictures in her head. She’s doing that all on her own. “That’s what he said,” I grumble around a large bite of bread, gesturing to Vin. “We were sure you’d left us to die.” “Sorry to disappoint.” “Don’t be. We wouldn’t have been sorry to see you go.” I look up from my plate to eye her carefully. I do it for too long. She twitches under my stare, making me grin. “‘We,’ huh? You’re a ‘we’ now?” Vin looks up sharply. “What? No.” “Vin,” Lexy protests. “Are you sure?” I ask him. “Yes,” he tells me angrily. He stares Lexy down. “And, no, we’re not a ‘we.’ We’re nothing.” “I’m sure he doesn’t mean it, Lex,” I tell her consolingly. “Never give up hope.” “Kitten,” Vin growls in warning. Lexy shoots me an icy stare from across the table. It’s cute how hard she tries. “Be sure to watch your back out there, Kitten,” she spits sarcastically. “I’d hate to see you get hurt.” I put up my finger in her face, getting serious. “Watch yourself. You’re toeing a dangerous line with me right now and I don’t want to have to remind you what happened to the last girl who threatened me. Forget Vin, I’ll put you to bed with Caroline. You get me?” Lexy pales. She glances once at Vin, then Ryan and Trent. All of them keep their heads down, carefully pretending they have no idea what’s happening. Finally she stands slowly, turns, and leaves without a word. “Well, that’s handy,” I mumble, picking up my bread. “Kinda harsh,” Ryan comments. I hate that I immediately feel a twinge of guilt just from those two words from him. “I did him a favor,” I say defensively. “That girl was one kiss away from collecting his hair. I don’t have time for that kind of crazy.” “Amen to that,” Vin says heartily, raising his glass to me. “Calm down, Romeo. You’re the idiot who keeps getting us into these situations.” “‘Us’?” he asks with a sly grin. “Are we an ‘us’ now?” “No,” Ryan replies darkly.

I hated losing her.” His voice is a low growl. “I hadn’t realized just how attached I’d gotten.” He reaches and moves a strand of wet hair out of my face. “How dangerously addictive she could be.

Jack,” she said, snuggled up against him. “I hate that I hurt you.” He buried his face in her hair and inhaled the sweet scent. “Let’s not talk about that anymore. It’s behind us. We have a lot in front of us.” “Would it be a good idea for me to go to Joey for a little while? Give you some space? Try to get my head together?” He rose over her and looked into her eyes. “Don’t, Mel. Don’t run just because we hit a rough patch. We’ll work through this.” “You sure?” “Mel,” he said hoarsely, his voice a mere whisper, “you have my baby inside you. I have to be a part of that. Come on…” She fought the tears that threatened. “I know it must be hard to deal with an emotional basket case like me.” He smiled at her and said, “I’ve heard that pregnant women get like that.” “I think I’m just like that, period.” “Marry me,” he said. She touched his beautiful face. “You don’t have to.” “Melinda, six months ago we were two people without attachments. Two people who had accepted we would never have any—and that we’d never have families. Now we have it all. We have each other and a baby. A baby we both want. Let’s not screw this up.” “Are you sure?” “I’ve never been more sure about anything. I want this. If you can’t stay here, I’ll go anywhere you want to go.” “But Jack, you love it here!” “Don’t you realize I love you more? I need you in my life. You and our baby. God, Mel—I don’t care where that happens. As long as it happens.” “Jack,” she said in a whisper. “What if you change your mind? What if something happens? You have to remember, I never thought anything terrible would happen to—” He put a finger on her lips, stopping her. He didn’t want to hear his name. Not now. “Shh,” he said. “I want you to trust me. You know you’re safe with me.” *

My body has a mind of its own. Apparently it thinks that “new year” is synonymous with “exercise program,” and has been attempting to coerce me into one. Right. Like shifting from one side of the couch to the other isn’t work. “Hey! What about ME?” it asked. “Hello! Down here! The attachment to your neck that is beginning to resemble a marshmallow? Remember? When are we going to join a gym? A girl your age has a lot more than just a reputation to uphold, you know - your butt springs to mind! So when’s it going to be? Huh? Huh?” “Hmmm,” I answered thoughtfully. “How about never? Is never good for you?” “Yeah, ya big coward. That’s the thanks I get for silently squeezing into those jeans all these months? I knew you were a weenie.” “I have a black belt, I’ll have you know!” I retorted. “You might want to show a little respect! There was a day when the only ripples on my body were the ones defining my abdomen!” “‘Ooh, look at me, I’m a martial artist!’ Well, Jean-Claude Van Flab, let’s invite reality in for some tea, shall we? That day was FOUR YEARS AGO. Those laurels you’re resting on are becoming a little more than figurative. People are gonna start calling you ‘Baggie’!” “My, but you’ve gotten cocky in your old age,” I responded, “considering I’M STILL THE BOSS. I own you. You’re mine.” “Gee, boss, I hate to shatter your delusions of adequacy,” it shot back, “but your employee is revolting - and you can take THAT any way you want.” I looked down and sighed. It had a point.

Me, too …Huh, maybe I do like Tom Cruise. But I hate feeling pressured to find him attractive. I don’t." "Nobody does. It’s a lie perpetuated by the American media. Tom Cruise and Julia Roberts.

It's just so strange...," she said. He couldn't tell from her voice whether she was sad or angry. "I can remember a time when you needed me for everything. You were just this little kitten, and you cried if I set you down even for a second. I don't know how I managed to ever take a shower or make dinner. I don't think I did. I was afraid to hold you too close to the stove." Lincoln stared down at the eggs. He hated when she talked like this. It was like accidentally seeing her in her nightgown. "Why do you think I can remember that," she asked, "when I you can't? Why does nature do that to us? How does that serve evolution? Those were the more important years of my life, and you can't even remember them. You can't understand why it's so hard for me to hand you off to someone else. You want me to act casual.

It's just so strange...," she said. He couldn't tell from her voice whether she was sad or angry. "I can remember a time when you needed me for everything. You were just this little kitten, and you cried if I set you down even for a second. I don't know how I managed to ever take a shower or make dinner. I don't think I did. I was afraid to hold you too close to the stove.” Lincoln stared down at the eggs. He hated when she talked like this. It was like accidentally seeing her in her nightgown. “Why do you think I can remember that," she asked, "when you can't? Why does nature do that to us? How does that serve evolution? Those were the more important years of my life, and you can't even remember them. You can't understand why it's so hard for me to hand you off to someone else. You want me to act casual.

This is the thing I hate most about having anxiety, it’s not just the presence of ruminating and overthinking, it’s the fact that in the process, it strips you piece by piece of all rational thought until you’re left with just a vicious cycle of negativity and loneliness. You assume that everyone is out to get you, you assume that you’re the reason for even the slightest change in someone’s tone or behaviour. I know it makes me sound selfish, but in my brain, the world does revolve around me because other people’s happiness is indicative of my own actions. It’s almost as if I have a thin piece of wire attached to the top of my head, running parallel with everyone I ever come across. One small deviation in my wire can cataclysmically affect whoever’s on the receiving end.

something, never hate it. Everything that you hate is attached to your heart. If you want to let go of something, if you want to move on, you cannot hate.” “I

All the things I was a sucker for… if they weren’t attached to an ego so large it required its own zip code.

How’s your shoulder?” “Still attached. It’s fine. See? We had sex, and I didn’t die.” “Not funny.

I don’t know if the Ache is trying to protect me or terrorize me. I don’t know if it loves me or hates me, if it’s bad or good. I just know that its role is to constantly remind me of the most essential fact of life, which is: This ends. Don’t get too attached to anything.

I hate delicate flowers. I like my women with the thorns still attached.

Kim felt the nausea rising within her. The two people she hated most in the world forming some kind of sick attachment behind her back was beyond twisted.

come into your life and break you. And not to mention, if Aubree and Ryland found out, it could quite possibly break any thread you might still have attached to them. If you’re willing to risk that, then take what you want.” I glance out the window because I tried taking what I wanted and did a shit job at it. He played around with me, but in the end, he backed away. Probably because I was nervous, probably because I seemed inexperienced, probably because even though I’ve caught him glancing at me, he doesn’t actually find me that desirable. He thinks I’m too young, and that could not have been more obvious last night. “Why are you avoiding eye contact with me?” A tear falls down my cheek as last night’s embarrassment hits me harder than expected, and I’m unable to keep it to myself. I quietly say, “Because I tried taking what I wanted from him last night and failed miserably, and now I’m really freaking embarrassed.” “What do you mean?” she asks. I turn toward her, more tears falling down my cheeks. “I mean, I saw him in the kitchen last night and came onto him. He touched

If I get attached to you and this is all just a revenge ploy, I’ll haunt you until you take your last breath. And even then, I would follow you around hell throwing fireballs at you.” “First, if I’m going to hell, you have to come with me. I’d miss you too much down there by myself. Plus, we can throw fireballs at each other. It’ll be adorable. Like a snowball fight but with spice.” I touched my lips to hers, rubbing back and forth. “Second, aren’t you already attached to me?” Her nose scrunched again. “Why should I be the one to admit my feelings?” “I think I’ve done a lot of that. But here you go, Bex. I am attached to you. I have been for longer than I even realized. If I hate you, it’ll be because you try to leave me.” She did that humming thing again. “You’re extremely intense. It’s kind of scary.” “You’re the only person in my life I can be completely real with. Sometimes that realness might be scary. I’m hoping you can handle it because I want it to be you.

I hate to say, some part of me was relieved, thinking now I wouldn’t have to worry every minute about her dying. I thought I’d be better off without the fear. I was so wrong. Even with nothing else good left between us, that dread made me a person still attached to another person. Nobody needed me anywhere now.

for the rest of the night. Other than to refuel with holiday leftovers. “Would you still love me if I told you I didn’t know what tasted better, Christmas leftovers or you?” Jana cocked her eyebrow with a sexy smile on her face. Damn, she was beautiful. “No but I will be mad unless you do some very thorough research and come up with a satisfying answer…” I grinned. This Christmas was unlike any of the others Jana and I had spent together. This time we had two little boys, a bigger family and we’d faced our biggest threat yet and come out on top. “If it’s for the sake of research, consider me in babe.” And I spent the rest of the night doing science. Between the gorgeous legs of my beautiful wife. I was pretty sure in that moment, life for the Reckless Bastard’s couldn’t get any better. Merry friggin’ Christmas to us! * * * * If you think the Reckless Bastards are spicy bad boys, they’re nothing compared to the steam in my next series Reckless MC Opey, TX Chapter where Gunnar and Maisie move to Texas! There’s also a sneak peek on the next page.   Don’t wait — grab your copy today!  Copyright © 2019 KB Winters and BookBoyfriends Publishing Inc Published By: BookBoyfriends Publishing Inc Chapter One Gunnar “We’re gonna be cowboys!” Maisie had been singing that song since we got on the interstate and left Nevada and the only family we’d had in the world behind. For good. Cross was my oldest friend, and I’d miss him the most, even though I knew we’d never lose touch. I’d miss Jag too, even Golden Boy and Max. The prospects were cool, but I had no attachment to them. Though I gave him a lot of shit, I knew I’d even miss Stitch. A little. It didn’t matter that the last year had been filled with more shit than gold, or that I was leaving Vegas in the dust, we were all closer for the hell we’d been through. But still, I was leaving. Maisie and I’d been on the road for a couple of days. Traveling with a small child took a long damn time. Between bathroom breaks and snack times we’d be lucky to make it to Opey by the end of the month. Lucky for me, Maisie had her mind set on us becoming cowboys, complete with ten gallon hats, spurs and chaps, so she hadn’t shed one tear, yet. It wasn’t something I’d been hoping for but I was waiting patiently for reality to sink in and the uncontrollable sobs that had a way of breaking a grown man’s heart. “You’re not a boy,” I told her and smiled through the rear view mirror. “Hard to be a cowboy if you’re not even a boy.” Maisie grinned, a full row of bright white baby teeth shining back at me right along with sapphire blue eyes and hair so black it looked to be painted on with ink. “I’m gonna be a cowgirl then! A cowgirl!” She went on and on for what felt like forever, in only the way that a four year old could, about all the cool cowgirl stuff she’d have. “Boots and a pony too!” “A pony? You can’t even tie your shoes or clean up your toys and you want a pony?” She nodded in that exaggerated way little kids did. “I’ll learn,” she said with the certainty of a know it all teenager, a thought that terrified the hell out of me. “You’ll help me, Gunny!” Her words brought a smile to my face even though I hated that fucking nickname she’d picked up from a woman I refused to think about ever again. I’d help Maisie because that’s what family did. Hell, she was the reason I’d uprooted my entire fucking life and headed to the great unknown wilds of Texas. To give Maisie a normal life or as close to normal as I was capable of giving her. “I’ll always help you, Squirt.” “I know. Love you Gunny!” “Love you too, Cowgirl.” I winked in the mirror and her face lit up with happiness. It was the pure joy on her face, putting a bloom in her cheeks that convinced me this was the right thing to do. I didn’t want to move to Texas, and I didn’t want to live on a goddamn ranch, but that was my future. The property was already bought and paid for with my name

Without You Everything Is Hideous How are you? , sweetheart, here I am writing these letters and your thought does not leave me and here you are still the closest to me since that day, which did not end until now. I scatter my letters in front of your beautiful eyes to tell you that I am wrong and guilty ; Although I have not forgotten you for a moment, even while I am trying to convince myself that everything is finished from your point of view, but I make up for it and say well, this is enough for me to try to snatch her icy heart again, this heart that loved me with all sincerity that innocent childish heart that never hated One even over the one who is because of him has left me for a long time due to false suspicion I remember all your letters, so I read them from time to time How nice it was to call me a childish nickname - capturing like your cheeks a happy nickname. You didn’t know all my reasons, sweetie I indirectly told you about the biggest reason when I told you to read “So Forgive Me ”You are the most beautiful thing that has happened to me since I knew you. My beauty, today I want to tell you that you forgot something one day. You asked me: Have you loved before? So I told you : Yes I did it was a long time ago when I was a teenager; I never thought that I would love again after I was wounded by that deep wound, when I was left alone, the wolves of loneliness and separation scattered me, and no one comes to me to pull me from the bottom of the debris that happened in my heart, And to be honest, I was not afraid for myself as much as I feared for your tender heart; I don’t ever want to be the lover who leaves his lover, especially if it is you. My beautiful woman, I wanted to make sure that my heart never beats for anyone but you It’s not easy, believe me I admire you since we became close, since we started speaking in the innocent language of children, since you used to say to me you are late to respond, even if I was late for a few seconds since night became for us a second day we talk about it until dawn and more Since you were quarreling with others trying to make them understand my point of view. How delicious days were when you looked at me from a distance and smiled, and when I heard your laughter as much as I was jealous, my heart beat with joy All your conditions were beautiful even when you quarreled with me I am not here trying to tell you that I am innocent, I am not I hurt you many times but I swear it was not with intent They were rather fleeting and spontaneous things. I admit that I have hurt your pride and here I am now bearing the consequences of this matter, and I swear it is not an easy thing. But, my flower, when you told me that excuse to stay away from me for three months, it smashed me, how can someone take my moon from me? The one that shone my eyes and melted the ice around my heart after my heart became so attached to her that I became so addicted to her that when I talk to any girl I call her by your name. My little girl I lost my love previously, and I do not want to lose you, because I know that you are a twin of my soul, even if you deny this now, but in the depths of your heart you know the validity of this matter. I apologize for every moment that made you think with pain I just wanted to protect you from fleeting feelings or just those feelings that were attracted to you And I know you crave someone to love you just because you are beautiful I wanted to protect you from the feelings of a teenager And if it was a year or less late to reveal it You know that valuable things no matter how late they are, their value will be better, finer, sincere and thinner, and you deserve strong, sincere feelings that stem from the depths of the heart and from the depths of the soul feelings befitting you I see in you all the beauties in life And without you, everything is Hideous You have all my feelings, beautiful cheeks.

Father Joe grinned. “What is good, and what is evil?” People shifted uncomfortably in their chairs. “Islam says good is doing whatever Allah has decreed is good. Evil is the opposite. Hinduism talks about ignorance that causes one to err and those errors are the karma of past lives that hurt one in the present. Not only is evil inevitable in creation, but it is said to be a good thing, a necessary part of the universe, the will of Brahma, the creator. If the gods are responsible for the existence of evil in the world, they either create it willingly—and are thus evil themselves—or are forced to create it by the higher law of karma, which makes them weak. “Buddhism disagrees. In fact, the whole of life for the Buddhist is suffering that stems from the wrong desire to perpetuate the illusion of personal existence. The Noble Truth of Suffering, dukkha, is this: ‘Birth is suffering; aging is suffering; sickness is suffering; death is suffering; sorrow and lamentation, pain, grief, and despair are suffering; association with the unpleasant is suffering; dissociation from the pleasant is suffering; not to get what one wants is suffering—in brief, the five aggregates of attachment are suffering.’ Samyutta Nikaya 56, 11. According to that belief, good is the complete abolition of personhood, because that is what ends suffering. “The monotheistic religions go another route. Now listen to this: “‘When you reap your harvest, leave the corners of your field for the poor. When you pluck the grapes in your vineyard, leave those grapes that fall for the poor and the stranger. Do not steal; don’t lie to one another, or deny a justified accusation against you. Don’t use My name to swear to a lie. Don’t extort your neighbor, or take what is his, or keep the wages of a day laborer overnight. Don’t curse a deaf man or put a stumbling block before a blind man. Don’t misuse the powers of the law to give special consideration to the poor or preferential honor to the great; according to what is right shall you judge your neighbor. Don’t stand by when the blood of your neighbor is spilled. Don’t hate your fellow man in your heart but openly rebuke him. Do not take revenge nor bear a grudge. Love your neighbor’s well-being as if it were your own.’ “And overarching all these commandments is the supreme admonition not to be good but to be holy, ‘because I am holy.’” The class looked stunned. “Pretty specific, no?” He smiled. “Especially in contrast to the detachment from life of the Eastern religions. In this, we find perhaps the greatest piece of moral education and legislation ever given to mankind in all human history. Do any of you recognize the source?” “Gospels?” someone guessed. “It’s from the Old Testament of the Jews. From the book of Leviticus.

You define yourself with hatred, so that if it leaves and there is nothing else to replace it, you lose a piece of yourself. I think when you feel anything strong enough it becomes its opposite. I think you can love someone so hard that you hate them. And I think you can hate someone so hard you grow attached. That's why some people spend their whole lives hating someone they repeatedly invite into their lives: they don't even know who they are without it.

Jez rocked forward on the balls of her feet with a laugh. “You might hate Alexa, but you love what she does to you. I’d even go so far as to say you’ve gotten attached.

I don’t know if the Ache is trying to protect me or terrorize me. I don’t know if it loves me or hates me, if it’s bad or good. I just know that its role is to constantly remind me of the most essential fact of life, which is: This ends. Don’t get too attached to anything. So when I get too soft, too comforted, too close to love, the Ache reminds me. It always arrives in words (she’ll die) or an image (a phone call, a funeral), and immediately, my body responds. I stiffen, hold my breath, straighten my spine, break eye contact, lean away. After that, I’m in control again. The Ache keeps me prepared, distant, safe. The Ache keeps me fine, which is another word for half dead.

She opened the case file and attached an audio clip, hitting the background record button. She still had the doctor’s number in her call log and dialled it.  It rang for a while and then went to voicemail. ‘You’ve reached Elliot Day, I can’t get to the phone just now, but if you’d like to leave a message, I’ll return your call as soon as I can. Thank you.’ The voice told her he was well-brought-up. South-England native. But she couldn’t place where. ‘Hi,’ she said after the beep. ‘This is Detective Sergeant Jamie Johansson. I’d like to speak to you regarding your work at the homeless shelter in Enfield. It’s in accordance with an active investigation. If you could call me back at your earliest convenience, that would be great. Thank you.’ She hung up and sighed, stopped the recording, and then went back to the case file, finding the number for Oliver’s parents. She hit record again, copied it and called them immediately, not wanting to put it off any longer. After three rings, a tired voice answered. ‘Hello?’ ‘Mr Hammond?’ ‘Yes?’ ‘This is Detective Sergeant Jamie Johansson with the London Metropolitan Police. I understand that one of my colleagues informed you that I might be getting in touch?’ There was silence for a second and then she heard him swallow. ‘That’s right… But I don’t know what I can tell you,’ he said quietly. It sounded like he was moving from room to room, cupping the phone to his mouth. Maybe he didn’t want Oliver’s mum to hear. ‘Any information you provide could be very useful. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?’ ‘Sure,’ he said, his voice small. ‘Would it be okay if I recorded this conversation?’ ‘Yes,’ he said, almost absently. Jamie hated asking it — it never had a positive impact on the conversations that came after. Made them stunted, reserved. But she had to ask.

I bet you eat your apples without removing the sticker that the grocery store puts on them. You probably eat the whole thing, all the way down to the core. Stem, too, if it’s still attached.