Id Move Mountains For You Quotes

Are there bears in these mountains?" he asked. His companion nodded. "Of course. But it's a bit early in the year for them to be moving around. Why?" Halt let go a long breath. "Just a vague hope, really. There's a chance that when the Temujai here you crashing around in the trees, they might think you're a bear." Erak smiled, with his mouth only. His eyes were as cold as the snow. "You're a very amusing fellow," he told Halt. "I'd like to brain you with my ax one of these days." "If you could manage to do it quietly, I'd almost welcome it," Halt said.

Shigure: Perhaps I can offer some advice? ...You know, Tohru-kun, when you get anxiety about the future it's better not to think about it. And let's not wipe our faces with dishtowels... For example let's say, Tohru-kun, that you are surrounded with a mountain of laundry piled so high around your feet that you can't move. Are you with me? Now, let's assume you don't have a washing machine, so you have to wash everything individually by hand. You would be at a loss for what to do, right? You'd worry about if you could ever wash everything, if you could get it all clean, if you'd ever have time for anything but laundry ever again! The more you'd think about it, the more anxious you'd get. But the time keeps passing, and the laundry doesn't wash itself. So what do you do, Tohru-kun? It might be a good idea to start washing the laundry right at your feet. Of course it's important to think about what lies ahead, too, but if you only look at what's down the road you'll get tangled in the laundry at your feet and you'll fall, won't you? You see, it's also important to think about what you can do now, what you can do today. And if you keep washing things one at a time, you'll be done before you know it. Because fortune is looking out for you. Sometimes the anxiety will start to well up, but when it does, take a little break. Read a book, watch TV, or eat soumen with everyone. Oh my, I'm shocked! Wow! What a wonderful analogy! I really must treat myself to some soumen as a reward... Oh! I'd like some tea, too! Kyo: Why you... You just wanted to eat soumen, didn't you?!

When we moved me in and I fretfully shared this with him, he pulled me loosely in his arms, dipped his face close and told me, “This décor isn’t mine either. It’s Ma’s. Do what you want. Anything you want. I don’t give a fuck. Just as long as you’re happy here.” I’d be happy on a deserted island that had nothing but a palm tree and a lifetime supply of sunscreen as long as Chace was there. And it was because of statements just like that I would. I didn’t tell him that. I just whispered, “Okay.

Like I said, when I get pissed I say a lotta shit I don't mean and what I said about you I didn't mean," he repeated, beginning to look as impatient as he sounded. "And like I said, you're old enough to learn you shouldn't do that," I repeated too, probably also looking impatient. "That isn't me," he replied. "Well, then, this obviously is eating you and that's your consequence because I have feelings and you walked all over them and you can't order me to shake it off so you can feel better. It's there, burned in my brain and I can't just forget it because you tell me to. So you have to live with that. You can't and want me gone, say it now because I'm beginning to like Betty and I met Shambles and Sunny and I'm having dinner with them tomorrow night and I'd rather not make ties when I'm going to need to hit the road because my boss is going to get rid of me." "Shambles and Sunny?" he asked. "Shambles and Sunny," I answered but didn't share more. "Now, can we just move on and do our best to work together and all other times avoid each other or do you want me to go?" He moved forward an inch and I again fought the urge to retreat. "Forgiveness is divine," he said softly and I'd never heard him talk soft. He had a very nice voice but when it went soft, it was beautiful. This also sucked. (BTW, in the beginning a lot of things sucked! :D) I mean Lauren uses this word 'sucks'. "I'm not divine," I returned. "I'm also not Ace and I'm not Babe. I'm Lauren. You don't like my name, don't call me anything at all. Now can I clean the danged table?" I had my head tipped back to look him in the eye but I could tell he was expending effort to hold his whole body still. Then he said in that soft voice, "I'm sorry, Ace." "Me too," I replied instantly being clear I didn't accept his apology...

I thought that I would go to Romania and that when I got there I would go to some small town and buy secondhand clothes in the market. Shoes. A blanket. I’d burn everything I owned. My passport. Maybe I’d just put my clothes in the trash. Change money in the street. Then I’d hike into the mountains. Stay off the road. Take no chances. Crossing the ancestral lands by foot. Maybe by night. There are bears and wolves up there. I looked it up. You could have a small fire at night. Maybe find a cave. A mountain stream. I’d have a canteen for water for when the time came that I was too weak to move about. After a while the water would taste extraordinary. It would taste like music. I’d wrap myself in the blanket at night against the cold and watch the bones take shape beneath my skin and I would pray that I might see the truth of the world before I died. Sometimes at night the animals would come to the edge of the fire and move about and their shadows would move among the trees and I would understand that when the last fire was ashes they would come and carry me away and I would be their eucharist. And that would be my life. And I would be happy.

In other languages, you are beautiful- mort, muerto- I wish I spoke moon, I wish the bottom of the ocean were sitting in that chair playing cards and noticing how famous you are on my cell phone- picture of your eyes guarding your nose and the fire you set by walking, picture of dawn getting up early to enthrall your skin- what I hate about stars is they’re not those candles that make a joke of cake, that you blow on and they die and come back, and you you’re not those candles either, how often I realize I’m not breathing, to be like you or just afraid to move at all, a lung or finger, is it time already for inventory, a mountain, I have three of those, a bag of hair, box of ashes, if you were a cigarette I’d be cancer, if you were a leaf, you were a leaf, every leaf, as far as this tree can say.

You won't have to go through it alone," I tell her. "I'll be here through every part of it. I'd do anything for you, do you know that? Does it help? To know that I'd move mountains for you? That I'd part seas?

From the hillside to the seas. From the mountains to the trees. There this place I long to be. And if I asked you, would you come with me? Well, I don't care what they say. I'd leave it all behind and move away.

I'm not going to learn to read or shield with you.' 'Why? From spite? I thought you and I got past that Under the Mountain.' 'Don't get me started on what you did to me Under the Mountain.' Rhys went still. As still as I'd ever seen him, as still as the death now beckoning in those eyes. Then his chest began to move, faster and faster.

People often ask me, “Do you seriously expect this idea of God to change the world? What about all the fanatics and terrorists?” All I can say is that the only thing that changes the world is an idea that lights our fire at a moment when we are surrounded by dry, dead kindling. Today is that kind of time. Spiritual transformation doesn’t require a majority vote. It doesn’t matter if most people don’t get it. All it takes is a committed minority, because the committed lead culture. The new scientific picture of the universe is a modern revelation. For many the realization that God can be real and is emerging from human aspirations will also be a revelation. That these revelations are both happening now, at so pivotal a moment for our species, is truly grace. They have helped me move into the new universe and feel blessed and awestruck every day, as though I’d moved from a dark basement apartment into a mountain aerie with a hundred-mile view in all directions. I don’t expect millions of people to change their ideas of God overnight, but to those who care about the human future and can see beyond ideology, to those who believe that truth matters, and to those who recognize the potential of humanity but don’t see how to make us rise to that potential, it could make all the difference to discover a God that is real.

Elizabeth, we’re going to have to stop.” Elizabeth’s swirling senses began to return to reality, slowly at first, and then with a sickening plummet. Passion gave way to fear and then to anguished shame as she realized she was lying in a man’s arms, her shirt unfastened, her flesh exposed to his gaze and touch. Closing her eyes, she fought back the sting of tears and shoved his hand away, lurching into an upright position. “Let me rise, please,” she whispered, her voice strangled with self-revulsion. Her skin flinched as he began to fasten her shirt, but in order to do it he had to release his hold on her, and the moment he did, she scrambled to her feet. Turning her back to him, she fastened her shirt with shaking hands and snatched her jacket from the peg beside the fire. He moved so silently that she had no idea he’d stood until his hands settled on her stiff shoulders. “Don’t be frightened of what is between us. I’ll be able to provide for you-“ All of Elizabeth’s confusion and anguish exploded in a burst of tempestuous, sobbing fury that was directed at herself, but which she hurtled at him. Tearing free of his grasp, she whirled around. “Provide for me,” she cried. “Provide what? A-a hovel in Scotland where I’ll stay while you dress the part of an English gentleman so you can gamble away everything-“ “If things go on as I expect,” he interrupted her in a voice of taut calm, “I’ll be one of the richest men in England within a year-two at the most. If they don’t, you’ll still be well provided for.” Elizabeth snatched her bonnet and backed away from him in a fear that was partly of him and partly of her own weakness. “This is madness. Utter madness.” Turning, she headed for the door. “I know,” he said gently. She reached for the door handle and jerked the door open. Behind her, his voice stopped her in midstep. “If you change your mind after we leave in the morning, you can reach me at Hammund’s town house in Upper Brook Street until Wednesday. After that I’d intended to leave for India. I’ll be gone until winter.” “I-I hope you have a safe voyage,” she said, too overwrought to wonder about the sharp tug of loss she felt at the realization he was leaving. “If you change your mind in time,” he teased, “I’ll take you with me.” Elizabeth fled in sheer terror from the gentle confidence she’d heard in his smiling voice. As she galloped through the thick fog and wet underbrush she was no longer the sensible, confident young lady she’d been before; instead she was a terrified, bewildered girl with a mountain of responsibilities and an upbringing that convinced her the wild attraction she felt for Ian Thornton was sordid and unforgivable.

I work as fast as I can. Binah will come soon looking for me. It’s Mother, however, who descends the back steps into the yard. Binah and the other house slaves are clumped behind her, moving with cautious, synchronized steps as if they’re a single creature, a centipede crossing an unprotected space. I sense the shadow that hovers over them in the air, some devouring dread, and I crawl back into the green-black gloom of the tree. The slaves stare at Mother’s back, which is straight and without give. She turns and admonishes them. “You are lagging. Quickly now, let us be done with this.” As she speaks, an older slave, Rosetta, is dragged from the cow house, dragged by a man, a yard slave. She fights, clawing at his face. Mother watches, impassive. He ties Rosetta’s hands to the corner column of the kitchen house porch. She looks over her shoulder and begs. Missus, please. Missus. Missus. Please. She begs even as the man lashes her with his whip. Her dress is cotton, a pale yellow color. I stare transfixed as the back of it sprouts blood, blooms of red that open like petals. I cannot reconcile the savagery of the blows with the mellifluous way she keens or the beauty of the roses coiling along the trellis of her spine. Someone counts the lashes—is it Mother? Six, seven. The scourging continues, but Rosetta stops wailing and sinks against the porch rail. Nine, ten. My eyes look away. They follow a black ant traveling the far reaches beneath the tree—the mountainous roots and forested mosses, the endless perils—and in my head I say the words I fashioned earlier. Boy Run. Girl Jump. Sarah Go. Thirteen. Fourteen . . . I bolt from the shadows, past the man who now coils his whip, job well done, past Rosetta hanging by her hands in a heap. As I bound up the back steps into the house, Mother calls to me, and Binah reaches to scoop me up, but I escape them, thrashing along the main passage, out the front door, where I break blindly for the wharves. I don’t remember the rest with clarity, only that I find myself wandering across the gangplank of a sailing vessel, sobbing, stumbling over a turban of rope. A kind man with a beard and a dark cap asks what I want. I plead with him, Sarah Go. Binah chases me, though I’m unaware of her until she pulls me into her arms and coos, “Poor Miss Sarah, poor Miss Sarah.” Like a decree, a proclamation, a prophecy. When I arrive home, I am a muss of snot, tears, yard dirt, and harbor filth. Mother holds me against her, rears back and gives me an incensed shake, then clasps me again. “You must promise never to run away again. Promise me.” I want to. I try to. The words are on my tongue—the rounded lumps of them, shining like the marbles beneath the tree. “Sarah!” she demands. Nothing comes. Not a sound. I remained mute for a week. My words seemed sucked into the cleft between my collar bones. I rescued them by degrees, by praying, bullying and wooing. I came to speak again, but with an odd and mercurial form of stammer. I’d never been a fluid speaker, even my first spoken words had possessed a certain belligerent quality, but now there were ugly, halting gaps between my sentences, endless seconds when the words cowered against my lips and people averted their eyes. Eventually, these horrid pauses began to come and go according to their own mysterious whims. They might plague me for weeks and then remain away months, only to return again as abruptly as they left.

I saw you through your dreams- and I hoarded the images, sorting through them over and over again, trying to place where you you were, who you were. But you had such horrible nightmares, and the creatures belonged to all courts. I'd wake up with your scent in my nose, and it would haunt me all day, every step. But then one night, you dreamed of standing amongst green hills, seeing unlit bonfires for Calanmai.' There was such silence in my head. 'I knew there was only one celebration that large; I knew those hills- and I knew you'd probably be there. So I told Amarantha...' Rhys swallowed. 'I told her that I wanted to go to the Spring Court for the celebration, to spy on Tamlin and see if anyone showed up wishing to conspire with him. We were so close to the deadline for the curse that she was paranoid- restless. She told me to bring back traitors. I promised her I would.' His eyes lifted to mine again. 'I got there, and I could smell you. So I tracked that scent, and... And there you were. Human- utterly human, and being dragged away by those piece-of-shit picts, who wanted to...' He shook his head. 'I debated slaughtering them then and there, but then they shoved you, and I just... moved. I started speaking without knowing what I was saying, only that you were there, and I was touching you, and...' He loosed a shuddering breath. There you are. I've been looking for you. His first words to me- not a lie at all, not a threat to keep those faeries away. Thank you for finding her for me. I had the vague feeling of the world slipping out from under my feet like sand washing away from the shore. 'You looked at me,' Rhys said, 'and I knew you had no idea who I was. That I might have seen your dreams, but you hadn't seen mine. And you were just... human. You were so young, and breakable, and had no interest in me whatsoever, and I knew that if I stayed too long, someone would see and report back, and she'd find you. So I started walking away, thinking you'd be glad to get rid of me. But then you called after me, like you couldn't let go of me just yet, whether you knew it or not. And I knew... I knew we were on dangerous ground, somehow. I knew that I could never speak to you, or see you, or think of you again. 'I didn't want to know why you were in Prythian; I didn't even want to know your name. Because seeing you in my dreams had been one thing, but in person... Right then, deep down, I think I knew what you were. And I didn't let myself admit it, because it there was the slightest chance that you were my mate... They would have done such unspeakable things to you, Feyre. 'So I let you walk away. I told myself after you were gone that maybe... maybe the Cauldron had been kind, and not cruel, for letting me see you. Just once. A gift for what I was enduring. And when you were gone, I found those three picts. I broke into their minds, reshaping their lives, their histories, and dragged them before Amarantha. I made them confess to conspiring to find other rebels that night. I made them lie and claim that they hated her. I watched her carve them up while they were still alive, protesting their innocence. I enjoyed it- because I knew what they had wanted to do to you. And knew that it would have paled in comparison to what Amarantha would have done if she'd found you.' I wrapped a hand around my throat. I had my reasons to be out there, he'd once said to me Under the Mountain. Do not think, Feyre, that it did not cost me.

So what did you and Landon do this afternoon?” Minka asked, her soft voice dragging him back to the present. Angelo looked up to see that Minka had already polished off two fajitas. Damn, the girl could eat. “Landon gave me a tour of the DCO complex. I did some target shooting and blew up a few things. He even let me play with the expensive surveillance toys. I swear, it felt more like a recruiting pitch to get me to work there than anything.” Minka’s eyes flashed green, her full lips curving slightly. Damn, why the hell had he said it like that? Now she probably thought he was going to come work for the DCO. Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t, not after just reenlisting for another five years. The army wasn’t the kind of job where you could walk into the boss’s office and say, “I quit.” Thinking it would be a good idea to steer the conversation back to safer ground, he reached for another fajita and asked Minka a question instead. “What do you think you’ll work on next with Ivy and Tanner? You going to practice with the claws for a while or move on to something else?” Angelo felt a little crappy about changing the subject, but if Minka noticed, she didn’t seem to mind. And it wasn’t like he had to fake interest in what she was saying. Anything that involved Minka was important to him. Besides, he didn’t know much about shifters or hybrids, so the whole thing was pretty damn fascinating. “What do you visualize when you see the beast in your mind?” he asked. “Before today, I thought of it as a giant, blurry monster. But after learning that the beast is a cat, that’s how I picture it now.” She smiled. “Not a little house cat, of course. They aren’t scary enough. More like a big cat that roams the mountains.” “Makes sense,” he said. Minka set the other half of her fourth fajita on her plate and gave him a curious look. “Would you mind if I ask you a personal question?” His mouth twitched as he prepared another fajita. He wasn’t used to Minka being so reserved. She usually said whatever was on her mind, regardless of whether it was personal or not. “Go ahead,” he said. “The first time we met, I had claws, fangs, glowing red eyes, and I tried to kill you. Since then, I’ve spent most of the time telling you about an imaginary creature that lives inside my head and makes me act like a monster. How are you so calm about that? Most people would have run away already.” Angelo chuckled. Not exactly the personal question he’d expected, but then again Minka rarely did the expected. “Well, my mom was full-blooded Cherokee, and I grew up around all kinds of Indian folktales and legends. My dad was in the army, and whenever he was deployed, Mom would take my sisters and me back to the reservation where she grew up in Oklahoma. I’d stay up half the night listening to the old men tell stories about shape-shifters, animal spirits, skin-walkers, and trickster spirits.” He grinned. “I’m not saying I necessarily believed in all that stuff back then, but after meeting Ivy, Tanner, and the other shifters at the DCO, it just didn’t faze me that much.” Minka looked at him with wide eyes. “You’re a real American Indian? Like in the movies? With horses and everything?” He laughed again. The expression of wonder on her face was adorable. “First, I’m only half-Indian. My dad is Mexican, so there’s that. And second, Native Americans are almost nothing like you see in the movies. We don’t all live in tepees and ride horses. In fact, I don’t even own a horse.” Minka was a little disappointed about the no-horse thing, but she was fascinated with what it was like growing up on an Indian reservation and being surrounded by all those legends. She immediately asked him to tell her some Indian stories. It had been a long time since he’d thought about them, but to make her happy, he dug through his head and tried to remember every tale he’d heard as a kid.

I wondered why nobody realized what a crazy experience we all were having. I'd be lying in bed, or walking down a hallway in college, and the realization that I was alive would startle me, as though it had come up from behind and slammed two books together. I suddenly realized I was breathing air and stuck to the planet and temporary. And that realization felt as though I had come from some other existence and was experiencing this magical life for the first time. If you think about it, we get robbed of the mystery of being alive. It's a fairly amazing thing, you know. Even if you believe life is an accident, that we are all here by accident, it's still an amazing thing. It might even be a more amazing thing if we are really here by accident. What are the chances, honestly? Still, I think we get robbed of the glory of it, because we don't remember how we got here. When you get born, you wake up slowly to everything. Your brain doesn't stop growing until you turn 26, you know. So from birth to 26, God is slowly turning on the lights, and you are groggy and pointing at things and saying ‘circle’ and ‘blue’ and ‘car,’ and then ‘sex’ and ‘job’ and ‘healthcare.’ The experience is so slow, you can easily come to believe life isn't that big a deal, that life isn't staggering. What I'm saying is, I think life IS staggering, and we are just too used to it. We are all of us like spoiled children, no longer impressed with the gifts we are being given. It’s just another sunset, just another rainstorm moving over the mountains, just another child being born, just another funeral. When I was writing myself into a movie, I felt the way God feels as he writes the world, sitting over the planets, placing tiny people in tiny wombs. If I have a hope, it’s that God sat over the dark nothing and wrote you and me specifically into the story. And He put us in with the sunsets and the rainstorms as though to say, ‘Enjoy your place in My story. The very beauty of it means it’s not about you, and in time, that will give you comfort.

I woke in bed, sweating and breathing heavily. It was the third time I’d had this nightmare: reliving that horrible feeling of falling, out of control, toward the ground. I was now on month two of just lying there prone, supposedly recovering. But I wasn’t getting any better. In fact, if anything, my back felt worse. I couldn’t move and was getting angrier and angrier inside. Angry at myself; angry at everything. I was angry because I was shit-scared. My plans, my dreams for the future hung in shreds. Nothing was certain any more. I didn’t know if I’d be able to stay with the SAS. I didn’t even know if I’d recover at all. Lying unable to move, sweating with frustration, my way of escaping was in my mind. I still had so much that I dreamt of doing. I looked around my bedroom, and the old picture I had of Mount Everest seemed to peer down. Dad’s and my crazy dream. It had become what so many dreams become--just that--nothing more, nothing less. Covered in dust. Never a reality. And Everest felt further beyond the realms of possibility than ever. Weeks later, and still in my brace, I struggled over to the picture and took it down. People often say to me that I must have been so positive to recover from a broken back, but that would be a lie. It was the darkest, most horrible time I can remember. I had lost my sparkle and spirit, and that is so much of who I am. And once you lost that spirit, it is hard to recover. And once you lose that spirit, it is hard to recover. I didn’t even know whether I would be strong enough to walk again--let alone climb or soldier again. And as to the big question of the rest of my life? That was looking messy from where I was. Instead, all my bottomless, young confidence was gone. I had no idea how much I was going to be able to do physically--and that was so hard. So much of my identity was in the physical. Now I just felt exposed and vulnerable. Not being able to bend down to tie your shoelaces or twist to clean your backside without acute and severe pain leaves you feeling hopeless. In the SAS I had both purpose and comrades. Alone in my room at home, I felt like I had neither. That can be the hardest battle we ever fight. It is more commonly called despair. That recovery was going to be just as big a mountain to climb as the physical one. What I didn’t realize was that it would be a mountain, the mountain, that would be at the heart of my recovery. Everest: the biggest, baddest mountain in the world.

One day, on the verge of dying of boredom, Uncle Johnny had had enough. He turned to me and said sternly, “Noah, I’m not gonna sit in here like we’re in an oversized coffin. We’re either opening the door or we’re turning the TV on. Which one do you want?” I rolled my eyes and grumbled for a few minutes before answering, “All right. Turn on the TV.” Without hesitation Uncle Johnny shot up out of that chair and reached up to hit the power button on the TV mounted from the ceiling. No sooner had his butt hit the chair seat than he was right back up again. “Fuck that. I am opening the door, too, because I want it open.” He vigorously emphasized his intention so I didn’t protest. He marched over and swung that door open. I swear he might have even taken a deep breath as if it were fresh mountain air. Then he came back to his chair and sat down. There was a movie on starring Matthew Broderick. I’d never heard of it before but Uncle Johnny was explaining to me that this was a remake and Gene Wilder had played Broderick’s character in the original film. In spite of myself, and my stubborn wish to sit and suffer in silence, I really liked the movie. And I remember thinking, I am really enjoying myself. I even turned to Uncle Johnny and said, “I’m glad we turned the TV on. This is great!” Uncle Johnny just smiled as if to say, “Of course! Finally!” We were right in the middle of the movie when one of my machines started to malfunction. The machine’s beeps drowned out the movie. A nurse came in to fix the problem and it just happened to be the hot nurse I had a crush on. She had short hair, a few tattoos on her arm, and she always wore a bandana over her head. The machine she was trying to fix was plugged in on the other side of the bed, up against the wall. “Oh, I see. Hold on. I have to move the bed out from the wall to fix this,” she said. At this point I was just watching her. She fixed the machine and pushed the bed back up against the wall. She actually hit the wall with the bed and zap! The TV went out! “WHAT?! NO!” I screamed. She couldn’t get it to turn back on. She tried but nothing worked. “Oh no, I’m sorry. We’ll have to get maintenance down here to fix it,” she said with an apologetic look that I met with a glare of disdain. She was no longer hot to me. She was just the nurse who broke the TV. Maintenance didn’t come to repair the TV until the next day. I didn’t get to watch the rest of the movie. In fact, I never saw the end of the movie and I didn’t even know the name of it until years later. Maybe one of these days I’ll get to see The Producers from start to finish.

I think it makes you wet, knowing I’d move mountains to get a chance between your thighs.

So, maybe, if he’d exhausted you, you wouldn’t have had trouble sleeping.” “Exhausted me?” “Yeah, Ace, fucked you so hard you couldn’t move. Couldn’t do anything but sleep. Exhausted you.” I couldn’t move at that moment. Couldn’t do anything but stare. “You were in my bed, couldn’t sleep, that’s what I’d do,” he told me.

What the f**k is this?” Trevor didn’t rise to the bait, as he hadn’t for the last several days. Calmly, he asked, “What?” “This.” Edgard threw the pristine, custom-made saddle on the ground within Trevor’s peripheral view. Shit. How had Edgard found it? And why in the hell had that bastard gone snooping around instead of figuring out what was wrong with Meridian like he’d promised? “Trev? I asked you a question.” “You know damn good and well what it is, Ed.” “I figured you would’ve gotten rid of it by now.” “Well, I didn’t.” Edgard practically growled, “That don’t tell me why you still have it. That don’t tell me nothin’.” Trevor turned his face toward the opposite fence to gaze across to the mountains. His reasons for keeping the saddle seemed sentimental, sloppy and stupid now, but he’d be damned if he’d share those reasons with anyone, least of all Edgard, the man responsible for those feelings. Bootsteps made a sucking sound in the muck of the corral as Edgard closed the short distance between them. “I ain’t gonna drop it. Answer me.” “Fine. You said I could do whatever I wanted with it. So I kept it.” “You didn’t use it at all, did you?” Trevor shook his head, keeping his eyes averted. “Why not?” “I have plenty of other saddles, saddles I like better.” “That’s a piss-poor excuse. Try again.” He stayed mum, wishing the damn mud would open up and swallow him like a sinkhole. “Were you hoping if you kept it I’d come back?” Trevor’s heart said yes but his mouth stayed tight as a rusty hinge. “Answer the f**king question, Trevor.” Edgard’s arrogant streak snapped Trevor’s forced patience. “What do you want me to say? It’s obvious I saved the goddamn saddle.” “Why?” “Because it reminded me of you, all right?” He kicked a chunk of mud and stalked away. “Fuck this and f**k you.” Edgard rattled off something in Portuguese, something Trevor vaguely remembered as being a plea. Or was it a threat? Dammit. His feet stopped. Trevor’s gaze zeroed in on Edgard, who’d circled him until they were standing less than a foot apart. “Tell me why.” Be cruel, that’ll nip this in the bud once and for all. “I didn’t keep the f**kin’ thing because I had some girlish goddamn hope you’d come back lookin’ for it like Cinderella’s lost glass slipper, and we’d pick up where we left off after you left me.” He locked his eyes to the liquid heat in Edgard’s, not allowing the man to look away. “Especially after you made it crystal clear you weren’t ever comin’ back.” Angry puffs of breath distorted the air between them. Several beats passed before Edgard retorted, “But I am here now, aren’t I?” “What? Am I supposed to be flippin’ cartwheels about that fact? I don’t know what you want from me, Ed. Take the saddle back if that’ll make you happy. I’ve got no use for it. I never did.” Angry, disgusted with himself, Edgard, and the whole uncomfortable situation, Trevor spun and walked toward the barn. Edgard laughed—the taunting, soft laughter that was guaranteed to raise Trevor’s hackles and his ire. “It’s that easy for you? To get pissed off and walk away?” “Yep. You’ve got no right to act so goddamned surprised since it’s a trick I learned from you, amigo.” Not two seconds later, the air left Trevor’s lungs as Edgard tackled him to the ground. Trevor rolled to dislodge the man from his back; Edgard countered, took a swing and missed. Trevor bucked and twisted his shoulders, but Edgard anticipated the move and used the momentum against Trevor to try and shove Trevor’s face against the fence. Before Edgard cornered him and held him down completely to land a punch, Trevor rolled again and pushed to his feet. A noise echoed behind him, but he ignored it as he fisted his hands in Edgard’s shearling coat, dragging him upright until they were nose to nose.

What I’d noticed was that here, in the windshadow of the mountain, it often smelled like rain. It might be raining up on the ridge, I might see the veils and rags of rain hanging down out of the scudding clouds, I might see shrouds of rain hauled over the country the way a fishing boat might drag a net, but—no rain here. A spatter, maybe, then nothing. Willy told me when I first moved in that it was like living in a strip bar. So close, looks so good and you never get laid.

By the time we were watching the moon set on one side of us and the sun rise on the other, we’d all fallen into a moving bit of peace. I’d felt a sliver of that peaceful feeling after we’d made it through the mountains. This time, through, it was longer and lingering and soul-soothing deep. It seems now like the closest thing to praying I’d ever done. When I’d lived a little longer and heard people talking about such things, calling it by spiritual names I’d wanted to scoff but couldn’t. In the years ahead, through the War and beyond, it was this quiet day moving through the unmoving land with Boy and Girl and the Old man and Red that I returned to when I needed it most. Like the jolting joys of giraffes amid the traveling bird wave, tis peace passed any understanding, any attempt at words. You only get a few of those in your whole life if you’re lucky, and some only get one. If that be true, this was my one. When I remember it, I’m not eighteen in the memory. I am whatever age its comfort came to me, be it 33, or 103, and I am driving us all, through the timeless red desert, headed to nowhere in particular, just someplace good. Together.

I haven’t been drained that low in a long time. I shouldn’t have tried to take so much all at once,” I muttered, wanting to apologise but not quite finding the right words beyond that statement. “Well feel free to just steal all of mine then,” Darcy spat icily, clutching her neck tighter. I had the urge to heal her, but knew if I tried to touch her again, she’d only recoil. The ambulance pulled away and I glanced around, double checking Darius wasn’t here and I was glad to find he’d listened to me for once. That was something anyway. “Come on, I can drive you girls back in my car,” I offered. I’d left my Faerrari parked at the Acrux Hotel when I’d last visited Tucana, opting to stardust home because I’d been too drunk to drive. But I hadn’t had any magical drinks tonight, so I’d healed myself of the effects of the whiskey I’d consumed before coming to get Darius from the nightclub. Tory’s lip curled back as she glared at me with poison in her gaze. “We’re not going anywhere alone with you,” Darcy said bitterly, distrust in her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous,” I snapped, stepping forward to get hold of her. I’d protect her tonight whether she liked it or not. Tory moved to intercept me and Caleb joined her too like a prime asshole. “You don’t fucking touch her again,” Tory growled. I narrowed my eyes at her, about to object, but as my gaze slid to Darcy over her shoulder and I saw the wall in her eyes that told me to get fucked, I knew I wasn’t going to win this fight. “Bastard,” Darcy hissed at me, looking woozy. Shit, I needed to heal her. And I could get her a blood replenishing potion back at the academy. “Come on, girls. The bus is gonna leave soon,” Caleb said, tugging Tory after him but she dug her heels in, waiting for Darcy. I opened my mouth to try and find the words that would convince Blue to stay with me, but she walked straight past me with her cheek turned and Tory threw me one more filthy look before they all headed down the street to the bus stop where mountains of students were gathering. Professors were among them and I knew they were safe enough in numbers, but my feet were still rooted to the pavement as I watched Darcy leave. You drank way too much. You have to get a grip. How are you going to keep feeding from her if you act like a monster every time your teeth are in her? I’d never had this problem before. The only thing I could compare it to was when my magic had been Awakened and my Order had Emerged. That first feed had made me feel like a ravenous beast with a bottomless stomach, and yet it still didn’t have a pinch on what it was like to feed from Blue. Caleb led Tory and Darcy past the queue straight onto the bus and my hackles rose as they joined Max and Seth on the back seats. And as Seth pulled Darcy close to him and nuzzled against her cheek, that feral animal in me awoke once more. I took out my Atlas and shot an update to Francesca, anxiously scoring my fingers through my hair. Just as the bus pulled away and rounded a corner, the FIB appeared on the street and I was immediately surrounded by three agents with dark frowns on their faces. “Lance Orion, you need to come down to the station and make a statement,” Captain Hoskins said and I sighed, knowing it was going to be a long ass night. I agreed and as I was stardusted away to the precinct, my heart was tugged in another direction, nearly forcing the stars to guide me elsewhere. But the captain ensured I made it to where he wanted to take me and I made a silent prayer to the stars that Darcy wouldn’t end up in Seth Capella’s bed tonight. Because I wasn’t sure I could control the demon in me who’d want his head for that. (ORION POV)

Her name was Jane,” I said, and Olivia stopped walking. “We were together for two years, married after a few months. I was happy, genuinely happy. Even though she was human, and I knew I’d outlive her, I just wanted to enjoy the time that we had together. “It all ended on a damp November morning in seventeen eighty-two. I’d been away working for Avalon for a few months and had been eager to get home. I found her inside the house we’d shared. She’d been butchered. Her blood decorated our bedroom. She was naked and appeared to have been dead for several days. My rage was…terrifying. I buried Jane with my own hands, placing her near a field that we used to love going to. And then I burnt the house to the ground.” Olivia’s shoulders sagged, but she didn’t turn and face me. “I hunted her killer for a year. I didn’t care who I hurt to get the information I needed. I was so single-minded, so determined to have vengeance. Eventually, I discovered that her murderer had been part of the king’s army, which had been going through the area. “The killer was an officer by the name of Henry. No idea what his last name was. It didn’t matter. He liked hurting women, and once he’d finished with them, he kept their hair as a souvenir. The rest of his squad had waited outside while he brutalized and murdered the woman I loved. No one had helped Jane, and no one had tried to stop him. “I discovered that they’d been on training maneuvers the day of the murder, just their squad of thirty. And after all my searching, I found them and I killed them. They died in one night of blood and rage. All but one. I left Henry until last. I took him away to a secluded place and had my fill of vengeance. It took a week for him to die, and when he finally succumbed, I buried Hellequin with him.” The memory of Henry’s blind and bloody form flashed in my mind—his pleas had long since silenced because I’d removed his tongue. I hadn’t wanted information from him; I’d just wanted to make him suffer. Before he’d lost his ability to talk, he’d told me that someone had paid him to do it, but he never said who. No matter what I did to him, he took that secret to his grave. And after a few years of searching, I decided he’d been lying. Trying to prolong his life for a short time more, hoping for mercy where there was none to give. “I no longer had the desire to go by that name,” I continued, still talking to Olivia’s back, “I no longer wanted to instill fear with a word. I hoped that the legend would die, but it didn’t, it grew, became more…fanciful. “You’re right, I’m a killer. I’ve killed thousands, and very few of them have ever stained my conscience. I can go to a dark place and do whatever I need to. But for those I care about, those I love, I will move fucking mountains to keep them safe. And I care about Tommy and Kasey, whether you grant permission or not.

You haven’t,” he repeated. “You’re stewin’ on it.” This was true too. If I had a dollar for every time his words in his voice popped into my head and made me flinch the last two days, I could move to the Riviera. They even woke me up in the middle of the night. Then again, I had insomnia and always did, even as a kid. I regularly thought of stuff in my life, stuff that embarrassed me or hurt me or worried me or freaked me out and I couldn’t get to sleep. Then, when I did, I’d wake up three, four times a night sometimes tossing and turning for hours before finding sleep again. This beautiful man saying those horrible words when talking about me was not only fresh, it was the worst of all my nightly demons by far and it would be in a way I knew would last the rest of my life.

January 2013 Andy’s Message   Hi Young, I’m home after two weeks in Tasmania. My rowing team was the runner-up at the Lindisfarne annual rowing competition. Since you were so forthright with your OBSS experiences, I’ll reciprocate with a tale of my own from the Philippines.☺               The Canadian GLBT rowing club had organised a fun excursion to Palawan Island back in 1977. This remote island was filled with an abundance of wildlife, forested mountains and beautiful pristine beaches.               It is rated by the National Geographic Traveller magazine as the best island destination in East and South-East Asia and ranked the thirteenth-best island in the world. In those days, this locale was vastly uninhabited, except by a handful of residents who were fishermen or local business owners.               We stayed in a series of huts, built above the ocean on stilts. These did not have shower or toilet facilities; lodgers had to wade through knee-deep waters or swim to shore to do their business. This place was a marvellous retreat for self-discovery and rejuvenation. I was glad I didn’t have to room with my travelling buddies and had a hut to myself.               I had a great time frolicking on the clear aquiline waters where virgin corals and unperturbed sea-life thrived without tourist intrusions. When we travelled into Lungsodng Puerto Princesa (City of Puerto Princesa) for food and a shower, the locals gawked at us - six Caucasian men and two women - as if we had descended from another planet. For a few pesos, a family-run eatery agreed to let us use their outdoor shower facility. A waist-high wooden wall, loosely constructed, separated the bather from a forest at the rear of the house. In the midst of my shower, I noticed a local adolescent peeping from behind a tree in the woods. I pretended not to notice as he watched me lathe and played with himself. I was turned on by this lascivious display of sexual gratification. The further I soaped, the more aroused I became. Through the gaps of the wooden planks, the boy caught glimpses of my erection – like a peep show in a sex shop, I titillated the teenager. His eyes were glued to my every move, so much so that he wasn’t aware that his friend had creeped up from behind. When he felt an extra hand on his throbbing hardness, he let out a yelp of astonishment. Before long, the boys were masturbating each other. They stroked one another without mortification, as if they had done this before, while watching my exhibitionistic performance carefully. This concupiscent carnality excited me tremendously. Unfortunately, my imminent release was punctured by a fellow member hollering for me to vacate the space for his turn, since I’d been showering for quite a while. I finished my performance with an anticlimactic final, leaving the boys to their own devices. But this was not the end of our chance encounter. There is more to ‘cum’ in my next correspondence!               Much love and kisses,               Andy

Are you so scared you were going to run?” She nodded, and he ran a finger along the line of her jaw. “Let’s try to get through this,” he said. “Even if it works, there’s no way I can ever repay you,” Paige said. He just shook his head. “I don’t want anything from you, Paige. Except that no one ever hits you again. Ever.” Paige just had to touch his face. She put her small palm against his cheek and whispered, “You are such an angel.” “Naw. I’m just an average guy.” He laughed a little. “A below-average guy.” She shook her head and a tear escaped and rolled down her cheek. Preacher carefully wiped it away. “It doesn’t make any sense to me,” he said. “If a man has a family like this—you and Christopher and a new baby coming—why? It seems like he’d do anything in the world to keep you safe, not hurt you. I wish...” He shook his head sadly. “What do you wish, John?” “You deserve to have a man who loves you and never lets you forget it. Someone who wants to raise Christopher into a solid and strong man, a good man who respects women.” He put his hand against her hair, grabbing a silky fistful. “If I had a woman like you, I’d be so careful,” he said in a whisper. She looked into his tender eyes and smiled, but it was tinged with fear and sadness. “Come here, let me hold you,” he said, pulling her to him. She slipped onto his lap, pulled up her legs and curled against him, her head on his shoulder, his arm around her back. She nestled like a little kitten against his broad chest. Preacher leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes, his arms around her, holding her against him. All I have to offer is this, he thought. Help. Safety. We’ll get this bastard out of her life, she’ll grow strong and confident again. And then she’ll go. Somewhere down the line there will be a man—one who treats her right. But until then, sometimes she might need someone to hold her for a little while. And if it gets to be me, those few times, I’ll make the most of it. He sat like that until the small clock on the wall said that it was midnight. Paige had not moved in hours; she slept in his arms. He could stay there until dawn, just feeling her small body against his. With a deep sigh, he kissed the top of her head. Then he stood, carefully lifting her in his arms. She roused briefly, looking up at his face. “Shh,” he said. “Let’s get you to bed. We have a big day tomorrow.” He carried her up the back stairs and into his old room. Preacher lowered her to the bed, next to her son, and brushed the hair away from her brow. “Thank you, John,” she whispered. “You don’t have to thank me,” he said. “I’m doing what I want to do.” *

Paige, the way you just stood up and left like that, I was awful proud of you. Really, you’re stronger than you let on.” She sighed. “I should’ve stood up and left sooner. I was real close.” “Me, too,” he said. “I think maybe we tried too hard with Bud. Both of us. He always act like that?” “When he’s not real quiet and sulky.” “He get along with Wes okay?” Preacher asked. “Bud thinks Wes is awesome. Because he thinks Wes is rich. Wes thinks Bud’s an idiot.” “Hmm.” Preacher contemplated. He didn’t let go of her hand. “You think Bud really believes it would be all right to get your head bashed in a few times a year for six thousand square feet and a pool?” “I believe he does,” she said. “I really believe he does.” “Hmm. Think he’d like to move into my big house—test that theory?” She laughed. “Do you have a big house somewhere, John?” “Not at the moment.” He shrugged. “But for Bud, I’d be willing to look around.” *

You gonna wake up?” She lazily opened her eyes and jolted awake, scooting up on her elbows. “What? What?” “Easy. It’s okay. Sort of.” She blinked a few times and then her eyes were wide. “Where am I?” “I brought you inside. I had to. You were on your way to freezing to death. You must not have a brain in your head.” She squinted at him, pursing her lips. “Oh—I have a brain. I’m just not real experienced in mountain life.” She struggled to sit up. “Gee, if I’d known you got your eyebrow back and grew your beard in red, I might’ve found you sooner. I’ll get out of your hair, which I notice, you have plenty of.” “You’re not going anywhere,” he said, putting a big hand against her sternum, holding her down. “You’re stuck—and so am I.” “No problem,” she said. “I sleep in the car every night. I have a good sleeping bag…” “Did you hear me? You were passed out on your way back from the john, covered with snow and damn near frozen to death. You wanted to see me, you’re going to get your wish.” Her eyes widened suddenly. “I’m…ah…naked under here?” “You’re not naked. You have underwear. I had to get your wet clothes off you. That or just let you die. It wasn’t an easy decision,” he lied. “You undressed me and wrapped me in this quilt?” she asked. “Pretty much,” he said. And felt your small, soft body against mine for an hour, the first female body that’s been against mine in five years. Until tonight, he hadn’t thought he missed that feeling. “What happened out there? How’d you end up in the doorway of the john like that?” “I don’t have the first idea. I was so glad there was an outhouse for once and I wouldn’t have to squat behind a bush. I was going to make it quick, but I was so tired I could hardly move, and that’s the last thing I remember till I woke up.” She coughed. “I didn’t think I was so tired I’d fall asleep on the way.” “You didn’t fall asleep,” he said. “You lost consciousness. Hypothermia. Like I said—half frozen.” “Hmm.

When did you know?” Brie asked her. “When did you know for sure he was absolutely perfect for you?” “Not right away,” she admitted. “I wanted no part of a man who claimed he could take care of me, for obvious reasons. But John moves real slow.” She laughed. “Real slow. It was all in the way his frown would slowly go away when he looked at me, the way his voice would get all tender and soft when he talked to me. His caution, his shyness. It takes a lot for a man like John to make a move. He has to be sure of everything. By the time he got around to telling me he loved me, I thought I’d die waiting for him. But he’s a careful man—and he doesn’t change his mind.” “How’d he do it?” Brie wanted to know. “Propose.” “Hmm.” She thought. “Well, we’ve talked about this for a while—about making a commitment when things got under control. He told me at Christmastime he wanted to be with me forever, add to the family, and I wanted that, too. But when you come down to the exact, official proposal, he was peeling potatoes. He stopped what he was doing and looked across the kitchen at me. My hair was stringy, I was sweating from the heat of the stove and doing dishes, and he said, ‘Whenever you’re ready, I want to marry you. I’m dying to marry you,’ he said.” “Well,” Brie said, unimpressed. “That must have knocked you right off your feet.” “Yeah, it did,” she said in a sigh. “John’s the only person I’ve ever known who could look at me in my worst physical and emotional state and think I’m perfect.” Mel

Max stood there for a while. The man finished his meal and said, “Where are you headed, young man?” “I don’t know.” “Aha! There is your problem. You'll never get there if you don’t know where you are going. On that note, I say good day to you, Max.” Max watched as the old man left. His anger had propelled him up the mountain, yet he did not know where he was going. Max hadn’t even changed clothes. He still wore the new suit and dress shoes he had worn to meet the auditor. “Huh… I found a Zen master in a hole-ridden plaid,” Max told himself. Max looked out of the door and saw the flock of sheep come up over the horizon. His heart beat faster as he expected Isobel to be with them. Instead, Ken the Watcher guarded the sheep. “Don’t stay too long, or the earl will charge you rent, young man,” Ken said with a laugh to Max. “I’d never get rich that way,” Max said to himself. He then went out from where the sheep had come, his feet moving him towards the White Mountain of Cairnbahan.

Would you like to see my vacuum?” he asked, and she eyed him as Theo gave an amused snort. “Is your vacuum interesting?” Since this was Wes, Kit had a feeling he could make even boring household appliances fascinating. “Yes. It’s automated, but it doesn’t just bump around blindly like the commercial versions. This one can actually make decisions regarding suction and direction.” “Then yes.” She moved to stand next to Wes, and he gave her a pleased smile. “I’d love to see your vacuum.” When Theo gave a choked laugh as they started to walk away, Kit raised an eyebrow at him over her shoulder. Although she kept her expression innocent, she knew perfectly well why he was smirking like a twelve-year-old.

And then you ended up in Chechnya, I understand" Sergei continued. "And what, exactly, did you do there?" Jack inquired. "Exactly? We would surround the villages, call out the village elders and give them our ultimatum: if you don't give up your arms, we'll raze your village to the ground. At night, all men, including boys, would go away in to the mountains on the request of the village elders. By the time we rolled in, there were no more weapons or rebels. Only the elderly, women and children. And nobody could leave." "Why not?" "Because we blocked off the main road, that's why," Fedor said as if he was losing patience with Jack. "On approaching any house, I'd fire inside. If anyone jumped out, woman or child, I mowed them down. The guys behind me would torch the bodies with the flamethrowers to get rid of the evidence. We moved through the village, house by house, firing, throwing grenades into the basements, burning. At one train station we hung ten high school kids, and then six more students that were hiding inside a school. On the outskirts we found about a hundred and thirty people, women, children, old men, anyone who didn't run away. We locked them in a grain elevator, chained the door and then torched it. What we left behind were not ruins, just flat ground." "Are you saying that the Russian soldiers killed everyone in some village and nobody has heard of it?" Jack asked him incredulously. It was inconceivable that such a barbaric event could take place in today's world without CNN and BBC dissecting it under a microscope. "Not everyone was killed. Some of the villagers, the ones who survived, were transported to a filtration camp." "What's a filtration camp?" "You really don't' know anything, do you? Or are you pretending?" "Try me," Jack said. "There is this filtration camp in Osinovka. Each room houses twenty to twenty five prisoners, who sleep on the concrete floor. The guards line them up against the wall and practice karate kicks in the head or in the groin. One of our guys liked to put electricity to the bodies, to see them fry. It takes a long time to get used to that smell. If a prisoner tried to untie their hands, the sergeant would cut them off at the wrists. If a prisoner tried to take off the black blindfold, the sergeant would put out his eyes with his thumbs. He was a piece of work from Archangelsk, our sergeant. During one helicopter ride, he dropped three prisoners because he was bored." "But how is it possible that the world news did not report any of this?" Jack persisted in knowing. Fedor raised his eyebrows in a manner that made Jack feel foolish for asking such a question. "Simple. For the next forty-eight hours we didn't allow anyone to enter Samashki, not even the Red Cross. That gave us plenty of time. Our armored vehicles flattened their bones so that the relatives could not identify them later. Exactly what news are you talking about? Are you from this world or not?" Fedor's wolf-like stare made Jack very nervous.

Valkyrie wheezed, and sat up. “It tried to eat my head.” “Yes, I saw that.” “It literally had my head in its mouth.” “What was that like?” “Smelly. Wet. Horrible. Exactly what you’d expect if a Yeti tried to eat your head. My freak mask saved me.” He helped her to her feet. “You handled yourself admirably.” “You think so?” “Your constant screaming definitely made it hesitate.” “Yeah, it’s a new tactic I’m trying out. Pants-wetting fear. Do you think its mate heard me?” “I wouldn’t say so. The wind carried your screaming in the opposite direction. But we should probably get moving before it comes back. I’d imagine it would be quite irate.” “If you threw me off a mountain, I’d be irate, too.

Realistically speaking, every teenaged girl spends a lot of time convinced that something is deeply, profoundly wrong with her, and I was no exception. All the world hates a girl, in special and vicious ways that goes way beyond even the mountain of shit we shovel onto young dudes. They get toxic masculinity and we get “you throw like a girl” and “scream like a girl” and “you’re such a pretty girl.” Mansplaining and creepers on BART and whistling out of car windows. I internalized the full measure of girl-hating, hating the sound of my recorded voice, the sight of my photographed face, my own body in the mirror. I hated my handwriting, the loopy letters I’d taught myself to draw when we first moved to America and I’d had to unlearn Russian and figure out the strange English glyphs all the perfect girls could write perfectly. I hated my hair and the way I walked. I hated my tits and I hated my bras. I hated my mother and I hated all the girls in the world, more than anything. Even more than boys. I don’t believe I was special in this regard. There’s a lot of self-hating girls out there in the world. We’re the secret, seething, silent majority. Some starve. Some cut. Some try to screw their way to happiness. Me, I idolized strong, powerful women who seemed to have risen above it all. Never mind that they were drunks or sadists or war criminals. They were leaning in, doin’ it for themselves, and that was what counted. Compared to being trapped in girlhood, alcoholism and war crimes were small potatoes. (less)

I’d move mountains, shake the very fabric of the universe to get to you.

You can’t fill an empty bottle with it, you can’t wrap it up or put a bow on it, and you certainly can’t measure it. It has no weight, yet it can be as heavy as a mountain. It’s invisible, yet it can be as plain as the nose on your face. You won’t see it coming, yet it can hit you like a ton of bricks. It can knock you out. It can tickle you and make you laugh. It can move you to madness, and it can launch a thousand ships. It provokes you to do the craziest things. It can calm you, agitate you, motivate you, hurt you, and inspire you. No one knows where it comes from, why it is, or where it is going. You can’t force it, and you can’t ignore it. You can fight it tooth and nail, but odds are that it will be victorious. Sometimes it’s logical, and sometimes it makes no sense at all. I think we all experience it at one time or another. Some of us are much more susceptible to it than others. It makes us yearn, envy, hope, scheme, pity, and hate. Wise men and women will cherish it, and fools will take it for granted. Me? I don’t know if I’m a wise man or a fool—sometimes I’m one, and sometimes I’m the other. Sometimes I wish I’d never heard of it, and sometimes I believe I can’t live without it. Love,