Indie Girl Quotes

Then I said, “Matt’s got a big mouth.” “They all got big mouths, girl, learn that quick. These boys talk more than a pack of women. I lost fifty bucks on you.” I was stunned speechless again, this time it didn’t last as long. “What?” “See, Lee nailed Indy the first night they were together. Not nailed her nailed her but she was in his bed. Eddie, with Jet, it took a few days. Hank and Roxie, like, a day. Vance, like three, but Jules was a virgin and he had to interrupt the festivities once to go out and shoot someone.” I was blinking rapidly and feeling kind of faint at the amount and sensitivity of information Shirleen was imparting, not to mention what it might mean to me. “So we had a pool. Everyone threw down money on when they thought Luke would nail you. Mace won five hundred dollars.” Ho-ly crap. “So,” she went on. “Did he nail you nail you or did you two just sleep?” For some reason, I answered her unbelievably nosy question. “We just slept.” “New pool!” she shouted.

I didn't come looking for you the day you uninvitedly appeared on my doorstep How did we go from nonchalant conversation me waiting for you to turn me off with corny jokes and mind dumbing conversation to love To love and mind blowing chemistry that I've yet to make sense of What are you here to teach me?

Just a little pointer, Indy, girl to girl, if you want that week with Lee to last into two. He likes it when you go down on him in the morning. He’s a fucking animal in bed but give him a morning BJ, he’ll return the favor and rock your world.” Every muscle in my body froze solid. “What did she just say?” Stevie asked. “She did not just say that in front of me,” Kitty Sue said. “Holy crap,” Dolores said. “Oh… my… gawd,” Tod said. “You fucking bitch,” Ally said. “This is more like it,” Tex said.

But more than anything, as a little girl, I wanted to be exactly like Miss Piggy. She was ma heroine. I was a plucky little girl, but I never related to the rough-and-tumble icons of children's lit, like Pippi Longstocking or Harriet the Spy. Even Ramona Quimby, who seemed cool, wasn't somebody I could super-relate to. She was scrawny and scrappy and I was soft and sarcastic. I connected instead to Miss - never 'Ms.' - Piggy; the comedienne extraordinaire who'd alternate eye bats with karate chops, swoon over girly stuff like chocolate, perfume, feather boas or random words pronounced in French, then, on a dmie, lower her voice to 'Don't fuck with me, fellas' decibel when slighted. She was hugely feminine, boldly ambitious, and hilariously violent when she didn't get way, whether it was in work, love, or life. And even though she was a pig puppet voiced by a man with a hand up her ass, she was the fiercest feminist I'd ever seen.

Pam (from The Office) is not intimidating, like one of those women who wears makeup and tailored clothes, and has a good job that she enjoys, and confidence, and an adult woman's sexuality. There's nothing scary about Pam, because there's no mystery; she's just like the boys who like her; mousy and shy. The ultimate emo-boy fantasy is to meet a nerdy, cute girl just like him, and nobody else will realize she's pretty. And she'll melt when she sees his record collection because it's just like hers....and she'll never want to go out to a party for which he'll be forced to comb his hair, or buy grown-up shoes or tie a tie, or demonstrate a hearty handshake, or make eye contact, or relate to people who work in different fields, or to basically act like a man.

We knew each other to our fingertips. No, that's not right. We only knew each other in our fingertips, and that was nothing at all, and for a while that was okay. We could have been a love story, a fairy tale, an indie film about high school and selective insanity featuring a boy of angel parts and a girl made of dreaming. We could have been all the best things: bracelets sliding down arms while shots slid down throats, laughter and crashing music in dark and flashing rooms, kisses that started hesitant but didn't stay that way.

The bird and his girl collide in the distance, Indy falling to her knees with an unrepentant cry.

Quinn spoke their language—all mystery and inside jokes, scarred souls and statement shirts. It was a beautiful moment for him—in his element and completely happy. When they started playing, he leaned over and whispered in my ear. “See that guitar?” I nodded. “That’s a 1969 Martin D28. Hear me when I say if I had to choose between a beautiful girl and that guitar, I’d choose the guitar. Natch.” He took a huge gulp of water, clearly affected. “Naturally,” I whispered. “It could be why you’re still single.

Girl’s Night Out still on for tonight?” Kitty Sue asked me. “Yep,” I said. “I’ll take some of that action,” Tex said. We all looked at him. “It’s Girl’s Night Out, Tex,” I explained. “So? What? Are there rules?” Tex asked. “Yes. The rule is, it’s a night out, for girls,” I answered. “Woman, you think I’m missin’ another bar fight or quick draw, you’re crazy. I’m comin’ out with you tonight.

The trick to realize that the boys who talk so much about being rejected that it seems like the’re proud of it aren’t necessarily sweeter or more sensitive than the Bababooey-spouting frat bullies who line up at clubs like SkyBar to run game on girls they want to date rape. There are plenty of nerds who fear women and aren’t sensitive, despite their marketing; they just dislike women in a new, exciting way. Timid racists aren’t sensitive because they lock their car doors when they see a black person on the street. They’re just too scared to get out of the car and shout the “N” word. Fear can be the result of admiration, or it can be a symptom of contempt. When I see squeamish guys passing over qualified women when they’re hiring for a job, or becoming tongue tied when a girl crashes their all-boy conversation at a party, I don’t give them credit for being awestruck. They’re reacting to the intimidating female as an intruder, an alien, and somebody they can’t relate to. It’s not a compliment to be made invisible.

Popularity is like a girl in class that you can't ignore. She give you eyes when no one looks then turns to her friends and laughs some more.

Can I stay here?” She sucks in a deep inhale. “Only for the night? Until my parents are back?” “Of course.” My head darts to my shirtless brother in the kitchen. “Ryan, Indy is going to stay with us for the night.” Indy’s eyes follow mine, finding my brother. She quickly cleans up her face. “Who are you?”  “Um...I’m Ryan.” He offers her an awkward wave. This has got to be uncomfortable for him, having a random crying girl in his living room, not to mention he’s shirtless right now. “Why? Who?” Indy turns towards me then back to my brother. “Why are you hot?” That causes a relieved laugh to escape me, but my brother awkwardly chokes on his saliva in response.  “Indy, this is my twin brother, Ryan. Ryan, Indy.”  “Jesus,” she huffs out. “What kind of voodoo did your parents do while you two were in the womb for you to both be so attractive?

[H]e asked Renee, “What does rock and roll have today that it didn’t have in the sixties?” Renee said, “Tits,” which in retrospect strikes me as not a bad one-word off-the-dome answer at all. The nineties fad for indie rock overlapped precisely with the nineties fad for feminism. The idea of a pop culture that was pro-girl, or even just not anti-girl -- that was a 1990s mainstream dream, rather than a 1980s or 2000s one, and it was real for a while. Music was not just part of it but leading the way -- hard to believe, hard even to remember. But some of us do.

Was it really so bad that a working-class guy who couldn't afford to play five-dollar shows for the rest of his life had signed to a major label? Was it really so bad that his band wanted to reach an audience that didn't have access to labels like K or Dischord? The indie-vs.-major labels thing started to seem like a silly hill to die on.

I felt like no one was really looking out for me, that I was marginal and incidental. I compensated by being spongelike, impressionable, and available to whatever and whoever provided the most comfort, the most sense of belonging. I was learning two sets of skills simultaneously: adaptation - linguistic and aesthetic - in order to fit in, but also, how to survive on my own.

Religious citizens remembered him as the promising theologian who spoke and wrote endlessly about Christianity and yet who did not become a pastor and now never even went to church. Romantic citizens vaguely suspected this stillborn church career was somehow connected to the scandal of his broken engagement years before. “Such a sweet young girl,” they would whisper to each other, “and taken off by her new husband to the West Indies! It’s almost like they were escaping something, or someone.

Okay, let me get this straight.” Annette stood in the doorway staring at us. “First, you al meet Roxie, now that’s after Indy got kidnapped a couple times, shot at and car bombs were exploding. And after Jet got shot at, kidnapped a couple of times and almost raped. Then came Roxie and I was around when Roxie was assaulted at a haunted house and held hostage at a society party after, of course, she got kidnapped. I leave and new girl Jules starts a vigilante war against drug dealers and ends up in ICU with two bul et holes in her. Then new, new girl Ava survives a drive-by, gets kidnapped repeatedly and ends up on a wild ride, exiting a wrecked car right before it explodes. Now all of you are getting shot at… at the same time?

Indie Rokkers" i like the line between your belly and your thighs the smell of your hair the sparkle in your eyes the smoke in your breath the breathing hard and heavy the back of your neck the shine on your Chevy the moon was so big when i drove it to the levy, girl i found blood and i saw stars all in the backseat of your car and i told you it was love but you don't wanna know the truth i was young and in my prime with my heart still filled with fear and it goes on bleedin' the clean dreams, the sexy limousine Jason's (?) got the energy he used to be a coke fien the skinny brown arms coming round in your shirt heart is in the right place brain is in the dirt you live life like everyone's an enemy i found blood and i saw stars all in the backseat of your car and i told you it was love but you don't wanna know the truth i was young and in my prime with my heart still filled with fear and it goes on bleedin

Ever since the 1960s, upon the urging of Dr. T. Berry Brazelton and the all-knowing Dr. Spock,* mothers have been encouraged to read to their children at a very early age. For toddlers and preschoolers who relish this early diet of literacy, libraries become a second home, story hour is never long enough, and parents can’t finish a book without hearing a little voice beg, “Again… again.” For most literary geek girls, it’s at this age that they discover their passion for reading. Whether it’s Harold and the Purple Crayon or Strega Nona, books provide the budding literary she-geek with a glimpse into an all-new world of magic and make-believe—and once she visits, she immediately wants to apply for full-time citizenship. “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” —author Joan Didion, in The White Album While some children spend their summers sweating on community sports teams or learning Indigo Girls songs at sleep-away camp, our beloved bookworms are more interested in joining their local library’s summer reading program, completing twenty-five books during vacation, and earning a certificate of recognition signed by their city’s mayor. (Plus, that Sony Bloggie Touch the library is giving away to the person who logs the most hours reading isn’t the worst incentive, either. It’ll come in handy for that book review YouTube channel she’s been thinking about starting!) When school starts back up again, her friends will inevitably show off their tan lines and pony bead friendship bracelets, and our geek girl will politely oblige by oohing and aahing accordingly. But secretly she’s bursting with pride over her summer’s battle scars—the numerous paper cuts she got while feverishly turning the pages of all seven Harry Potter books.

—a slave was owned by a Continental Army soldier who'd been killed in the French and Indian War. The slave looked after the soldier's widow. He did everything, from dawn to dark didn't stop doing what needed to be done. He chopped and hauled the wood, gathered the crops, excavated and built a cabbage house and stowed the cabbages there, stored the pumpkins, buried the apples, turnips, and potatoes in the ground for winter, stacked the rye and wheat in the barn, slaughtered the pig, salted the pork, slaughtered the cow and corned the beef, until one day the widow married him and they had three sons. And those sons married Gouldtown girls whose families reached back to the settlement's origins in the 1600s, families that by the Revolution were all intermarried and thickly intermingled. One or another or all of them, she said, were descendants of the Indian from the large Lenape settlement at Indian Fields who married a Swede—locally Swedes and Finns had superseded the original Dutch settlers—and who had five children with her; one or another or all were descendants of the two mulatto brothers brought from the West Indies on a trading ship that sailed up the river from Greenwich to Bridgeton, where they were indentured to the landowners who had paid their passage and who themselves later paid the passage of two Dutch sisters to come from Holland to become their wives; one or another or all were descendants of the granddaughter of John Fenwick, an English baronet's son, a cavalry officer in Cromwell's Commonwealth army and a member of the Society of Friends who died in New Jersey not that many years after New Cesarea (the province lying between the Hudson and the Delaware that was deeded by the brother of the king of England to two English proprietors) became New Jersey.

After all,” she said, her eyes meeting his, “it’s not as though you lack sufficient charm to woo ladies. And you’re certainly handsome enough, in your own way.” She bent her head again. “Oh, stop looking s smug. I’m not flattering you, I’m merely stating facts. Privateering was not your only profitable course of action. You might have married, if you’d wished to.” “Ah, but there’s the snag, you see. I didn’t wish to.” She picked up a brush and tapped it against her palette. “No, you didn’t. You wished to be at sea. You wished to go adventuring, to seize sixty ships in the name of the Crown and pursue countless women on four continents. That’s why you sold your land, Mr. Grayson. Because it’s what you wanted to do. The profit was incidental.” Gray tugged at the cuff of his coat sleeve. It unnerved him, how easily she stared down these truths he’d avoided looking in the eye for years. So now he was worse than a thief. He was a selfish, lying thief. And still she sat with him, flirted with him, called him “charming” and “handsome enough.” How much darkness did the girl need to uncover before she finally turned away? “And what about you, Miss Turner?” He leaned forward in his chair. “Why are you here, bound for the West Indies to work as a governess? You, too, might have married. You come from quality; so much is clear. And even if you’d no dowry, sweetheart…” He waited for her to look up. “Yours is the kind of beauty that brings men to their knees.” She gave a dismissive wave of her paintbrush. Still, her cheeks darkened, and she dabbed her brow with the back of her wrist. “Now, don’t act missish. I’m not flattering you, I’m merely stating facts.” He leaned back in his chair. “So why haven’t you married?” “I explained to you yesterday why marriage was no longer an option for me. I was compromised.” Gray folded his hands on his chest. “Ah, yes. The French painting master. What was his name? Germaine?” “Gervais.” She sighed dramatically. “Ah, but the pleasure he showed me was worth any cost. I’d never felt so alive as I did in his arms. Every moment we shared was a minute stolen from paradise.” Gray huffed and kicked the table leg. The girl was trying to make him jealous. And damn, if it wasn’t working. Why should some oily schoolgirl’s tutor enjoy the pleasures Gray was denied? He hadn’t aided the war effort just so England’s most beautiful miss could lift her skirts for a bloody Frenchman. She began mixing pigment with oil on her palette. “Once, he pulled me into the larder, and we had a feverish tryst among the bins of potatoes and turnips. He held me up against the shelves and we-“ “May I read my book now?” Lord, he couldn’t take much more of this. She smiled and reached for another brush. “If you wish.” Gray opened his book and stared at it, unable to muster the concentration to read. Every so often, he turned a page. Vivid, erotic images filled his mind, but all the blood drained to his groin.

Tolkienist (n.) Someone who studies the works of J. R. R. Tolkien.

and unlike every other indie label, they didn’t already have a black female artist in their stable—it was like some kind of quota with these labels and they all claimed they could only have one, like they were all Highlander and shit.

Indie girl, you’re worth more than someone’s opinion, but for what it’s worth, I struggle to notice anything else when you’re in the room. All I see is you.

Who are you?”  “Um...I’m Ryan.” He offers her an awkward wave. This has got to be uncomfortable for him, having a random crying girl in his living room, not to mention he’s shirtless right now. “Why? Who?” Indy turns towards me then back to my brother. “Why are you hot?

If you promise to be a good girl, I’ll give you back your hands.

Never would have thought I’d be planning a shower for the girl who finally got the team’s resident bachelor to settle down.

You couldn’t get married in the country, on a farm, without paying homage to your roots. I might live in the city now, but would always be a country girl at heart.

That’s my girl,” Jenner rasped. Fuck, that was almost enough to throw me over.

The little boy snuggled closer into my chest, patting the cleavage visible from the neckline of my top. “Soft VeeVee.” Jenner’s amused voice said from behind us, “Watch it, buddy. Those are mine.” Ollie reared back to glare at my husband over my shoulder. “No! My VeeVee!” Peeking behind me, I saw Asher nudge Jenner with his shoulder. “Better watch out, man. I think you’ve got some real competition there. The kid’s a charmer, and it looks like he’s gunning for your girl.” “Can’t say I blame him. She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on.

Aren’t you forgetting something?” His handsome face took on a confused expression. “Am I?” “Pretty sure this is the part where you ask for my phone number.” Jenner dragged a hand down his face. “Right. Sorry. A pretty girl says she’s coming to my game, and my brain shuts down.

Swallow every fucking drop, baby, like the dirty girl you are.

I’d almost forgotten what a feisty girl you are.” “Let me come, Jenner,” I begged. “Don’t worry, sweetheart,” he crooned. “You’re going to come plenty.” “You’re talkin’ an awful big game for someone who has failed to take action,” I shot back, breathless. “You want action?” Jenner practically snarled. “Maybe too many years out of practice, and you’ve forgotten how to please a woman.” I let a little sass leak into my tone. “You’re going to pay for that.” “And yet, you’re still talkin’.

You need to find someone for you, Indi. He has a girl and that’s way too much baggage. You are too cute to be a side bitch,

When Aeden told us his band was one of the opening acts for Palaye Royale, an up-and-coming fashion-art rock band out of Las Vegas, and asked if we wanted to “come oot and get ratarsed” I thought Poppy would beg off. Poppy might be cool, but I taxed my vivid imagination trying to envision Miss President of the Swifties getting ratarsed—drunk—at an indie rock concert.

While most of the town were settling down to their dinners that evening, Hannah, a raven-haired servant girl, hurried across the marketplace and up the path to the ordinary, where she knocked on the door. Candlelight gleamed through the cracks in the closed shutter after a second knock; the door opened and she slipped inside. Tears started down her cheeks as soon as she tried to speak. “What is it?” said the widow Jennison, keeper of the establish¬ment. “What on earth is wrong?” “Tobias is in trouble.” Hannah sat at one of the trestle tables. Sniffing back her tears, she told the story of her lover’s misadventure. They’d been planning for several months to break away from their servitude and look for a better situation in the West Indies. He’d taken to theft to raise money for the trip, but his master, the tallow chandler Aaron Tuck, discovered his transgressions, and Tobias went into hiding. “There’s men a-lookin’ for him now,” Hannah said as tears came to her eyes again. “We can’t stay here another week. People are sayin’ dreadful things about us that just ain’t true.” “Where is Tobias now?” Nancy asked. “On the neck somewheres. I’m supposed to meet him at midnight.” The widow touched her friend’s hand. She herself had been in trouble years before, so she understood the errors to which the girl’s turbulent feelings were likely to bring her. “Yes, life must seem a prison to you. I can see why you want to leave.” “We’ve gut to leave!” Hannah said. “Just tonight they arrested Marthy Hubbard. Mr. Ridley may want to use us for an example, too.” Nancy went to the cupboard for a pitcher of cider. “I don’t like what’s happened to Martha either. I’ll help you, but you’ll have to promise to be patient and not make things worse.” “What do you mean?” Hannah looked around the dusky room with a frightened glance. Experience had taught her that her elders often resorted to compromise when they meant to help. “I’m going to talk with Governor Willoughby. Now don’t fret, child. He’ll be more sympathetic than you think. Besides, you don’t have any choice but to wait unless you want to live in the woods. There won’t be a ship headed south till next month.” Hannah frowned and took a quick swallow of cider. The two friends talked for a while longer by the light of an iron betty lamp, then Hannah went outside to look for Tobias. But all her hopes went for naught. The constable’s men found him just before midnight on the slender strip of marsh and pasture that connected the Botolph peninsula to the mainland. Now happy that they would get to bed at a decent hour, the men in the search party brought Tobias to the guard-house on the edge of town, where he sat till dawn on a slat bench, dozing or clutching his head in his hands.

I remember the summer of 1996, at a drunken wedding with one of my professors, a Hendrix-freak baby boomer, when he was complaining about the 'bullet-in-the-head rock and roll' the kids were listening to today, and he asked Renée, 'What does rock and roll have today that it didn't have in the sixties?' Renée said, ‘Tits’, which in retrospect strikes me as not a bad one-word off-the-dome answer at all. The nineties fad for indie rock overlapped precisely with the nineties fad for feminism. The idea of a pop culture that was pro-girl, or even just not anti-girl - that was a 1990s mainstream dream, rather than a 1980s or 2000s one, and it was real for a while. Music was not just part of it but leading the way - hard to believe, hard even to remember. But some of us do.

Gio, what have I told you about sleeping in here with Amelia?” “You only said I couldn’t hold her while she sleeps all night, not that I couldn’t watch her sleep.” “Honey, she’s not going to disappear. You don’t have to stand guard over her every night.” “But what if she does? What if something happens to her? I can’t live with losing her, Everly. I need to make sure our girl is safe.

And more than once, I’d caught myself in a sticky situation with a girl. I guess old habits die hard.

So, why, all of a sudden, was he flirting with my girl? Sleeping with her once doesn’t make her your girl, dipshit. By that logic, you’ve got a massive harem waiting for you.

Our fingers brushed as I transferred the phone into her grasp, and I felt the connection travel up my arm, settling over my heart. I knew then that I couldn’t walk away from this girl if I tried. There was something deeper to be discovered between us, and I was curious to find out what that was.

Look, I’ve watched the woman I love walk away because I couldn’t bear the thought of her hurting a moment longer. If I had the chance to do it all over again? There’s no question that I would have done anything to make her stay. Pain is a part of life; you can’t protect her from that. It’s out of your control. If you let her go, there will always be a gnawing ache inside your soul, knowing you should have fought harder. Learn from my mistakes. Go get your girl.

Great, so I’m not just messing around with one girl but four?” Braxton snorted. “Try seven. You’re forgetting about Benji’s partner and Natalie’s sisters-in-law. Good luck to you, man, because you’re gonna need it.

This girl made me feel alive, like I wasn’t some broken toy no one wanted to play with anymore, cast off to the side.

Yeah, this girl’s daddy had taught her how to shoot whiskey; it was more than needed tonight.

But I’d come here to do a job and not the kind that required a girl to get down on her knees. I needed another whiskey.

What kind of fucking loser would cheat on a girl like her?

If I didn’t know any better, I could have sworn I was in the middle of one of Dakota’s books, falling for a girl I didn’t know. Whatever it was, it felt like my entire world had shifted, and she became the center of it all.

Repeat after me: I will not fuck this girl in the bathroom. She’s not a bunny. She deserves better. Make this one count because you don’t know when your next chance will be.

You didn’t bring up past fucks—or almost fucks—with a girl whose pants you were currently trying to get into. It was a terrible idea, the worst. Chicks had a habit of comparing themselves to others and always found themselves lacking. It made zero sense as women were like a beautiful bouquet of flowers. Their differences made them unique. I’d sampled my fair share, and I could honestly say I liked them all. Although, none of them had me craving another hit quite like the one standing before me.

Now, why don’t you be a good girl and climb onto my face.

Stepping into view, I threw my arms wide as I spun in a circle, showcasing my new look. “What do you think?” “Honestly? I like you better like this.” When I rolled my eyes, he doubled down. “Seriously. Because right now; when I look at you drowning in my clothes, I see a girl who belongs in my home. My girl.

I’ve never been more thankful I only have boys. With a girl, you gotta worry about all the horned-up idiots out there who wanna get in their pants and lose all sense of reason.” “Yeah, but with boys, you gotta worry about them knocking up the preacher’s daughter at sixteen.” Cal showed Benji no mercy. Benji scoffed, rolling his eyes. “That happened one time.” Cal chuckled. “That’s one time too many.” “Fuck off,” Benji grumbled.

Damn, look at you all grown up. Turning down guaranteed sex? That’s not the Maddox I know.” “You know how it is. Sometimes, the right girl can knock you right on your ass.

I wanna be choked and pounded into the mattress while you spank my ass raw as you call me your good little girl.

Um—I don’t—We’re not—” “Oh. I see. Still in the denial stage. We’ve all been there, haven’t we girls?” She peeked at Natalie and Dakota, and they both nodded in agreement. “You don’t understand,” I tried. “We can’t.” She scoffed. “Girl, I took the book on ‘we can’t’ and threw it right out the window. If I’d followed the rules, I would be a sad, single, thirty-four-year-old woman having an endless stream of lousy, meaningless sex. Breaking the rules set me free. Highly recommend.

You know just what I like to hear, don’t you, love? You’d do almost anything to be my ‘good little girl.’ Isn’t that right?

Look at my girl standing her ground, taking no prisoners.” My girl. Two simple words had my pulse accelerating.

And since when have you been reading romance novels?” His brown eyes sparkled mischievously. “What can I say? The girl can write some good porn.

Maybe I’d made a mistake somewhere. Men thought they could take advantage of me because I liked sex. Was that really so terrible? Did that make me less valuable than any other girl?

I was beginning to think one night wouldn’t be enough to do all the things I wanted to do to this girl.

She was going to choke the life out of my dick; there was no question about it. But if this was what killed me—fucking a much-too-young girl who wasn’t afraid to color outside the lines when it came to sex—then I would die a happy man.

So much for making an impression on a “first” date. I looked like a little girl playing dress-up in her dad’s clothing.

You can take the girl out of Hartford, but you can’t take the Comets fan out of the girl.

Yes, I knew it looked bad that I was still a bachelor at thirty-five, and that I’d never had a serious relationship to this point in my life. But maybe I was just waiting for the right girl to blow into my life like a hurricane and knock me onto my ass. There was no doubt in my mind that girl was Bristol.

This was where I was going to lose her; I knew that. That girl was all about the romance. And she didn’t just live it; she wrote it.

I only mentioned it because I thought about how many times I’ve passed over this exact spot multiple times a year for the past decade and a half, never knowing the girl who would light up my world was right here.

You can clean up pretty nicely yourself, Coach.” A growl rumbled from his chest. “Don’t tease me, love. It’s bad enough I have to warn Slate that while my girl is on his arm, I’ll have his wife on mine.” “Hmm, I guess it’s a good thing that crush was only one-sided.” “What crush? Are you telling me you had a crush on Jaxon?” “Maybe. Don’t worry, baby. Jaxon’s less of a heartthrob these days and more like a dad to me.” His brows drew down. “Explain to me how that works? He’s two years younger than me.” A giggle worked its way up my throat. “Oh, yeah. Jealous, Maddox? Because I recall offering to call you daddy once.

I pop off the bar to go find Indy, but then I add one more thing. “You know that jersey you’ve got with my last name on it? When you see it hanging there in your closet, let it serve as a reminder to you, that soon enough, it’ll be her last name too.”  I clink my glass with his because sometimes I’m an asshole, and then I go find my girl. 

I’d dealt with my fair share of mean girls over the years—what chubby girl hadn’t?—but the one thing I was proud of was that I’d never let them take me down. And that wasn’t about to change today.

So, I’ll thank you again because raising my name into the rafters will go a long way in impressing the girl I like.

after Joseph died, Slim broke open an old library cabinet when he couldn’t find the keys, said that as the man of the house he needed to know what was in it he found old ledgers that recorded the captain’s lucrative business as a slave runner, exchanging slaves from Africa for sugar in the West Indies came charging like a lunatic into the kitchen where she was cooking and had a go at her for keeping such a wicked family secret from him

Shayna was a woman possessed by the ghosts of Indy racers past. Damn those evil ghouls.

Her soothing voice lapped at his body like the soft ripples of a pond — a strange reaction that he pushed aside.

One such customer who often came in for the chats went by the name of Ryan Callahan. “Hey, what did you do before you did this?” he asked inquisitively. “A lot of things, flight attendant, pro wrestler, perso—” “Wait, you’re not Rebecca Knox, are you?” he interrupted. Taken aback, I thought no one knew who I was, nor would anyone remember me. “Eh, yeah, that’s me.” “Everyone wondered what happened to you!” I don’t think he was actually speaking about “everyone.” Ryan was a dedicated wrestling fan, knowing the ins and outs of the whole business, including the indies. He would go on to become the lead writer of Raw and SmackDown less than a decade later.

I put together a promo akin to my old indie character, Rebecca Knox, decorated with rhymes and puns and doused in energy. Rattling through it, I felt I was giving the Gettysburg Address, for the amount of confidence I had in my content. However, I couldn’t tell if it was the shits or maybe they just wanted to see something else when Regal spoke up, in his very Regal voice, distinct yet soft-spoken. “Tell us your story.” Without the armor of my prerehearsed “masterpiece,” I told the class my life story up until this moment. Opening up about my struggles with leaving wrestling and spending years trying to fill the void it left caused my voice to tremble and tears to fall from my eyes. I was on the brink of a whole new world.

...while riot grrrl is part of the punk rock/alternative rock feminism of the 1990s, it's by no means the majority of it. Despite the slogan, not every girl was a riot grrrl, and there's a huge swath of awesome women in '90s music who aren't riot grrrls. In no particular order: L7, Hole, PJ Harvey, Belly, Throwing Muses, Seven Year Bitch, Babes in Toyland, Liz Phair, Bjork, Juliana Hatfield, Gwen Stefani/No Doubt, Shirley Manson/Garbage, the Breeders, Luscious Jackson, Elastica, Sleater-Kinney, and may more women were part of either the alternative or indie rock music scene. Beyond that, the decade was pretty amazing for singer-songwriters like Tori Amos, Sarah McLachlan, Jewel, Fiona Apple, Alanis Morissette, Tracy Chapman, and Melissa Etheridge; for the R&B and hip-hop artists like Salt-n-Peppa, Queen Latifah, TLC, En Vogue, and Missy Elliott; and, at the tail end of the decade, all the pop you could ever want with the Spice Girls, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and Destiny's Child. So, if you read this book, then run to Spotify to listen to riot grrrl bands, and find they're not for you, remember: there's more than one way to be a girl, and there's more than one kind of music to power you to your goals. What you listen to will never be as important as what you do.

If good girls go to heaven, where do the bad ones go? For if they are the darlings, then who are the darklings? It’s the devil girls I want to know.

It’s the devil girls who are having the ball. I’d rather be bad than be nothing at all.

In the movies, if every guy in an indie romance wanted a manic pixie dream girl, then you were my Sarah Connor girl. Strong jawed, road rager, hell-bent on achieving your goals, who also believed people could be good if you were patient with them: “Come with me if you want to live and let live.” The way this would have worked in the movies, you would have been the first to sense something was wrong. You would have told me about this weird feeling you were having and I would have dismissed it. But you didn’t see it coming. No funny feeling or women’s intuition. No foreboding sense of something on the horizon. You were just as unassuming as I was. In the movies, that’s why you died first. Because you were too smart for your own good. You’d figured it out before the film’s run time, so you had to go. In the movies, you would be my inciting incident, as if I was the more interesting one to follow, like I had more to offer. In what universe was that true? Not this one. Sarah Connor was always a main character, at least in the ones that were any good.