Lines Hit Hard Quotes

In life, as in football, the principle to follow is to hit the line hard.

Her little fists pummeled at him, and he accepted the abuse. Until he realized she’d made an improper fist and was actually hurting herself. He wound an arm around her waist, spun her and slammed her into the hard line of his body to still her. “Let me go!” “In a minute.” As she struggled, he pulled her thumb out from beneath her fingers and rearranged her fist. “Hit like this.” Done, he released her.

Ultraviolence" He used to call me DN That stood for deadly nightshade Cause I was filled with poison But blessed with beauty and rage Jim told me that He hit me and it felt like a kiss Jim brought me back Reminded me of when we were kids With his ultraviolence Ultraviolence Ultraviolence Ultraviolence I can hear sirens, sirens He hit me and it felt like a kiss I can hear violins, violins Give me all of that ultraviolence He used to call me poison Like I was poison ivy I could have died right there Cause he was right beside me Jim raised me up He hurt me but it felt like true love Jim taught me that Loving him was never enough With his ultraviolence Ultraviolence Ultraviolence Ultraviolence I can hear sirens, sirens He hit me and it felt like a kiss I can hear violins, violins Give me all of that ultraviolence We could go back to New York Loving you was really hard We could go back to Woodstock Where they don't know who we are Heaven is on earth I will do anything for you, babe Blessed is this, this union Crying tears of gold, like lemonade I love you the first time I love you the last time Yo soy la princesa, comprende mis white lines Cause I'm your jazz singer And you're my cult leader I love you forever, I love you forever With his ultraviolence (lay me down tonight) Ultraviolence (in my linen and curls) Ultraviolence (lay me down tonight) Ultraviolence (Riviera girls) I can hear sirens, sirens He hit me and it felt like a kiss I can hear violins, violins Give me all of that ultraviolence

Out along the dim six-o’clock street, I saw leafless trees standing, striking the sidewalk there like wooden lightning, concrete split apart where they hit, all in a fenced-in ring. An iron line of pickets stuck out of the ground along the front of a tangleweed yard, and on back was a big frame house with a porch, leaning a rickety shoulder hard into the wind so’s not to be sent tumbling away a couple of blocks like an empty cardboard grocery box.

I left Abnegation because I wasn't selfless enough,no matter how hard I tried to be." "That's not entirely true." He smiles at me. "That girl who let someone throw knives at her to spare a friend,who hit my dad with a belt to protect me-that selfless girl,that's not you?" He's figured out more about me than I have. And even though it seems impossible that he could feel something for me,given all that I'm not...maybe it isn't.I frown at him. "You've been paying close attention,haven't you?" "I like to observe people." "Maybe you were cut out for Candor, Four, because you're a terrible liar." He puts his hand on the rock next to him, his fingers lining up with mine. I look down at our hands. He has long, narrow fingers. Hands made for mine, deft movements.Not Dauntless hands, which should be thick and tough and ready to break things. "Fine." He leans his face closer to mine, his eyes focusing on my chin, and my lips,and my nose. "I watched you because I like you." He says it plainly, boldly, and his eyes flick up to mine. "And don't call me 'Four," okay? It's nice to hear my name again." Just like that,he has finally declared himself, and I don't know how to respond. My cheeks warm,and all I can think to say is, "But you're older than I am...Tobias." He smiles at me. "Yes,that whopping two-year gap really is insurmountable, isn't it?" "I'm not trying to be self-deprecating," I say, "I just don't get it. I'm younger. I'm not pretty.I-" He laughs,a deep laugh that sounds like it came from deep inside him, and touches his lips to my temple. "Don't pretend," I say breathily. "You know I'm not. I'm not ugly,but I am certainly not pretty." "Fine.You're not pretty.So?" He kisses my cheek. "I like how you look. You're deadly smart.You're brave. And even though you found out about Marcus..." His voice softens. "You aren't giving me that look.Like I'm a kicked puppy or something." "Well," I say. "You're not." For a second his dark eyes are on mine, and he's quiet. Then he touches my face and leans in close, brushing my lips with his.The river roars and I feel its spray on my ankles.He grins and presses his mouth to mine. I tense up at first,unsure of myself, so when he pulls away,I'm sure I did something wrong,or badly.But he takes my face in his hands,his figners strong against my skin,and kisses me again, firmer this time, more certain. I wrap an arm around him,sliding my hand up his nack and into his short hair. For a few minutes we kiss,deep in the chasm,with the roar of water all around us. And when we rise,hand in hand, I realize that if we had both chosen differently,we might have ended up doing the same thing, in a safer place, in gray clothes instead of black ones.

Dating is all about getting to know somebody, without wasting a lot of time or money. What is the price of love? You’ve got the cost of dinner, a movie, and cab fare for you and your date, as well as the entire film crew documenting your evening. So you add all that up, and subtract various coupons and bulk discount rates you might qualify for. But what about time? You can make more money, but you can’t make more time if you waste it. That’s why you have to be efficient with your dating. Don’t date one on one. Take 10 women out at once, assembly line style, and forget the small talk. Focus on hard-hitting topics, and give them all questionnaires to fill out. I think the women will appreciate your honest and novel approach. Of course it’s possible that nine out of ten women might be offended. But who cares? All you need is one.


The icy water hit hard as earth. She thrashed on instinct, but Jacks held her tightly. His arms were unyielding, dragging her up through the crashing waves. Salt water snaked up her nose, and the cold filled her veins. She was coughing and sputtering, barely able to take down air as Jacks swam to shore with her in tow. He held her close and carried her from the ocean as if his life depended on it instead of hers. 'I will not let you die.' A single bead of water dripped from Jacks' lashes on to her lips. It was raindrop soft, but the look in his eyes held the force of a storm. It should have been too dark to his expression, but the crescent moon burned brighter with each second, lining edges of Jacks' cheekbones as he looked at her with too much intensity. The crashing ocean felt suddenly quiet in contrast to her pounding heart, or maybe it was his heart. Jacks' chest was heaving, his clothes were soaked, his hair was a mess across his face- yet in that moment, Evangeline knew he would carry her through fire if he had to, haul her from the clutches of war, from falling cities and breaking worlds. And for one brittle heartbeat, Evangeline understood why so many girls died from his lips. If Jacks hadn't betrayed her, if he hadn't set her up for murder, she might have been a little bewitched by him.

Well, the death of the body is the flight of the arrow. It's makin' a straight line for the brain. No dodgin' it not for anyone. People have't die, the body has't fall. Time is hurlin' that arrow forward. And yet, like I was sayin' thought goes on subdividin' that time for ever and ever. The paradox becomes real. The arrow never hits. In other words, immortality.

Dad was standing in front of the big windows when I got to the library, his hands clasped behind his back in the classic "I am so disappointed in my offspring" pose. "Dad? Um,Lara said you wanted to see me." He turned around, his mouth a hard line. "Yes.Did you have a nice time with Daisy and Nick last night?" I fought the urge to reach into my pocket and touch the coin. "Not particularly." He didn't say anything, so we just stared at each other until I started feeling fidgety. "Look, if you're going to punish me, I'd really rather just get it over with." Dad kept staring. "Would you like to know how I spent my evening? Well, not evening, really, so much as very early morning hours." Inwardly, I groaned. Mrs. Casnoff sometimes pulled this maneuver: she'd say she wasn't mad, and then proceeded to list all the ways my screwup had inconvenience her. Maybe they taught it at those fancy schools nonreject Prodigium got to go to. "Sure." "I spent those hours on the phone. Do you know with whom?" "One of those psychic hotlines?" Dad gritted his teeth. "If only. No, I was busy assuring no less than thiry influential witches, warlocks, shifters, and faeries that surely, my daughter-the future head of the Council, I should add-had not injured over a dozen innocent Prodigum while attempting to escape a nightclub during a raid by L'Occhio di Dio." "I didn't hurt them!" I exclaimed. Then I remembered just how hard they had hit the wall, and winced. "Well, not on purpose," I amended.

Companies also pay a heavy price for imposing a long-hours culture. Productivity is notoriously hard to measure, but academics agree that overwork eventually hits the bottom line. It is common sense: we are less productive when we are tired, stressed, unhappy or unhealthy. According to the International Labour Organization, workers in Belgium, France and Norway are all more productive per hour than are Americans. The British clock up more time on the job than do most Europeans, and have one of the continent’s poorest rates of hourly productivity to show for it. Working less often means working better.

Black Stone on a White Stone" I will die in Paris with a rainstorm, on a day I already remember, I will die in Paris—and I don't shy away— perhaps on a Thursday, as today is, in autumn. It will be Thursday, because today, Thursday, as I prose these lines, I've put on my humeri in a bad mood, and, today like never before, I've turned back, with all of my road, to see myself alone. César Vallejo has died; they kept hitting him, everyone, even though he does nothing to them, they gave it to him hard with a club and hard also with a rope; witnesses are the Thursday days and the humerus bones, the solitude, the rain, the roads. . .

no one should ever underestimate the appeal of an opiate high. Far as I can tell, it’s a beautiful thing. The way they talk about it, it’s the best thing ever. For some folks it hits the spot so hard it reboots their lives.

She might not be as hard-hitting as Tzivia, but she had a depth of sincerity and gentleness that he appreciated. Needed. She cared about people. In the war of life, she was the medic and he the guy on the front lines fighting.

Will: Do you ever wonder what your life would be like if you never met your wife? Sean: What? Do I wonder if I'd be better off if I never met my wife? No, that's okay. It's an important question. 'Cause you'll have your bad times, which wake you up to the good stuff you weren't paying attention to. And you can fail, as long as you're trying hard. But there's nothing worse than regret. Will: You don't regret meetin' your wife? Sean: Why? Because of the pain I feel now? I have regrets Will, but I don't regret a single day I spent with her. Will: When did you know she was the one? Sean: October 21, 1975. Game six of the World Series. Biggest game in Red Sox history. Me and my friends slept out on the sidewalk all night to get tickets. We were sitting in a bar waiting for the game to start and in walks this girl. What a game that was. Tie game in the bottom of the tenth inning, in steps Carlton Fisk, hit a long fly ball down the left field line. Thirty-five thousand fans on their feet, screamin' at the ball to stay fair. Fisk is runnin' up the baseline, wavin' at the ball like a madman. It hits the foul pole, home run. Thirty-five thousand people went crazy. And I wasn't one of them. Will: Where were you? Sean: I was havin' a drink with my future wife. Will: You missed Pudge Fisk's home run to have a drink with a woman you had never met? Sean: That's right. Will: So wait a minute. The Red Sox haven't won a World Series since nineteen eighteen, you slept out for tickets, games gonna start in twenty minutes, in walks a girl you never seen before, and you give your ticket away? Sean: You should have seen this girl. She lit up the room. Will: I don't care if Helen of Troy walked into that bar! That's game six of the World Series! And what kind of friends are these? They let you get away with that? Sean: I just slid my ticket across the table and said "sorry fellas, I gotta go see about a girl." Will: "I gotta go see about a girl"? What did they say? Sean: They could see that I meant it. Will: You're kiddin' me. Sean: No Will, I'm not kiddin' you. If I had gone to see that game I'd be in here talkin' about a girl I saw at a bar twenty years ago. And how I always regretted not goin' over there and talkin' to her. I don't regret the eighteen years we were married. I don't regret givin' up counseling for six years when she got sick. I don't regret being by her side for the last two years when things got real bad. And I sure as Hell don't regret missing that damn game. Will: Would have been nice to catch that game though. Sean: Well hell, I didn't know Pudge was gonna hit the home run.

(This is from a tribute poem to Ronnie James Dio: Former lead vocalist of the band Rainbow, Black Sabbath. This is written with all the titles of the hit songs of DIO. The titles are all in upper case) You can “CATCH THE RAINBOW” – “A RAINBOW IN THE DARK” Through “ROCK & ROLL CHILDREN” “HOLY DIVER” will lurk “BEFORE THE FALL” of “ELECTRA” “ALL THE FOOLS SAILED AWAY” “JESUS,MARY AND THE HOLY GHOST”- “LORD OF THE LAST DAY” “MASTER OF THE MOON” you are When my “ONE FOOT IN THE GRAVE” With our “BLACK”, “COLD FEET”, “MYSTERY” of “PAIN” you crave You’re “CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE”, “BETWEEN TWO HEARTS” When “HUNGRY FOR HEAVEN” “HUNTER OF THE HEART” hurts “FALLEN ANGELS” “FEED MY HEART” “FEVER DREAMS” “FEED MY HEAD” “I AM” “ANOTHER LIE” “AFTER ALL (THE DEAD)” Not “GUILTY” if you “HIDE IN THE RAINBOW’’ With your perfect “GUITAR SOLO” “DON’T TELL THE KIDS” to “DREAM EVIL” Don’t “GIVE HER THE GUN” to follow “DON’T TALK TO STRANGERS” Those “EVIL EYES” can see “LORD OF THE NIGHT” “MISTREATED”; “MY EYES” hate to fancy “SHAME ON THE NIGHT” “TURN UP THE NIGHT” Now it’s “TIME TO BURN” “TWISTED” “VOODOO” does “WALK ON WATER” And today its our turn “BLOOD FROM A STONE” “BORN ON THE SUN” I’m “BETTER IN THE DARK” “BREATHLESS” The “PRISONER OF PARADISE” you are! Forever you are deathless “SACRED HEART” “SHIVERS” Laying “NAKED IN THE RAIN” “THIS IS YOUR LIFE”- “ WILD ONE”! Your “GOLDEN RULES” we gain “IN DREAMS” “I SPEED AT NIGHT” I’m “LOSING MY INSANITY” “ANOTHER LIE”: “COMPUTER GOD” Your “HEAVEN AND HELL”- my vanity! By “KILLING THE DRAGON” “I COULD HAVE BEEN A DREAMER” I’m “THE LAST IN LINE” To “SCREAM” Like an “INVISIBLE” screamer Now that you are gone “THE END OF THE WORLD” is here “STRAIGHT THROUGH THE HEART” “PUSH” “JUST ANOTHER DAY” in fear “CHILDREN OF THE SEA” “ DYING IN AMERICA” Is it “DEATH BY LOVE”? “FACES IN THE WINDOW” looking for A “GYPSY” from above Dear “STARGAZER” from “STRANGE HIGHWAYS” Our love “HERE’S TO YOU” “WE ROCK” “ONE MORE FOR THE ROAD” The “OTHER WORLD” anew “ONE NIGHT IN THE CITY” with “NEON KNIGHTS” “THE EYES” “STAY OUT OF MY MIND” The “STARSTRUCK” “SUNSET SUPERMAN” Is what we long to find “THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING” Is the “INSTITUTIONAL MAN” “SHOOT SHOOT” to “TURN TO STONE” “WHEN A WOMAN CRIES” to plan To “STAND UP AND SHOUT” before “ THE KING OF ROCK AND ROLL” Though “GOD HATES HEAVY METAL” “EAT YOUR HEART OUT” to reach the goal. From the poem- Holy Dio: the Diver (A tribute to Ronnie James Dio)

If you plot perceived value on a graph, with the horizontal axis as time and the present as zero, then you will see the line representing value curve sharply upward the closer it comes to the zero point, reaching its zenith as it hits the vertical axis. By comparison, value in the far future goes low quickly, changing hardly at all between a year and two years distant. A hyperbola. When humans and most living creatures consider the value of something, they tend to see its future value diminish hyperbolically. In other words, our system of evaluation isn't exponentioally logical, it's hyperbolically illogical.

At the nurses’ station the night-shift RNs cluster on chairs, looking like birds wanting to shove their tired heads under a free wing. Their lined faces and heavy-lidded eyes show how hard it is to stay awake and alert for an entire night. I don’t work a lot of nights, but when I do I feel it. I hit a wall at 2:00 a.m., then again at 4:00. The hospital’s strong tea, bad coffee, Diet Coke from the vending machine—they all help, but nothing non-pharmaceutical will really make me feel awake for the entire night, and I’m not going down the pharmacologic road. The day after, even if I sleep all morning and afternoon, it feels as though I’m seeing the world through gauze.

Brandon stared into the mirror and looked at his face, looked at the lines that had started to form. Every day of your life feels like you’re climbing up the mountain. And then you get there and you stay for a bit. And it’s nice at the top. But then you start sliding down the other side. He hadn’t seen that part coming. And it had hit him hard.

It is very hard to break armored infantry groups without artillery or machines,” Darrow explained as if detailing how to clean a rifle. “So you don’t target them. You target their psyche. You target their groupthink. “First you send in a man like Sev or Valdir with their best ghouls—that’s what we call them. If you can’t plant the ghouls ahead of time, they should sneak deep as possible into the enemy ranks before hunkering down. “Then you kill a scout on the outskirts. Badly. The more screaming the better. That’ll draw curiosity and a heavy squad. The squad will investigate. If you can, make them disappear in silence. You want the rest of them using their imagination. You want the commander wondering if he should send another squad, maybe even a century. “Then you confirm their worst fear. Give them a death chant—we carry recordings when we don’t have Obsidians. You want anticipation. You want them preparing to face a known fear, physically, mentally. That’s when your ghouls awaken and start killing the command chain. “Then you have your main force close in silence at a fast pace and hit them as hard as you possibly can. Groups can hold a line together. Groups will make last stands. But alone, rarely. It’s very hard for the human mind to accept dying alone. No matter their number, if you summon enough chaos they will feel alone. Especially with anonymity, especially in the dark. Once the first breaks, the rest will feel like they have permission to follow.

Finally, the Steelers were backed up near their own goal line when Brister called for a draw play. He handed off to Hoge, who found himself staring into a human wall. It consisted not only of Seth Joyner but also of Jerome Brown, a defensive tackle, and Reggie White, one of the most feared defensive ends in the history of the NFL. Hoge thought: I’m gonna fuck them up. I’m gonna hit them as hard as they’ve ever been hit in their life. He plunged headfirst into the wall. “When I hit, I felt like my internal organs just went out my ass,” he said. “It was like poof!

In March 2015, sixteen accused policemen were acquitted of their involvement in the Hashimpura massacre, making minorities even more cynical about the promises of justice from secular parties. The case dated back to 1987 when riots had erupted in Meerut. Men from UP’s Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) dragged out young Muslim men, most of them poor daily wagers and weavers, drove them to the Upper Ganga Canal in Ghaziabad instead of to the police station, and threw them in one by one. V. N. Rai, who was superintendent of police in Ghaziabad, wrote a chilling account of how the police—who described Meerut as a ‘mini Pakistan’ and held the Muslims solely responsible for the violence—had behaved. ‘Every survivor who hit the ground after being shot at tried hard to pretend he is dead and most hanged on the canal’s embankments with their heads in water and the body clutched by weeds to show to their killers that they were dead and no more gunshots fired at them. Even after the PAC personnel had left, they lay still between water, blood and slush. They were too scared and numbed even to help those who were still alive or half dead.

We lunged for each other at the same time and collided, crazy with need and starving for a taste. Warnings and alarms wailed in my mind, but I shut them down. Screw it. I wanted him. He found my mouth. The thrust of his tongue against mine made my head spin. He tasted like heaven. I kissed him back, nipping, licking, melting against him. It felt so good . . . His lips traced a fiery line from my mouth to the corner of my jaw and down my neck. My whole body sang in warm liquid triumph. His voice was a ragged whisper in my ear. “Only if you want to . . . Say no, and I’ll stop.” “No,” I whispered to see if he would do it. Curran pulled back. His eyes were pure need, raw and barely under control. He swallowed. “Okay.” It was the most erotic thing I had ever seen. I reached for him and slid my hand up his chest, feeling the taut muscle. He caught my hand and kissed my palm gently. Heated, tightly controlled want shone in his eyes. I pulled my fingers free, pushed from the wall, and kissed his throat just under the jaw. This was bliss. There was no hope for me. He growled, closing his eyes. “What are you doing?” “Pulling on Death’s whiskers,” I murmured, letting my tongue play over his skin, rough with stubble. He smelled divine, clean and male. My hands slid up his biceps. His muscles tensed under the light pressure of my fingers. He was trying very, very hard to stand still and I almost laughed. All those times when he’d called me “baby” . . . Revenge was sweet. “Is that a yes or a no?” he asked. I slid against him and nipped his bottom lip. “I’ll take it as a yes.” The steel muscles of his arms flexed under my hands. He grabbed me, hoisted me up onto him, and kissed me, thrusting into my mouth with his tongue in a hot, slick rhythm, greedy and eager. I threw my arms around his neck. His right hand grasped my hair, his left cupped my butt and pushed me closer against him, his erection a hard, hot length across my lap. Finally— “Let me in,” Derek growled at the door. Go away. The guard said something. Curran’s hand found my breast and caressed the nipple, sending an electric shock through my skin, threatening to melt me . . . “Yes,” Derek snarled. “I’m a member of the damn team. Ask them.” “Curran,” I whispered. “Curran!” He snarled and kept going. The door swung open. I hit him on the back of the neck. He submerged. Help. I’ve drowned the Beast Lord.

She exhaled, and then looked back to Nigel, who was still lying on the floor, moaning incoherently. Simon looked down, too, and for several seconds they just stood there, staring at the unconscious man, until the girl said, “I really didn’t hit him very hard.” “Maybe he’s drunk.” She looked dubious. “Do you think? I smelled spirits on his breath, but I’ve never seen him drunk before.” Simon had nothing to add to that line of thought, so he just asked, “Well, what do you want to do?” “I suppose we could just leave him here,” she said, the expression in her dark eyes hesitant. Simon thought that was an excellent idea, but it was obvious she wanted the idiot cared for in a more tender manner. And heaven help him, but he felt the strangest compulsion to make her happy. “Here is what we’re going to do,” he said crisply, glad that his tone belied any of the odd tenderness he was feeling. “I am going to summon my carriage—” “Oh, good,” she interrupted. “I really didn’t want to leave him here. It seemed rather cruel.” Simon thought it seemed rather generous considering the big oaf had nearly attacked her, but he kept that opinion to himself and instead continued on with his plan. “You will wait in the library while I’m gone.” “In the library? But—” “In the library,” he repeated firmly. “With the door shut. Do you really want to be discovered with Nigel’s body should anyone happen to wander down this hallway?” “His body? Good gracious, sir, you needn’t make it sound as if he were dead.” “As I was saying,” he continued, ignoring her comment completely, “you will remain in the library. When I return, we will relocate Nigel here to my carriage.” “And how will we do that?” He gave her a disarmingly lopsided grin. “I haven’t the faintest idea.” -Daphne & Simon

Then the time came for you to be your own man and take on the world, and you did. But somewhere along the line, you changed. You stopped being you. You let people stick a finger in your face and tell you you’re no good. And when things got hard, you started looking for something to blame, like a big shadow. Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is going to hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done! Now if you know what you’re worth then go out and get what you’re worth. But you’ve got to be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain’t where you want to be because of him, or her, or anybody! Cowards do that and that ain’t you! You’re better than that! I’m always going to love you no matter what. No matter what happens. You’re my son and you’re my blood. You’re the best thing in my life. But until you start believing in yourself, you ain’t going to have a life.

Sarah sits up and reaches over, plucking a string on my guitar. It’s propped against the nightstand on her side of the bed. “So . . . do you actually know how to play this thing?” “I do.” She lies down on her side, arm bent, resting her head in her hand, regarding me curiously. “You mean like, ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,’ the ‘ABC’s,’ and such?” I roll my eyes. “You do realize that’s the same song, don’t you?” Her nose scrunches as she thinks about it, and her lips move as she silently sings the tunes in her head. It’s fucking adorable. Then she covers her face and laughs out loud. “Oh my God, I’m an imbecile!” “You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself, but if you say so.” She narrows her eyes. “Bully.” Then she sticks out her tongue. Big mistake. Because it’s soft and pink and very wet . . . and it makes me want to suck on it. And then that makes me think of other pink, soft, and wet places on her sweet-smelling body . . . and then I’m hard. Painfully, achingly hard. Thank God for thick bedcovers. If this innocent, blushing bird realized there was a hot, hard, raging boner in her bed, mere inches away from her, she would either pass out from all the blood rushing to her cheeks or hit the ceiling in shock—clinging to it by her fingernails like a petrified cat over water. “Well, you learn something new every day.” She chuckles. “But you really know how to play the guitar?” “You sound doubtful.” She shrugs. “A lot has been written about you, but I’ve never once heard that you play an instrument.” I lean in close and whisper, “It’s a secret. I’m good at a lot of things that no one knows about.” Her eyes roll again. “Let me guess—you’re fantastic in bed . . . but everybody knows that.” Then she makes like she’s playing the drums and does the sound effects for the punch-line rim shot. “Ba dumb ba, chhhh.” And I laugh hard—almost as hard as my cock is. “Shy, clever, a naughty sense of humor, and a total nutter. That’s a damn strange combo, Titebottum.” “Wait till you get to know me—I’m definitely one of a kind.” The funny thing is, I’m starting to think that’s absolutely true. I rub my hands together, then gesture to the guitar. “Anyway, pass it here. And name a musician. Any musician.” “Umm . . . Ed Sheeran.” I shake my head. “All the girls love Ed Sheeran.” “He’s a great singer. And he has the whole ginger thing going for him,” she teases. “If you were born a prince with red hair? Women everywhere would adore you.” “Women everywhere already adore me.” “If you were a ginger prince, there’d be more.” “All right, hush now smartarse-bottum. And listen.” Then I play “Thinking Out Loud.” About halfway through, I glance over at Sarah. She has the most beautiful smile, and I think something to myself that I’ve never thought in all my twenty-five years: this is how it feels to be Ed Sheeran.

History teaches us that people who make the brave choices are heroes. We study history to know the stories of those who stood face-to-face with real villains and won. We study history so that when it's time for us to make the hard choice, we'll know that we can do it, too." But then it hit him. History wasn't just about understanding the past. It was about understanding the future, his future. It was about having the tools to shape the future. And all he had to know was that when it came time for him to make choices, he would make the heroic choice, just as the greatest people throughout history had done. No matter what changed in the past, his future hadn't yet been written. He had to shape it, bit by bit. - Dak

There is a certain strain of modern Western sociopolitical thinker that aggressively admires “meritocracy.” Every society should be a meritocracy, argue these adherents, and we should not pass laws that favor one group of people over another, for any reason. There should be no affirmative action laws for university admissions, no initiatives to gender-balance workforces. The cream shall simply rise to the top! These people (usually heterosexual, rich, white men, with a bookshelf full of Ayn Rand novels) conveniently forget that for a meritocracy to work—for a society to properly value and celebrate hard work and individual success —the people within the society need to start from the same point of origin. Otherwise, the cream isn’t rising to the top— the people who were closest to the top already are rising to the top, and the whole concept of meritocracy crumbles to dust. What they are actually calling for, these people, is a pseudo-meritocracy that does not distinguish between the accomplishments of a man with a Mayflower last name who inherited a billion dollars from his dad and those of a Black woman who was born into poverty in a redlined neighborhood in a state that enforces draconian, racist laws. (Some people, as the old saying goes, were born on third base and think they hit a triple.) It’s not a meritocracy if some runners start the race ten feet from the finish line and some are denied entry to the race because of systemic biases within the Racing Commission.

She was especially taken with Matt. Until he said, “It’s time to fess up, hon. Tell Trace how much you care. You’ll feel better when you do.” Climbing up the ladder, Chris said, “Better sooner than later.” He nodded at the hillside behind them. “Because here comes Trace, and he doesn’t look happy.” Both Priss and Matt turned, Priss with anticipation, Matt with tempered dread. Dressed in jeans and a snowy-white T-shirt, Trace stalked down the hill. Priss shielded her eyes to better see him. When he’d left, being so guarded about his mission, she’d half wondered if he’d return before dinner. Trace wore reflective sunglasses, so she couldn’t see his eyes, but his entire demeanor—heavy stride, rigid shoulders, tight jaw—bespoke annoyance. As soon as he was close enough, Priss called out, “What’s wrong?” Without answering her, Trace continued onto the dock. He didn’t stop until he stood right in front of . . . Matt. Backing up to the edge of the dock, Matt said, “Uh . . . Hello?” Trace didn’t say a thing; he just pushed Matt into the water. Arms and legs flailing out, Matt hit the surface with a cannonball effect. Stunned, Priss shoved his shoulder. “What the hell, Trace! Why did you do that?” Trace took off his sunglasses and looked at her, all of her, from her hair to her body and down to her bare toes. After working his jaw a second, he said, “If you need sunscreen, ask me.” Her mouth fell open. Of all the nerve! He left her at Dare’s, took off without telling her a damn thing and then had the audacity to complain when a friend tried to keep her from getting sunburned. “Maybe I would have, if you’d been here!” “I’m here now.” Emotions bubbled over. “So you are.” With a slow smile, Priss put both hands on his chest. The shirt was damp with sweat, the cotton so soft that she could feel every muscle beneath. “And you look a little . . . heated.” Trace’s beautiful eyes darkened, and he reached for her. “A dip will cool you down.” Priss shoved him as hard as she could. Taken by surprise, fully dressed, Trace went floundering backward off the end of the dock. Priss caught a glimpse of the priceless expression of disbelief on Trace’s face before he went under the water. Excited by the activity, the dogs leaped in after him. Liger roused himself enough to move out of the line of splashing. Chris climbed up the ladder. “So that’s the new game, huh?” He laughed as he scooped Priss up into his arms. “Chris!” She made a grab for his shoulders. “Put me down!” “Afraid not, doll.” Just as Trace resurfaced, Chris jumped in with her. They landed between the swimming dogs. Sputtering, her hair in her face and her skin chilled from the shock of the cold water, Priss cursed. Trace had already waded toward the shallower water off the side of the dock. His fair hair was flattened to his head and his T-shirt stuck to his body. “Wait!” Priss shouted at him. He was still waist-deep as he turned to glare at her. Kicking and splashing, Priss doggy-paddled over to him, grabbed his shoulders and wrapped her legs around his waist. “Oh, no, you don’t!” Startled, Trace scooped her bottom in his hands and struggled for balance on the squishy mud bottom of the lake. “What the hell?” And then lower, “You look naked in this damn suit.” Matt and Chris found that hilarious. Priss looked at Trace’s handsome face, a face she loved, and kissed him. Hard. For only a second, he allowed the sensual assault. He even kissed her back. Then he levered away from her. “You ruined my clothes, damn it.” “Only because you were being a jealous jerk.” His expression dark, he glared toward Matt. Christ started humming, but poor Matt said, “Yeah,” and shrugged. “If you think about it, you’ll agree that you sort of were—and we both know there’s no reason.

Am I supposed to be grateful for this? This bloody room?' 'I didn't make this room your whole world, Locke. You did.' 'This is what I was rescued for? Three weeks sick at sea, and now Vel Virazzo, arsehole of Tal Verrar? It's the joke of the gods, and I'm the punch line. Dying with the Grey King would have been better. I told you to fucking leave me there!' And then, 'And I miss them,' he said, his voice nearly a whisper. 'Gods, I miss them. It's my fault they're dead. I can't... I can't stand it—' 'Don't you dare,' growled Jean. He shoved Locke in the chest, forcefully. Locke fell backwards across his bed and hit the wall hard enough to rattle the window shutters. 'Don't you dare use them as an excuse for what you're doing to yourself! Don't you fucking dare.

There is an inherent, humbling cruelty to learning how to run white water. In most other so-called "adrenaline" sports—skiing, surfing and rock climbing come to mind—one attains mastery, or the illusion of it, only after long apprenticeship, after enduring falls and tumbles, the fatigue of training previously unused muscles, the discipline of developing a new and initially awkward set of skills. Running white water is fundamentally different. With a little luck one is immediately able to travel long distances, often at great speeds, with only a rudimentary command of the sport's essential skills and about as much physical stamina as it takes to ride a bicycle downhill. At the beginning, at least, white-water adrenaline comes cheap. It's the river doing the work, of course, but like a teenager with a hot car, one forgets what the true power source is. Arrogance reigns. The river seems all smoke and mirrors, lots of bark (you hear it chortling away beneath you, crunching boulders), but not much bite. You think: Let's get on with it! Let's run this damn river! And then maybe the raft hits a drop in the river— say, a short, hidden waterfall. Or maybe a wave reaches up and flicks the boat on its side as easily as a horse swatting flies with its tail. Maybe you're thrown suddenly into the center of the raft, and the floor bounces back and punts you overboard. Maybe you just fall right off the side of the raft so fast you don't realize what's happening. It doesn't matter. The results are the same. The world goes dark. The river— the word hardly does justice to the churning mess enveloping you— the river tumbles you like so much laundry. It punches the air from your lungs. You're helpless. Swimming is a joke. You know for a fact that you are drowning. For the first time you understand the strength of the insouciant monster that has swallowed you. Maybe you travel a hundred feet before you surface (the current is moving that fast). And another hundred feet—just short of a truly fearsome plunge, one that will surely kill you— before you see the rescue lines. You're hauled to shore wearing a sheepish grin and a look in your eye that is equal parts confusion, respect, and raw fear. That is River Lesson Number One. Everyone suffers it. And every time you get the least bit cocky, every time you think you have finally figured out what the river is all about, you suffer it all over again.

I tell you, I know what it is.” “What is it? What is it? Is it hard or soft? Harry. Is it blue? Is it red? Does it have polka dots?” It hits Rabbit depressingly that he really wants to be told. Underneath all this I-know-more-about-it-than-you heresies-of-the-early-Church business he really wants to be told about it, wants to be told that it is there, that he’s not lying to all those people every Sunday. As if it’s not enough to be trying to get some sense out of this crazy game you have to carry around this madman trying to swallow your soul. The hot strap of the bag gnaws at his shoulder. “The truth is,” Eccles tells him with womanish excitement, in a voice embarrassed but determined, “you’re monstrously selfish. You’re a coward. You don’t care about right or wrong; you worship nothing except your own worst instincts.” They reach the tee, a platform of turf beside a hunchbacked fruit tree offering fists of taut ivory-colored buds. “Let me go first,” Rabbit says. “ ’Til you calm down.” His heart is hushed, held in mid-beat, by anger. He doesn’t care about anything except getting out of this tangle. He wants it to rain. In avoiding looking at Eccles he looks at the ball, which sits high on the tee and already seems free of the ground. Very simply he brings the clubhead around his shoulder into it. The sound has a hollowness, a singleness he hasn’t heard before. His arms force his head up and his ball is hung way out, lunarly pale against the beautiful black blue of storm clouds, his grandfather’s color stretched dense across the north. It recedes along a line straight as a ruler-edge. Stricken; sphere, star, speck. It hesitates, and Rabbit thinks it will die, but he’s fooled, for the ball makes its hesitation the ground of a final leap: with a kind of visible sob takes a last bite of space before vanishing in falling. “That’s it!” he cries and, turning to Eccles with a grin of aggrandizement, repeats, “That’s it.

Then it hits me. She doesn’t want me to see her scars. Her hands are attempting to cover the soft skin there as she pulls against my hold on her. “Stop, baby,” I whisper. I could release her now and move on to another area of her body, but something tells me that isn’t what she really needs. That will only confirm her fears that I find her imperfections ugly and that’s far from the truth. It pains me to see the evidence of how long and hard she’s been crying out for help, with no one listening. The marks are a part of who she is and every one of them tells the story of Rose Madden. Do I hope that another angry red line never mars her body? Absolutely. But I’m in no way repulsed by the ones that do. It’s how she has coped with a world that prizes perfection above all else. She’s begging to be accepted for the person beneath the public face. And I see her. The beautifully imperfect woman who’s spent her life feeling as if she was never good enough for the people who were supposed to love her unconditionally.

Colby arrived the next day, with stitches down one lean cheek and a new prosthesis. He held it up as Cecily came out to the car to greet him. He held it up as Cecily came out to the car to greet him. “Nice, huh? Doesn’t it look more realistic than the last one?” “What happened to the last one?” she asked. “Got blown off. Don’t ask where,” he added darkly. “I know nothing,” she assured him. “Come on in. Leta made sandwiches.” Leta had only seen Colby once, on a visit with Tate. She was polite, but a little remote, and it showed. “She doesn’t like me,” Colby told Cecily when they were sitting on the steps later that evening. “She thinks I’m sleeping with you,” she said simply.” So does Tate.” “Why?” “Because I let him think I was,” she said bluntly. He gave her a hard look. “Bad move, Cecily.” “I won’t let him think I’m waiting around for him to notice me,” she said icily. “He’s already convinced that I’m in love with him, and that’s bad enough. I can’t have him know that I’m…well, what I am. I do have a little pride.” “I’m perfectly willing, if you’re serious,” he said matter-of-factly. His face broke into a grin, belying the solemnity of the words. “Or are you worried that I might not be able to handle it with one arm?” She burst out laughing and pressed affectionately against his side. “I adore you, I really do. But I had a bad experience in my teens. I’ve had therapy and all, but it’s still sort of traumatic for me to think about real intimacy.” “Even with Tate?” he probed gently. She wasn’t touching that line with a pole. “Tate doesn’t want me.” “You keep saying that, and he keeps making a liar of you.” “I don’t understand.” “He came to see me last night. Just after I spoke to you.” He ran his fingers down his damaged cheek. She caught her breath. “I thought you got that overseas!” “Tate wears a big silver turquoise ring on his middle right finger,” he reminded her. “It does a bit of damage when he hits people with it.” “He hit you? Why?” she exclaimed. “Because you told him we were sleeping together,” he said simply. “Honest to God, Cecily, I wish you’d tell me first when you plan to play games. I was caught off guard.” “What did he do after he hit you?” “I hit him, and one thing led to another. I don’t have a coffee table anymore. We won’t even discuss what he did to my best ashtry.” “I’m so sorry!” “Tate and I are pretty much matched in a fight,” he said. “Not that we’ve ever been in many. He hits harder than Pierce Hutton does in a temper.” He scowled down at her. “Are you sure Tate doesn’t want you? I can’t think of another reason he’d try to hammer my floor with my head.” “Big brother Tate, to the rescue,” she said miserably. She laughed bitterly. “He thinks you’re a bad risk.” “I am,” he said easily. “I like having you as my friend.” He smiled. “Me, too. There aren’t many people who stuck by me over the years, you know. When Maureen left me, I went crazy. I couldn’t live with the pain, so I found ways to numb it.” He shook his head. “I don’t think I came to my senses until you sent me to that psychologist over in Baltimore.” He glanced down at her. “Did you know she keeps snakes?” he added. “We all have our little quirks.

We’re moving up in the line, and I realize I’m nervous, which is strange, because this is Peter. But he’s also a different Peter, and I’m a different Lara Jean, because this is a date, an actual date. Just to make conversation, I ask, “So, when you go to the movies are you more of a chocolate kind of candy or a gummy kind of candy?” “Neither. All I want is popcorn.” “Then we’re doomed! You’re neither, and I’m either or all of the above.” We get to the cashier and I start fishing around for my wallet. Peter laughs. “You think I’m going to make a girl pay on her first date?” He puffs out his chest and says to the cashier, “Can we have one medium popcorn with butter, and can you later the butter? And a Sour Patch Kids and a box of Milk Duds. And one small Cherry Coke.” “How did you know that was what I wanted?” “I pay a lot better attention than you think, Covey.” Peter slings his arm around my shoulders with a self-satisfied smirk, and he accidentally hits my right boob. “Ow!” He laughs an embarrassed laugh. “Whoops. Sorry. Are you okay?” I give him a hard elbow to the side, and he’s still laughing as we walk into the theater.

Gene was leaning intently over the side, his knife held ready, dagger fashion. Finally, a shark swam bravely up to him. The knife flashed out and down, and there was a sound like a punch. Gene turned pale. “I—I think I hit the boat,” he said. He held his hand in the water where he had struck. There was a quick, convulsive thrash and Gene’s arm was yanked like a line. “Wait! I got him,” he yelled. He had been fortunate enough to strike the shark in the gill. That, we learned later, was the only spot vulnerable to the little knife. Quickly, but with care, Gene hauled the shark into the boat, using the knife like a hook. Tony again was dozing in the bottom of the boat. The shark landed right on top of him. I haven’t had the experience yet of having a live shark, wet and bleeding, thump me in the ribs while I was half asleep. It nearly scared the wits out of Tony. The yelp of surprise was hardly out of Tony’s mouth, though, when he grasped the whole situation. Like a wrestler, Tony flipped over and slammed all his weight on the struggling sea beast. He concentrated every ounce of his energy on holding down the sinewy, slippery thing.

I like rainbows. We came back down to the meadow near the steaming terrace and sat in the river, just where one of the bigger hot streams poured into the cold water of the Ferris Fork. It is illegal – not to say suicidal – to bathe in any of the thermal features of the park. But when those features empty into the river, at what is called a hot pot, swimming and soaking are perfectly acceptable. So we were soaking off our long walk, talking about our favorite waterfalls, and discussing rainbows when it occurred to us that the moon was full. There wasn’t a hint of foul weather. And if you had a clear sky and a waterfall facing in just the right direction… Over the course of a couple of days we hked back down the canyon to the Boundary Creek Trail and followed it to Dunanda Falls, which is only about eight miles from the ranger station at the entrance to the park. Dunanda is a 150-foot-high plunge facing generally south, so that in the afternoons reliable rainbows dance over the rocks at its base. It is the archetype of all western waterfalls. Dunenda is an Indian name; in Shoshone it means “straight down,” which is a pretty good description of the plunge. ... …We had to walk three miles back toward the ranger station and our assigned campsite. We planned to set up our tents, eat, hang our food, and walk back to Dunanda Falls in the dark, using headlamps. We could be there by ten or eleven. At that time the full moon would clear the east ridge of the downriver canyon and would be shining directly on the fall. Walking at night is never a happy proposition, and this particular evening stroll involved five stream crossings, mostly on old logs, and took a lot longer than we’d anticipated. Still, we beat the moon to the fall. Most of us took up residence in one or another of the hot pots. Presently the moon, like a floodlight, rose over the canyon rim. The falling water took on a silver tinge, and the rock wall, which had looked gold under the sun, was now a slick black so the contrast of water and rock was incomparably stark. The pools below the lip of the fall were glowing, as from within, with a pale blue light. And then it started at the base of the fall: just a diagonal line in the spray that ran from the lower east to the upper west side of the wall. “It’s going to happen,” I told Kara, who was sitting beside me in one of the hot pots. Where falling water hit the rock at the base of the fall and exploded upward in vapor, the light was very bright. It concentrated itself in a shining ball. The diagonal line was above and slowly began to bend until, in the fullness of time (ten minutes, maybe), it formed a perfectly symmetrical bow, shining silver blue under the moon. The color was vaguely electrical. Kara said she could see colors in the moonbow, and when I looked very hard, I thought I could make out a faint line of reddish orange above, and some deep violet at the bottom. Both colors were very pale, flickering, like bad florescent light. In any case, it was exhilarating, the experience of a lifetime: an entirely perfect moonbow, silver and iridescent, all shining and spectral there at the base of Dunanda Falls. The hot pot itself was a luxury, and I considered myself a pretty swell fellow, doing all this for the sanity of city dwellers, who need such things more than anyone else. I even thought of naming the moonbow: Cahill’s Luminescence. Something like that. Otherwise, someone else might take credit for it.

I’m here to horrify you,” he said. And then, because he couldn’t bear it any longer, he reached out and pulled her to him. She was warm and soft in his arms, and she smelled so deliciously right. He could have inhaled her scent for hours. “Hugo—” He didn’t want to talk. He didn’t want to answer any questions. He didn’t know who he was or what he wanted or what dreams would come to fill his heart. He only knew that if he couldn’t have her, nothing would ever be right again. And so he kissed her. He tasted her, sweet and steady against him, put his hand in the small of her back and drew her toward him. She kissed him back. “I love you,” he said. The truth took root inside him. For the first time in years, the dark words of his past receded. “But, Hugo…” He set his fingers over her lips. “Let me do this,” he said. “I thought I had to prove myself with money and accomplishments. But those will always ring hollow. They will never be enough. I want to be somebody. Let me be your husband. Let me be the father of your child—of all your children. I got more satisfaction from striking Clermont than I did from any success I found in business.” She pulled back from him. “You struck Clermont?” “Twice. And—that reminds me—I blackmailed him into promising to send your child to Eton.” Hugo tightened his grip around her. “I’ve never pretended to be a good man, you know. It’s just that…I’m yours.” He leaned his head against hers. Her breath was warm against his face. “Did you hit him hard?” “I’m afraid I did.” “That’s my Hugo.” There was a grim satisfaction in her voice. “I love you, you know. If you hadn’t come, as soon as winter set in and the ground became too hard to work, I’d planned to come for you.” “Well, I’m glad I came to my senses,” Hugo said. “You shouldn’t have traveled, not in your condition. Yet curiosity impels me to inquire. What did you plan to do, once you arrived?” “Allow me to demonstrate.” She lifted her face to his, traced the line of his jaw with her fingers. “This.” She pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “And this.” She kissed the other corner. “And…” She took his mouth full on, her lips soft against his, tasting of all the things he’d most wanted. “I’d do that,” she whispered, “until you were forced to admit you loved me.” “I love you.” “Well, that’s no fun.” She kissed him again. “Now what excuse do I have?” He drew in a shuddering breath and pulled her closer. “You could make me say it again,” he whispered. “Make me say it always. Make me say it so often that you never have cause to doubt. I love you.

We are nobler. Loyalty, magnanimity, care for one's reputation: these three united in a single disposition we call noble, and in this quality we excel the Greeks. Let us not abandon it, as we might be tempted to do as a result of feeling that the ancient objects of these virtues have lost in estimation (and rightly), but see to it that this precious inherited drive is applied to new objects. To grasp how, from the viewpoint of our own aristocracy, which is still chivalrous and feudal in nature, the disposition of even the noblest Greeks has to seem of a lower sort and, indeed, hardly decent, one should recall the words with which Odysseus comforted himself in ignominious situations: 'Endure it, my dear heart! you have already endured the lowest things!' And, as a practical application of this mythical model, one should add the story of the Athenian officer who, threatened with a stick by another officer in the presence of the entire general staff, shook this disgrace from himself with the words: 'Hit me! But also hear me!' (This was Themistocles, that dextrous Odysseus of the classical age, who was certainly the man to send down to his 'dear heart' those lines of consolation at so shameful a moment.) The Greeks were far from making as light of life and death on account of an insult as we do under the impress of inherited chivalrous adventurousness and desire for self-sacrifice; or from Seeking out opportunities for risking both in a game of honour, as we do in duels; or from valuing a good name (honour) more highly than the acquisition of a bad name if the latter is compatible with fame and the feeling of power; or from remaining loyal to their class prejudices and articles of faith if these could hinder them from becoming tyrants. For this is the ignoble secret of every good Greek aristocrat: out of the profoundest jealousy he considers each of his peers to stand on an equal footing with him, but is prepared at any moment to leap like a tiger upon his prey, which is rule over them all: what are lies, murder, treachery, selling his native city, to him then! This species of man found justice extraordinarily difficult and regarded it as something nearly incredible; 'the just man' sounded to the Greeks like 'the saint' does among Christians. But when Socrates went so far as to say: 'the virtuous man is the happiest man' they did not believe their ears and fancied they had heard something insane. For when he pictures the happiest man, every man of noble origin included in the picture the perfect ruthlessness and devilry of the tyrant who sacrifices everyone and everything to his arrogance and pleasure. Among people who secretly revelled in fantasies of this kind of happiness, respect for the state could, to be sure, not be implanted deeply enough but I think that people whose lust for power no longer rages as blindly as that of those noble Greeks also no longer require the idolisation of the concept of the state with which that lust was formerly kept in check.

He poured a splash of liquid into a second cup. “Come in and warm yerself by the fire.” Ariana walked deeper into the room, toward the glow of the hearth. It’s heat enveloped her skin and eased away the chill with such expediency, she almost sighed. Connor appeared beside her with a metal cup extended. “I canna sleep often myself.” She closed her fingers around the cool surface and glanced at the dark liquid within. A sharp scent hit her nostrils. “Whisky,” Connor said. He was perfection in the firelight. Shadows etched his jaw while the light softened his face, his lips. The powerful lines of his chest were visible at the neck of his leine, as well as a dark peppering of small curling black hairs. “Whisky,” Ariana said with a forced stare at the cup instead of him. “Of course. I drink this all the time.” “Aye, I knew that about ye. When I first saw ye, I thought, ‘Now there’s a lass who can handle her whisky.’” Connor winked at her with disarming playfulness. “It’ll do ye some good. Take off the chill and settle yer thoughts.” “Why do you assume my thoughts are unsettled?” she asked. He took a swallow from his cup. “Because sleep comes easily to those without weight on their minds.” Ariana took a careful sip from her own cup, the way she’d seen men at the card tables drink. The liquid burned like sin down her throat and caught in her chest. She gritted her teeth and swallowed hard several times to keep from sputtering. Though she’d hoped to keep her reaction discreet, the grin on Connor’s face told her he saw through her guise. “It’s good.” Her voice came out in a croak and Connor laughed. It was a warm, rich sound and she found it terribly pleasing. His eyes crinkled. “Now that we’ve discovered yer love of whisky, why dinna ye tell me what’s got yer thoughts heavy?

Wave after wave of an orgasm broke over her, but soon it would be over for him. “Stop,” Livia panted. Blake paused as Livia swallowed to try to compose herself. She was here for a reason. “The mask. Take it off. I want you to kiss me.” Livia watched his eyes. He was scared. “Blake, you’re inside of me. I’ll keep you safe. You’re inside of me.” Livia squeezed him again, reminding him exactly where he was. Blake smiled at the sensation. “Do it for me, Livia. Please.” And even though they were naked and locked in the most intimate embrace, this was the striptease. Livia went slowly, rolling up the knit ski mask like a stocking. First his jaw came into the light. Livia slowed, tracing its strong line with her finger. Next, his lips lost their frame, then his eyes left their prison. He closed them. Finally, his wild, messy hair was free. Livia tossed the mask aside. And waited. Open your eyes. After a moment Blake looked around his sunny meadow. A breeze stirred the trees high up, and they released a shower of fall colors. In the silence of the day, the leaves hitting the ground sounded like applause. Quiet applause for a quiet victory. The o in sorry vanished. Blake looked at Livia beneath him. She smiled. “Five hundred ninety-eight,” he whispered. Still counting. “Yes! Yes. I knew you could do this. I knew you could do this.” Livia beamed with pride. Blake blurred as her eyes became two pools of tears. He kissed her softly, but Livia wanted the rough thrusts back. She pulled away and wiped her eyes. “Giddy up!” Livia spanked Blake playfully. He gave a little chuckle before he put her out of her misery. If she thought he was going fast and hard before, she was wrong. Blake was almost done when he let Livia’s leg slip from his shoulder. He kissed her with his clever tongue and moaned loudly into her mouth.

Among the many people Chris met while doing charity work was Randy Cupp, who invited him and Bubba out to shoot with him come deer season. When Chris passed away, Randy made it clear to me that the offer not only still stood, but that he would love to give Bubba a chance to kill his first buck. With deer season upon us, the kids and I decided to take him up on the offer. Angel, Bubba, and I went out to his property on a beautiful morning. Setting out for the blind, I felt Chris’s presence, as if he were scouting along with us. We settled into our spots and waited. A big buck came across in front of us a short time later. It was an easy shot--except that Bubba had neglected to put his ear protection in. He scrambled to get it in, but by the time he was ready, the animal had bounded off. Deer--and opportunities--are like that. We waited some more. Another buck came out from the trees not five minutes later. And this one was not only in range, but it was bigger than the first: a thirteen pointer. Chris must have scared that thing up. “That’s the one,” said Randy as the animal pranced forward. Bubba took a shot. The deer scooted off as the gunshot echoed. My son thought he’d missed, but Randy was sure he’d hit him. At first, we didn’t see a blood trail--a bad sign, since a wounded animal generally leaves an easily spotted trail. But a few steps later, we found the body prone in the woods. Bubba had killed him with a shot to the lungs. Like father, like son. While Bubba left to dress the carcass, I went back to the blind with Angel to wait for another. She was excited that she might get a deer just like her brother. But when a buck walked within range, tears came to her eyes. “I can’t do it,” she said, putting down her gun. “It’s okay,” I told her. “I just can’t.” “Do you want me to?” I asked. She nodded. I took aim. Even though I was married to a hard-core hunter, I had never shot a deer before. I lined up the scope, walking him into the crosshairs. A slow breath, and I squeezed the trigger. The shot surprised me--just as Chris said it should. The deer fell. He was good meat; we eat what we kill, another of Chris’s golden rules. “You know, Angel, you’re going to be my hunting partner forever,” I told her later. “You’re just so calm and observant. And good luck.” We plan to do that soon. She’ll be armed with a high-powered camera, rather than a rifle.

One breath, the study was intact. The next, it was shards of nothing, a shell of a room. None of it had touched me from where I had dropped to the floor, my hands over my head. Tamlin was panting, the ragged breaths almost like sobs. I was shaking- shaking so hard I thought my bones would splinter as the furniture had- but I made myself lower my arms and look at him. That was devastation on that face. And pain. And fear. And grief. Around me, no debris had fallen- as if he had shielded me. Tamlin took a step toward me, over that invisible demarcation. He recoiled as if he'd hit something solid. 'Feyre,,' he rasped. He stepped again- and that line held. 'Feyre, please,' he breathed. And I realised that the line, that bubble of protection... It was from me. A shield. Not just a mental one- but a physical one, too. ... 'Feyre,' Tamlin groaned a third time, pushing a hand against what indeed looked like an invisible, curved wall of hardened air. 'Please. Please.' Those words cracked something in me. Cracked me open. Perhaps they cracked that shield of solid wind as well, for his hand shot through it. Then he stepped over that line between chaos and order, danger and safety. He dropped to his knees, taking my face in his hands. 'I'm sorry. I'm sorry.' I couldn't stop trembling. 'I'll try,' he breathed. 'I'll try to be better. I don't... I can't control it sometimes. The rage. Today was just... today was bad. With the Tithe, with all of it. Today- let's forget it, let's just move past it. Please.' I didn't fight as he slid his arms around me, tucking me in tightly enough that his warmth soaked through me. He buried his face in my neck and said onto my nape, as if the words would be absorbed by my body, as if he could only say it the way we'd always been good at communicating- skin to skin, 'I couldn't save you before. I couldn't protect you from them. And when you said that, about... about me drowning you... Am I any better than they were?' I should have told him it wasn't true, but... I had spoken with my heart. Or what was left of it. 'I'll try to be better,' he said again. 'Please- give me more time. Let me... let me get through this. Please.' Get through what? I wanted to ask. But words had abandoned me. I realised I hadn't spoken yet. Realised he was waiting for an answer- and that I didn't have one. So I put my arms around him, because body to body was the only way I could speak, too. It was answer enough. 'I'm sorry,' he said again. He didn't stop murmuring it for minutes. You've given enough, Feyre. Perhaps he was right. And perhaps I didn't have anything left to give, anyway. I looked over his shoulder as I held him. The red paint had splattered on the wall behind us. And as I watched it slide down the cracked wood panelling, I thought it looked like blood.

Boys will be boys, and ballplayers will always be arrested adolescents at heart. The proof comes in the mid-afternoon of an early spring training day, when 40 percent of the New York Mets’ starting rotation—Mike Pelfrey and I—hop a chain-link fence to get onto a football field not far from Digital Domain. We have just returned from Dick’s Sporting Goods, where we purchased a football and a tee. We are here to kick field goals. Long field goals. A day before, we were all lying on the grass stretching and guys started talking about football and field-goal kickers, and David Wright mentioned something about the remarkable range of kickers these days. I can kick a fifty-yard field goal, Pelfrey says. You can not, Wright says. You don’t think so? You want to bet? You give me five tries and I’ll put three of them through. One hundred bucks says you can’t, David says. This is going to be the easiest money I ever make. I am Pelf’s self-appointed big brother, always looking out for him, and I don’t want him to go into this wager cold. So I suggest we get a ball and tee and do some practicing. We get back from Dick’s but find the nearby field padlocked, so of course we climb over the fence. At six feet two inches and 220 pounds, I get over without incident, but seeing Pelf hoist his big self over—all six feet seven inches and 250 pounds of him—is much more impressive. Pelf’s job is to kick and my job is to chase. He sets up at the twenty-yard line, tees up the ball, and knocks it through—kicking toe-style, like a latter-day Lou Groza. He backs up to the twenty-five and then the thirty, and boots several more from each distance. Adding the ten yards for the end zone, he’s now hit from forty yards and is finding his range. Pretty darn good. He insists he’s got another ten yards in his leg. He hits from forty-five, and by now he’s probably taken fifteen or seventeen hard kicks and reports that his right shin is getting sore. We don’t consider stopping. Pelf places the ball on the tee at the forty-yard line: a fifty-yard field goal. He takes a half dozen steps back, straight behind the tee, sprints up, and powers his toe into the ball … high … and far … and just barely over the crossbar. That’s all that is required. I thrust both my arms overhead like an NFL referee. He takes three more and converts on a second fifty-yarder. You are the man, Pelf, I say. Adam Vinatieri should worry for his job. That’s it, Pelf says. I can’t even lift my foot anymore. My shin is killing me. We hop back over the fence, Pelf trying to land as lightly as a man his size can land. His shin hurts so much he can barely put pressure on the gas pedal. He’s proven he can hit a fifty-yard field goal, but I go into big-brother mode and tell him I don’t want him kicking any more field goals or stressing his right leg any further. I convince him to drop the bet with David. The last thing you need is to start the season on the DL because you were kicking field goals, I say. Can you imagine if the papers got ahold of that one? The wager just fades away. David doesn’t mind; he gets a laugh at the story of Pelf hopping the fence and practicing, and drilling long ones.

Sadly not. I can only feel the depth of your power, the strength of it. And you’re strong. Once you learn to harness it, I have the feeling that I won’t be able to take an ounce of it from you without permission.” My mouth slipped into a smile and her gaze dropped to trace the movement, making my dick get all kinds of hopeful ideas. “Can you just get this over with? I have a lot of studying to do.” She tilted her chin in the angriest offering I'd ever seen but that wasn't going to cut it today.What would it even take for her to want me to bite her? I'd have given a whole lot to hear her beg me for it that was for sure. “Don’t you want to hear my proposition, Tory?” I asked in a seductive tone as I shifted closer to her, wanting to feel the heat of her body against mine. “I can’t imagine anything that you could offer me to make me a willing participant in your dinner schedule,” she deadpanned. “There may be one thing,” I said, teasing her, tempting her. Her eyes lit angrily and I could tell she was about to start cursing me or something equally aggressive, so I took a final step forward, caught her chin between my fingers and pressed my mouth to hers. Tory sucked in a breath of surprise and I slid my tongue between the opening in her lips, kissing her roughly and dominating her mouth in a demand for her to give in to me. She raised her hands to my chest, palms flat against my pecs and for a moment I was sure she was going to shove me back with either her strength or her magic. But then the moment passed and instead of fighting, she surrendered, her hands caressing instead of pushing me away, tongue moving with mine and lips devouring. And she tasted so fucking sweet. I groaned deep in the back of my throat as I dropped my hands to her waist and walked her backwards until her ass hit the desk there. I lifted her up easily, parting her thighs as I stepped between them and my cock throbbed as I drove it against her panties, stealing a little friction and loving the way she arched into the movement like she was aching for more of me. Her hands banded around my neck and she pulled me closer, kissing me hard and heatedly as her hips flexed and she ground herself against my solid cock I moved my hand to her knee, tracing a line along the top of her long socks with my thumb before shifting it up her silken skin. Tory kissed me harder, her fingers pushing through my hair as she moaned between brushes of our tongues as I kept moving my hand higher, half expecting her to stop me while my heart thundered harder for every second where she didn't. I pushed my fingers beneath her skirt and she moaned again, her other leg hooking around my ass and dragging me nearer in a demand I was more than willing to give in to. I grinned against her lips, loving how quickly she'd fallen to my desire, but the moment I did, she sucked my bottom lip between her teeth and bit down hard to remind me of exactly what kind of animal she was. I jerked back before she could spill my blood, laughing at the fire in her and pausing with my hand almost grazing her panties and the temptation of what lay beneath them. “Why?” she asked breathlessly, suspicion colouring her green eyes and making me want to offer her the truth. “You can just take what you want from me. So why kiss me?” (Caleb pov)

His grip tightened and he closed the distance between us, his mouth catching mine in a kiss that made my aching heart throb with the most painful kind of hope. I gripped his shirt in my fists and dragged him closer as I kissed him like the sky might cave in if I didn’t, even though it was more likely that it would if I did. Thunder crashed like an explosion overhead, freezing cold rain pelted down on us and lightning slammed into the ground behind us. But I didn’t care. I would gladly take the rage of the heavens in payment for this moment in his arms. Darius pulled me closer, growling hungrily as his tongue pushed into my mouth and he kissed me savagely, filthily, desperately. I pushed up onto my tiptoes, my body pressing flush to his as I wound my arms round his neck and my heart pounded to a brutal beat like it wanted to force its way out ofmy chest and meet with his. Lightning struck the ground so close that a crackle of electricity danced up my spine. I flinched, but my grip on Darius only tightened. I dropped the barriers on my magic and Darius’s power flooded through me on a tide of ecstasy as we merged our essences together. We were meant to be together like this, it was painted beneath my skin and through my veins, even my magic ached for him and yearned for the caress of his power. Thunder boomed and I growled in defiance, lifting my hand to cast a shield of solid air magic around us, cutting off the storm completely. Darius’s magic flowed alongside mine into the shield, the strength of our will blocking out the will of the stars. The earth rocked savagely beneath our feet and we fell. Darius kept ahold of me as he hit the ground on his back and I tumbled aside for a moment, but I wasn’t going to let them drive us apart. I shoved myself to my knees, crawling over his legs as he pushed up on his elbows and kissed me again. His fingers slid through my wet hair and his stubble grazed my skin as he kissed me so hard it was bruising, punishing, branding and yet it wasn’t enough. My heart was aching, tears pricking the backs of my eyes as I fought to keep hold of him while the storm hammered against our magic, determined to tear us apart again. I poured magic from my body to hold the shield as rain slammed against it so hard that the air rattled around us. Darius dragged me against him and I could feel how much he wanted me in every hard line and ridge of his body. We were both drenched, covered in mud and utterly incapable of giving one shit about it. Lightning slammed into the shield and I gasped as it almost buckled, breaking our kiss as I looked up at the black sky above us. More lightning split the clouds apart, striking the ground all around us again and again, making the earth rock even more violently. As a second bolt hit our shield, I almost lost control of it and I could feel my power waning as I threw everything I had into maintaining it. We only had seconds before it was going to collapse and I reached out to catch Darius’s jaw in my grip, looking into his dark eyes with a pang of longing. “I’m sorry I did this to us,” I breathed. I might not have been sure everything between us was fixed yet, but I was beginning to believe it could be and I was starting to think I’d made the wrong choice when I’d been offered it. “It wasn’t you,” he replied, pain flickering though his gaze. “It was both of us,” I disagreed, tears mixing with the rain on my cheeks. (Tory)

He nodded against my neck and his hands came around to cup my breasts, grinding into me again from behind. I ground back. He moaned, slipping a hand down the front of my panties. “Tell me what you like,” he whispered against my ear, moving against me. Oh my fucking God… What didn’t I like? It had been so long and I was so deprived I was afraid he was going to finish me right there. My body began to tremble at the build. I couldn’t take it anymore. He seemed to sense it because he pulled his fingers back right before I disintegrated in his hand, and he laid me down on the bed, sliding over me. He hovered on his forearms and ran a thick, muscular thigh up between my legs until it hit my core and I sucked in air against his lips. Oh my God, he was so good at this… And he fucking knew it. He smiled and kissed me, his tongue darting in my mouth, his rough hands canvassing my skin like he wanted to feel every inch of me. I did the same. It felt so good to touch him. My eyes had spent so much time learning his body, and my hands wanted to map him. I ran fingers along his chest, over the curve of his broad freckled shoulders, down the muscles of his back, along the valley of his spine. I breathed in his scent as I grabbed his firm ass and pulled him into me and he groaned, rubbing hard against my leg. I couldn’t believe this was real, that I got to touch him, that he was kissing me, that there was nothing between us but my thin G-string. His bare skin pressing into mine was the most exquisite feeling of my life, a million nerve endings connecting with his, little electrical shocks that merged into one huge surge. He sat up and kneeled between my legs, picking up my foot and putting it on his shoulder. The view was fucking spectacular. The definition of his chest continued down with a line of hair into a V muscle that pointed at his divine penis like an arrow. I reached out and took him in my hand and his breathing went ragged. My gaze came back up to his hooded eyes. He kissed my ankle and I watched him do it, biting my lip, stroking him, my need unraveling into something so starved I wanted to beg him to have mercy on me and just fuck me already. I thought of the way he’d touched me in the car, his strong hands massaging my calf, and I couldn’t help but feel like he was continuing something he started earlier. He ran his palms from my ankle, behind my knee, up my thigh, and he hooked my panties in his thumbs and pulled them down and off. Then he balled them in his hand, shut his eyes, and put them to his nose, breathing in. When his eyes opened again, they’d gone primal. He came at me like a wild animal. He lowered onto me, his jaw clenched tight, every muscle of his body tense, and I lifted my hips. He held my gaze as he eased himself in, slow and deliberate, and I wrapped my legs around his waist, feral with need, frantically urging him deeper. One… Two… I wasn’t going to last a minute and it was all overload, his naked body pressed to mine, the feel of him inside me, rhythmically thrusting against my core, deeper and deeper, his quivering breath over my collarbone, his hips grinding between my legs, his scent, his sounds, the heat of his skin, the rocking of the bed, the moaning in my throat—my back arched and I fell apart at the same time he did, clutching at everything, pulling him into me, pulsing with his release. He collapsed on top of me and I was decimated. I lay there like a rag doll, twitching with aftershocks. He gasped for breath, his face by my ear. “Holy…fucking…shit,” he panted. I just nodded. I couldn’t even speak. I’d never had sex that good. Never in my life—and I’d had my share of good sex. It was like we’d been foreplaying for weeks and I’d been sexually malnourished, starving, waiting for him to feed me.

I was sound asleep at the Oregon beach cabin one night when there was a knock at the door. A woman who said she was from the Red Cross stood on the front porch. I was foggy-headed. At first, I could not get through my brain what she was saying. “I don’t mean to alarm you,” she said. “But you need to call home immediately.” Terror struck me. My mind raced. Where was Steve? Bindi lay asleep in the bedroom. I asked the woman from the Red Cross to stay on the porch while I went across the street to the pay phone. The international calling procedure seemed immensely complicated that morning, and terribly slow. I tried to keep my fingers steady as I dialed. The sun had not yet risen. I was in my robe. It was February of 2000, and I remember thinking, It’s always the coldest just before the sun comes up. I heard Steve’s voice on the other end of the phone and experienced an immediate flood of relief. He’s alive. But something was terribly wrong. Steve was incoherent. I couldn’t figure out what had happened. Not long before, we had lost our favorite crocodile to old age, and I thought that something had happened to one of our animals. But the tone of Steve’s voice was different. He was sobbing, but finally managed to choke out the words. His mother had been killed in a car accident. I felt the blood drain from my face. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t know what he was talking about. He tried to explain, but he couldn’t really talk. The next thing I knew, the line went dead. It took a few frantic calls to find out what had happened. In the process of moving to their new home on our property, Lyn had left Rosedale to make one last trip with a few remaining family possessions. She was driving with the family malamute, Aylic, in the passenger seat beside her, and Sharon, their bird-eating spider, in a glass terrarium tank in the back of the truck. Lyn left the Rosedale house early, about three o’clock in the morning. As she approached Ironbark Station, her Ute left the road traveling sixty miles an hour. The truck hit a tree and she died instantly. Aylic was killed as well, and the tank holding the bird-eating spider was smashed to pieces. Early in the morning, at the precise moment when the crash happened, Steve was working on the backhoe at the zoo. He suddenly felt as if he had been hit by something that knocked him over, and he fell violently off the machine, hitting the ground so hard that his sunglasses came off. He told me later that he knew something terrible had happened. Steve got in his Ute and started driving. He had no idea what had happened, but he knew where he had to go. It was still early. With uncanny precision, he drove toward where the accident occurred. His mobile phone rang. It was Frank. When his brother-in-law told him what had happened and where, Steve realized he was already headed there.

Italians stand up a lot at bars,” I comment, taking the glass of water Luca’s pushing toward me. It’s fizzy, with ice and lime in it, and I drink it very gratefully. He smiles. I notice that one corner of his mouth lifts higher than the other when he does so, in a little quirk that sets off his handsomeness precisely because of its irregularity. “Italians like to show off their clothes,” he says. “They like clothes that are signed.” He hits his brow theatrically with one hand. “Firmati,” he says. “That is how we say ‘designer.’ They like designer clothes. If you stand up, people see them better.” Ha! I bet every single piece of clothing Elisa was wearing today is designer. “But your style, it’s very English,” Luca observes, and he reaches across the table to snag his index finger under the big strands of fake pearls around my neck, lifting them for a moment, then letting them fall back to my collarbone again. For a split second, his finger touches my skin, and he might as well have brushed me with a lit match. “Very…” He snaps his fingers, searching for the word. “Eccentrica,” he says finally. “Oh God!” My face drops. “It’s that bad?” “Cosa?” He looks confused. “Bad?” “In English, ‘eccentric’ is sort of like ‘mad,’” I explain. “If you’re really posh, especially. You could be a raving loony who eats bats for breakfast, and as long as you have a title, they’d call you eccentric and think it was charming.” Luca, clearly, hasn’t understood all of this. But he’s thrown his head back and is laughing so hard that I see people beyond us turning to look in curiosity. He looks absolutely gorgeous when he laughs, his mouth curving up, tiny lines creasing around his eyes; his usual cool demeanor is wiped away, and he looks younger, sweeter, much more approachable.

Ice. Loretta sucked in a whine of air as the shock of water washed over her body. A warm arm encircled her waist. A large hand clamped over her ribs. She twisted her neck to see, then froze. The Comanche. Instinctively she thrashed and squirmed in his arms. She tried to throw herself away from him. But it was all to no avail. Hunter held her fast with one arm hooked through her elbows behind her and walked deeper into the water until it hit her chin high. A convulsive shudder ran the length of her. Cold. Oh, mercy, it was so horribly cold. He ran a hand down her belly. The touch was slow, effortless, leaving her in no doubt that he could explore any part of her he chose, at his leisure. “Ah, mah-tao-yo, you are so hot. Even where you are not burned. Toquet,” he whispered. “You will not fight.” Something about his voice seemed familiar, oddly comforting. Her father, she realized, somehow his voice put her in mind of her father. She fought back tears. Shivers racked her. So cold. The freezing ache of it blocked out everything else. Her teeth began chattering nonstop. When she could bear it no longer, she made one last attempt to get free. “It will pass,” he promised. “You will be still. It is a burn, no? From the sun. You have fire inside you. The cold will chase it away. You understand?” She tried to nod. When she did, she took a mouthful of water and choked. He exclaimed under his breath and turned her so her chin rested on his shoulder. The shock of his body heat against her breasts and belly made her gasp. In the moonlight, the cut in his flesh from Rachel’s bullet was a black line. “Toquet, mah-tao-yo, toquet.” His arms tightened around her, hard, powerful, yet strangely gentle. “Close your eyes, eh? Trust this Comanche. We will make war tomorrow.” Time ceased to exist. There was nothing but the night, the water, and the Indian. Loretta floated into a dream world. She was sick, so awfully sick. Too sick to care what happened. Too sick to fight it.

The Ultimate Guide To SEO In The 21st Century Search engine optimization is a complex and ever changing method of getting your business the exposure that you need to make sales and to build a solid reputation on line. To many people, the algorithms involved in SEO are cryptic, but the basic principle behind them is impossible to ignore if you are doing any kind of business on the internet. This article will help you solve the SEO puzzle and guide you through it, with some very practical advice! To increase your website or blog traffic, post it in one place (e.g. to your blog or site), then work your social networking sites to build visibility and backlinks to where your content is posted. Facebook, Twitter, Digg and other news feeds are great tools to use that will significantly raise the profile of your pages. An important part of starting a new business in today's highly technological world is creating a professional website, and ensuring that potential customers can easily find it is increased with the aid of effective search optimization techniques. Using relevant keywords in your URL makes it easier for people to search for your business and to remember the URL. A title tag for each page on your site informs both search engines and customers of the subject of the page while a meta description tag allows you to include a brief description of the page that may show up on web search results. A site map helps customers navigate your website, but you should also create a separate XML Sitemap file to help search engines find your pages. While these are just a few of the basic recommendations to get you started, there are many more techniques you can employ to drive customers to your website instead of driving them away with irrelevant search results. One sure way to increase traffic to your website, is to check the traffic statistics for the most popular search engine keywords that are currently bringing visitors to your site. Use those search words as subjects for your next few posts, as they represent trending topics with proven interest to your visitors. Ask for help, or better yet, search for it. There are hundreds of websites available that offer innovative expertise on optimizing your search engine hits. Take advantage of them! Research the best and most current methods to keep your site running smoothly and to learn how not to get caught up in tricks that don't really work. For the most optimal search engine optimization, stay away from Flash websites. While Google has improved its ability to read text within Flash files, it is still an imperfect science. For instance, any text that is part of an image file in your Flash website will not be read by Google or indexed. For the best SEO results, stick with HTML or HTML5. You have probably read a few ideas in this article that you would have never thought of, in your approach to search engine optimization. That is the nature of the business, full of tips and tricks that you either learn the hard way or from others who have been there and are willing to share! Hopefully, this article has shown you how to succeed, while making fewer of those mistakes and in turn, quickened your path to achievement in search engine optimization!

Advantages of the ASP I have already explained how the ASP is advantageous with regard to its compactness and ease of carry, but there are other advantages. Carrying an impact weapon gives you the ability to counter a threat with less than lethal force, which may save you a long stint in prison. The compact ASP has advantages over the 28-inch stick of the traditional Filipino martial arts. When you are chest-to-chest against an opponent, it's difficult to hit him decisively with a 26-28 inch long stick. Filipino martial artists practice raising the arm and twisting the wrist to snap the tip into an opponent's head, but these flicking strikes can't be counted on to drop an attacker. Also, because of the stick's light weight, space and distance are needed to wind up and generate power. At very close range the short, heavy stick –such as a blackjack, sap, or an 8-inch steel bar-- is a better weapon. The striking tip of the ASP is made of steel, and the middle section is high-grade aluminum. This solid construction means that the ASP hits hard. The unexpanded ASP can be used like a metal yawara (palm stick), which is devastating in close. The Knife The second weapon in Steel Baton EDC is a knife carried at the neck. The knife should be compact and relatively light so that it is comfortable enough for neck carry. Get a light beaded chain that will break away, so that you aren't strangled with your own neck lanyard. The knife should have a straight handle without loops or fingerholes, because you want to be able to access the knife with either hand in an instant, without having to thread your fingers into holes or work to secure a grip. Avoid folding knives. You want a knife that you can draw in an instant. No matter how much you practice drawing and opening your knife, or even if you get an automatic (switchblade) or assisted opener, you will always be slower getting the folding knife open and into action, particularly under stress. Keep in mind that “under stress” may mean somebody socking you in the face repeatedly. Once again, you want open carry. Open carry is almost always legal and is more easily accessible if you are under attack. You can get a neodymium magnet and put it in the gap between the seam of your shirt, in between the buttons. The magnet will attract the steel blade of your knife so that the knife will stay centered and not flop around if you're moving. My recommended knives for neck carry are the Cold Steel Super Edge and the Cold Steel Hide Out. The Super Edge is small, light, and inconspicuous. It also comes in useful as a day-to-day utility tool, opening packages, trimming threads, removing tags, and so on. Get the Rambo knife image out of your mind. You only need a small knife to deter an attacker, because nobody wants to get cut. And if your life is on the line, you can still do serious damage with a small blade.

Be sure, Blue. Because what you desire can’t be achieved unless we cross some lines. Do you want to cross lines with me?” I take a deep breath and look him in the eyes. “Yes, please.” He slaps my face so hard, I fall to the ground. My knees hit the hard wood floor, making me scream out. He grabs my hair and pulls me back to my feet, and then drags me over to the bed and throws me down face-first.

From a martial perspective, this point is generally difficult to hit, but situations when you move to the back of your opponent open the possibility of knee strikes aimed in the coccyx bone. These types of strikes are extremely effective in dropping an opponent. Hard knee strikes to this region not only shock the energy core of the body, but also shocks the entire nervous system with the connection of the coccyx bone to the spine. Besides immediately dropping an opponent, as they can no longer continue the fight from the energetic blast up their spinal column, it can cause the bowels and the bladder to empty. As stated numerous times, it is unwise to allow your opponent to gain position on your back. There are just too many devastating strikes that can be landed with little recourse. Your martial arts training needs to account for this. So, if you are training a lot of spinning type moves, or moves that put you into a position that would compromise you position by presenting your back, then you should seriously reconsider those techniques or methods. CV-4 A properly thrown strike into this Vital Point will cause your opponent to fold forward into a Yin body posture, which will allow easy access to several follow-up points. An easy way to remember this vital point is to think of striking an opponent just below the belt line, but not their genitals. Boxers some time refer to this area as the “bread basket.” It is located about three inches below the navel on the centerline of the body. CV-4 is the alarm point for the Small Intestine Meridian and an intersection point of the Spleen, Kidney, and Liver Meridians. Strikes to this point should be at a downward 45-degree angle, if possible, and can break the pubic bone causing great pain in the opponent. Downward aimed punches and hard driving straight kicks to this region can be effective in a combative situation. Striking this point can be conducted very deceptively, as the majority of opponents will not be expecting a strike aimed to a low region of the body. It is instinctive for a male to protect the genitals from attack, usually by twisting the hips to the side or narrowing the legs. CV-4 can still be accessible even if they twist their hips to avoid a genital strike. Once struck with adequate force, the body folds forward and exposes numerous points on the neck and back for additional attacks. A strike to this Vital Point attacks the energy center of the body and has a massive draining effect on an opponent. Defensively, protecting your centerline can not be expressed strongly enough.

No matter the line of business you are into, if the currency you are dealing with is being hit as hard as the Nigerian naira, you will never be happy. That is more reason to vote for, and install leaders with an in-depth understanding of moving all spheres of the economy forward.

I don’t know at which point I crossed the line. Maybe it was the first hit that first night, or maybe it was after the first year of regular use. In one sense, it didn’t matter; once I stepped over the line, the rest was history. They were in control from that point on, not me. I may have initially done drugs to feel good, to fit in, to escape the pressures of daily life, to party hard, to feel cool, and to make scandalous memories, but now I was doing them because I had become dependent on them.

When you hit rock bottom, you feel it. You break down, walls crumbling until you’re free-falling. The feelings that you tried to run from suddenly rush up around you in an unstoppable force, the gravity of your thoughts now nothing but a punishing plunge. When you slam into the bottom, that landing jolts you all the way to your very soul. You hit hard, and it cracks the very foundation of the world. The ground fragments beneath you, lines stretching far and wide. And then you’re left, a pile of rubble. But I realize something as I lie here, surrounded by the destruction of my plummet. These cracks that have spread out from my caustic landing, they’re not evidence of my ruination. They’re paths. Each jagged line leads from me and then diverts away, showing me all the different ways I could go from here.

I wanted to believe, for years, that Adam didn’t remember that night because of how hard he hit his head. The truth was, I think Adam’s spirit was broken in that moment. It was the first and last time he ever put himself in Dad’s path. Unbeknownst to me, Adam had taken one blow and immediately passed the martyr torch to the next in line. It wasn’t ignorance, the years of ignoring and denying what happened in our home, it was a deliberate surrender.

Dallas latched on to the forearm of my hand curled around her throat and plastered her back against the hood of the car as I continued fucking her hard. The door behind us opened, and Jared walked in. “Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to—” “Get the fuck out,” I roared. My demand shook the walls so hard I was surprised they hadn’t cracked. The door promptly closed. Perhaps because it was, by far, the most pleasurable experience I’d ever had, the orgasm wasn’t instant. It skulked forward, gripping each of my limbs with its claws, taking over me like a drug. I knew I’d regret what was about to happen. Yet, I could not even entertain the idea of stopping. Dallas quaked beneath me. The muscles of her thighs strained. Sliding into her hot tightness a few more times, I finally erupted inside her. It was glorious. And at the same time, felt as if someone had sucked my chest empty. I came, and I came, and I came into Dallas’s cunt. When I finally pulled out, everything between us was sticky. I peered down between her legs. My thick white cum dripped from her swollen red slit to the hood of my car. Pink flakes of blood scattered inside the cloudy, milky liquid. Panting and out of breath, I realized this marked the first time that I’d lost myself to a moment. That I’d forgotten everything. Including the fact that she was present. My gaze rode up her bruised pussy to her torso. Sometime during sex, I’d torn the top of her dress without even noticing. Red marks covered her exposed breasts. Full of scratches and bites. Her neck still bore the imprints of my fingers—how hard had I grabbed her? And though I dreaded seeing the aftermath on her face, I couldn’t stop myself. I looked up and nearly keeled over to vomit. Flushed pink cloaked her face. A single silent tear traveled down her cheek. A glossy sheen coated her hazel eyes, almost golden in their tone and empty as my chest. The corner of her lips had produced a thin line of blood. Her doing. Not mine. She’d bitten them to tamp down her pained cries. Shortbread wanted me to fuck her bareback so badly, she’d suffered through the entire ordeal. Incomparable guilt slammed into me. Bitterness hit the back of my throat. I’d taken her without considering her pleasure. Against my better judgment. And in the process, I’d ruined her first genuine experience of sex. “Sorry.” I jerked away from Dallas, shoved my dripping half-mast cock back into my pants, and zipped up. “Jesus. Fuck. I’m so—” The rest of the sentence vanished in my throat. I shook my head, still in disbelief that I’d fucked her to the point of blood and tears. Without even sparing her a glance. She sat up. That lone tear still shimmered from her cheek, somehow even worse than a loud sob. “Do you have any gum?” The perfect, even composure braided into her voice rattled me. In fact, everything about Dallas rattled me. On autopilot, I produced two pieces of gum from my tin container, forking them over to her. She tucked both into her pretty pink mouth that I would never kiss and fuck again. “Shortbread…” I stopped. An apology wouldn’t even begin to cover it. “No. It’s my time to speak.” She made no move to flee. To slap me. To call the police, her parents, her sister. My cum still dripped fat white drops through her exposed pussy. A single streak of blood smeared across the hood of my car. I stood far enough from her that I wasn’t a threat and listened.(Chapter 44)

Do you want to know a secret?” she breathed, her voice lowering seductively. “What?” I asked, wanting to hear anything and everything she might ever want to tell me. She leaned a little closer and her long hair tickled my skin. “I think,” she breathed slowly. “That I’m going to puke.” She leapt off of me so quickly that the bed bounced beneath me as she darted to the en-suite. My dick was straining so hard against my fly that I thought it might actually burst and I had to rearrange myself before I could follow her. By the time I got there she’d already emptied her stomach contents into the toilet and she flushed it before stumbling towards the basin where she washed her mouth out. She proceeded to steal my toothbrush like a goddamn animal and I leaned against the doorframe as I watched her, trying not to look at her ass too much as she bent forward over the basin but I was clearly failing at that. I should have been pissed at her for intruding on my space like this but somehow I didn’t mind at all. When she’d finished, she sauntered back towards me, pushing a hand into her hair as she fought to walk in a straight line. She failed. I caught her as she almost face planted into the tiles and hooked her into my arms before returning her to the bed again. She tugged me down too and I was past the point of protesting. The moment her head hit the pillow her eyes fell shut but she turned towards me, draping an arm across my waist. I flicked the lights off and the room was only illuminated by the fire which was burning low in the grate. “You’re unbelievable, you know that,” she mumbled. “In what way?” I asked, wondering if she just might be about to admit that she felt this heat between us too. She shifted nearer to me and I pulled her close as she laid her head on my chest. My heart was hammering wildly and I couldn’t quite believe the strange turn of events that had led us here. For the longest moment she didn’t speak and I began to wonder if she’d fallen asleep but then she carried on. “You have the biggest goddamn jacuzzi I’ve ever seen in your bathroom,” she said and I couldn’t help but laugh at the way that conversation had gone. “Do you like it?” I asked. “No. It’s just unbelievable. Like you. You’re just... such... a dick.” Her breathing grew heavier and I was sure she’d passed out again. A smile pulled at my lips in response to her comment. It might have been nice for my ego if she’d started declaring how attractive she found me, but in all honesty she just wouldn’t have been herself without her smart mouth. And I was beginning to realise that I might like that, and a few other things about her, just a bit too much. (Darius POV)

It’s hard to explain how important Star Trek is to me. I think I went to my first Star Trek convention when I was fifteen. So to hear that Leonard Nimoy—Mr. Spock—was on the phone, I was not processing what he was saying. I could only focus on his amazing voice. I thought this was a phone call to see if he’d agree to do the part, but in his mind, he had already agreed to do it! He had one specific note on the script, which is that Mr. Spock doesn’t use contractions when he speaks. He says “cannot;” he doesn’t say “can’t.” And I remember just being chagrined that I hadn’t intervened and had allowed this to go on. I loved Spock so much, I used to sneak lines of Mr. Spock dialogue from the movies and TV shows into Big Bang Theory and give them to Sheldon. There’s an episode early on where Sheldon and Leonard are having a fight, and Penny asks, “Well, how do you feel?” And Sheldon replies, “I don’t understand the question.” That’s from the beginning of Star Trek IV where Spock has reunited with his mind and his body, and is being quizzed by a computer about his status. So Leonard Nimoy was just one of many fanboy moments. I once said to LeVar Burton, “If I could go back in time and tell my teenage self there would be a day where I would eventually talk to three crew members of the USS Enterprise, I’d fall over and die.

Why would you say that?' 'Are you seriously asking me that?' Yes I am. It doesn't make sense.' 'You don't make sense.' I hit his shoulder- or chest. Some extremely hard part of him. Hawke grunted. 'Ouch.' I so did not hit him hard enough for that. 'You're fine.' 'I'm bruised.' 'You're ridiculous,' I retorted. 'And it's you who makes no sense.' 'I'm the one sitting here being honest. You're the one hitting me. How do I not make sense?' 'Because this whole thing makes no sense.' Frustration rose swiftly through me, and I started to stand, but the hand on my hip stopped me. Or I let it stop me. I wasn't sure. And that was even more irritating. 'You could be spending time with anyone, Hawke- any number of people you wouldn't have to hide in a willow tree to be with.' 'And yet, I'm here with you. And before you even begin to think it's because of my duty to you, it's not. I could've just walked you back to your room and stayed out in the hall.' 'That's my point. It makes no sense. You can have a slew of willing participants in... whatever this is. It would be easy,' I said. Pretty Britta came to mind. I was sure he'd had her. 'You can't have me. I'm... I'm un-have-able.' 'I'm confident that's not even a word.' 'That's not the point. I'm not allowed to do this. Any of this. I shouldn't have done what I did at the Red Pearl,' I continued. 'It doesn't matter if I want.' 'And you do want.' His whisper danced over my cheek. 'What you want is me.' My breath caught. 'That doesn't matter.' 'What you want should always matter.' A short, harsh laugh left me. 'It doesn't, and that's another thing that isn't the point. You could-' 'I heard you the first time, Princess. You're right. I could find someone who would be easier.' His fingers traced the line of my mask from my right ear and along my cheek. I had no idea how he could see. 'Ladies or Lords in Wait, who aren't burdened by rules or limitations, who aren't Maidens I'm sworn to protect. There are a lot of ways I could occupy my time that don't include explaining in great detail why I'm choosing to be where I am, with whom I choose.' The corners of my lips started to turn down. 'The thing is,' he went on, 'none of them intrigue me. You do.' You intrigue me. 'It's really that simple for you?' I asked, wanting to believe him, and also not. His forehead rested against mine, startling me. 'Nothing is ever simple. And when it is, it's rarely ever worth it.

also watched the advanced tape. But Squeaky had gone grad school on me. He’s throwing reach casts, curve casts, roll casts, steeple casts, and casts he calls squiggles and stutters. He’s writing his name with the line in the air. He’s making his dry fly look like the Blue Angels. He’s pitching things forehand, backhand, and between his wader legs. And, through the magic of video editing, every time his hook-tipped dust kitty hits the water he lands a trout the size of a canoe. The videotape about trout themselves wasn’t much use either. It’s hard to get excited about where trout feed when you know that the only way you’re going to be able to get a fly to that place is by throwing your fly box at it. I must say, however, all the tapes were informative. “Nymphs and streamers” are not, as it turns out, naked mythological girls decorating the high school gym with crepe paper. And I learned that the part of fly-fishing I’m going to be best at is naming the flies: Woolly Hatcatcher Blue-Wing Earsnag Overhanging Brush Muddler Royal Toyota Hatchback O’Rourke’s Ouchtail P.J.’s Live Worm-’n-Bobber By now I’d reached what I think they call a “learning plateau.” That is, if I was going to catch a fish with a fly rod, I had to either go get in the water or open the fridge and toss hooks at Mrs. Paul’s frozen

Unsurprisingly, the nation’s xenophobia has seeped into popular culture. Bollywood, long known for its extensive Muslim involvement across the entire industry, is being forced to toe the anti-Islam perspective. Many in Bollywood happily pushed the hard-line Hindu nationalist agenda, releasing films that openly celebrated the actions of the Indian armed forces. In a similar vein, the Israeli series Fauda, which features undercover Israeli agents in the West Bank, has been hugely popular among right-wing Indians, looking for a sugar hit of war on terror and anti-Islamist propaganda in a slickly produced format. During the May 2020 Covid-19 lockdown, the right-wing economist Subramanian Swamy, who sits on the BJP national executive, tweeted that he loved Fauda.28 The post-9/11 “war on terror” suited both India and Israel in their plans to pacify their respective unwanted populations. To this end, Israel trained Indian forces in counterinsurgency. Following a 2014 agreement between Israel and India, pledging to cooperate on “public and homeland security,” countless Indian officers, special forces, pilots, and commandoes visited Israel for training. In 2020, Israel refused to screen Indian police officers to determine if they had committed any abuses in India. Israeli human rights advocate Eitay Mack and a range of other activists petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court in 2020 to demand that Israel stop training Indian police officers who “blind, murder, rape, torture and hide civilians in Kashmir.” The court rejected the request, and in the words of the three justices, “without detracting from the importance of the issue of human rights violations in Kashmir.

It seemed to me that the precision required to play good golf demanded much greater mental discipline than was necessary for good tennis. The reason for the low margin of error was not hard to discover: the speed of the club head that is necessary to hit the ball a long distance. The speed of the golfer’s arms on the downswing is not much greater than the speed of the tennis player’s arm on the serve, but because of the greater length and flexibility of the golf club, the club-head speed is much greater than that of a racket. If a club head traveling over 100 mph contacts the ball with a face open a mere degree or two, the ball can be sent off target many tens of yards. With those odds, it’s amazing that the ball ever does go exactly where we want it to. In tennis, the serve is the only shot in which the player initiates the action, whereas in golf he does so on every shot. It is interesting to note that if you miss your first serve in tennis, you get another try. Golf is not so forgiving! Further, in tennis a much larger surface hits a much larger ball a much shorter distance. Moving from tennis to golf was definitely going to require some fine-tuning of my concentration. The greater precision required in golf is also reflected in the manner in which the player addresses the ball. A tennis player can be pretty casual, or even a little flamboyant, as he sets up the service line, bounces the ball a few times, and serves. Most professional golfers display much more self-discipline. They seem to approach the ball in the same controlled, almost ritualistic way every time. Even their dress seems more meticulous. (I’ve often felt I could pick out the golfers from the tennis players at a cocktail party.) Meticulousness has never been my strong suit. There isn’t a family picture of me as a boy in which at least one shoe wasn’t untied. I could usually solve

I rolled around and hit my face to wake myself up, but the pain proved that everything was real - because pain is another word for reality. The surfaces were hard, indeed. My eyes were wide open and lucid, but fear had deformed everything, it had driven me into the hallucination and delirium. I stood up, shook the industrial refuse from my clothes, and went back, my heart beating more strongly than it should have, to the door gaping open in the great building's wall. I knew full well that on the outside, the building was perfectly rectangular, that there was no way for the door to open into a room, and yet it led into a virtual depth, as inexplicable as the depth of a photograph, or the depths of perspective that create a third, and false, dimension in paintings on a wall. If you could go inside a trompe l'oeil mural, you wouldn't descend into its fraudulent depths, you would only get smaller as you moved along unseen lines of perspective. You wouldn't move through constantly changing spaces, with porphyry arches and columns and unintelligible Biblical images opening and closing behind you; rather, they would change their shapes constantly, rectangles would become parallelograms and trapezoids, the arcs of circles would change into hyperbolas, and circle into ellipses, becoming thinner and thinner as they tried to look deeper and farther away. I often thought that the world, along its three dimensions, is an equally deceiving trompe l'oeil for the infinitely more complex eye of our mind, with its two cerebral hemispheres taking in the world at slightly different angles, such that, by combining rational analysis and mystical sensibility, speech and song, happiness and depression, the abject and the sublime, it will make the amazing rosebud of the fourth dimension open before us, with its pearly petals, with its full depth, with its cubic surface, with its hypercubic volume. As though an embryo didn't grow in its mother's womb but arrived, from far away, and only the illusion of perspective made it seem to grow, like a wayfarer approaching along an empty road. A wayfarer who, after he passes through the iliac portal, continues his illusory rise, first an infant, then a child, then an adolescent, and in the end, when he is face-to-face with you and looks you in the eyes, he smiles at you like a friend from the other side of the mirror, having found you again, at last.

He crossed to the small guard station and foraged through its drawers until he found the first-aid box. He threw bottles over his shoulder and they shattered on the ground behind him. When he came to the procaine hydrochloride vial, he stopped. The Maingate physician had insisted it be present in case emergency oral surgery were ever necessary for the guards; in addition to being a contained security unit, the Tower had to be a self-sufficient medical station. Allander withdrew a needle from the small packet and fit it gently into a plastic syringe. He punched the needle through the rubber top of the vial and withdrew some of the liquid, then cleared the air from the syringe. A few drops squirted through, onto the floor. Taking a deep breath, Allander inserted the needle into the tip of the ring finger on his left hand. He waited for the numbness to spread and settle. After a few minutes, he removed a scalpel from its sterile package and dipped it in the container of alcohol. Then he made a neat incision, cutting diagonally through his fingerprint. Since the anesthetic had not fully taken effect, he felt a painful tingling in the pad of his finger, but feeling suddenly rushed for time, he continued. Using tweezers, he pried underneath the skin, grimacing as he saw his flesh rise along the straight line of the cut. The blood came and washed over the end of the tweezers until it obscured his view. Once, he felt the tweezers close on something hard and he pulled gently, but when the tweezers emerged from the bloody gash, they held only fleshy material that looked like gristle. Allander hadn’t anticipated that numbing the finger would have made it difficult for him to distinguish the location sensor from his own senseless tissue. Beginning to lose patience, he pressed the tweezers in until they hit the bone. He applied too much pressure and they slid around the side of his finger next to his nail, pulling the flesh around and stretching the cut open. He heard a soft, metallic clink as the tweezers struck something distinctly alien, and he bit his lip in a mixture of pain and delight. Finally, working the tweezers around the metal, he withdrew the sensor, which was the size of a large pea. The flesh around the cut strained and whitened at the edges as he pulled the bloody orb through. After pressing gauze to his wound, Allander wrapped it with medical tape, bandaging it thoroughly. Then he used the tape to affix the location sensor to the side of the Hole. It was close enough to its assigned location that the difference in position would not be detected from the mainland.

She is very close to having a pretty face. But there’s a hardness to her that seems reluctant to lapse and let her cross the boundary into simple prettiness. She has a structured look, everything ordered. Her hair is carefully clipped into place. Her suit is straight edges and diagonal lines. Fashionable without being flashy, but without looking comfortable either. She seems a rather severe woman. The sort who’d play a nun in a movie and hit your knuckles with a ruler.

I don't understand American football. If you're going to line a bunch of behemoths up in front of a bunch of other behemoths and ask them to hit each other as hard as they can, why tell them they can only hit one another a certain way? Too many rules, that's the problem.

Help me,” the girl pleaded softly. Sam knelt beside her. He recoiled in shock. “Bette?” The left side of Bouncing Bette’s face was covered in blood. There was a gash above her temple. She was panting, gasping, like she had collapsed after a marathon and was trying with her last ounce of energy to crawl across the finish line. “Bette, what happened?” “They’re trying to get me,” Bette cried, and clutched at Sam’s arm. The three dark figures advanced to the edge of the circle of light. One was clearly Orc. No one else was that big. Edilio and Quinn moved into the garage doorway. Sam disengaged from Bette and took up a position beside Edilio. “You want me to beat on you guys, I will!” Orc yelled. “What’s going on here?” Sam demanded. He narrowed his eyes and recognized the other two boys, a kid named Karl, a seventh grader from school, and Chaz, one of the Coates eighth graders. All three were armed with aluminum bats. “This isn’t your business,” Chaz said. “We’re dealing with something here.” “Dealing with what? Orc, did you hit Bette?” “She was breaking the rules,” Orc said. “You hit a girl, man?” Edilio said, outraged. “Shut up, wetback,” Orc said. “Where’s Howard?” Sam asked, just to stall while he tried to figure out what to do. He’d lost one fight to Orc already. Orc took the question as an insult. “I don’t need Howard to handle you, Sam.” Orc marched right up to Sam, stopped a foot away, and put his bat on his shoulder like he was ready to swing for a home run. Like a batter ready for the next fastball. Only this was closer to T-ball: Sam’s head was impossible to miss. “Move, Sam,” Orc ordered. “Okay, I’m not doing this again,” Quinn said. “Let him have her, Sam.” “Ain’t no ‘let me,’” Orc said. “I do what I want.” Sam noticed movement behind Orc. There were people coming down the street, twenty or more kids. Orc noticed it too, and glanced behind him. “They aren’t going to save you,” Orc said, and swung the bat hard. Sam ducked. The bat whooshed past his head, and Orc rotated halfway around, carried forward by the momentum. Sam was thrown off balance, but Edilio was ready. He let loose a roar and plowed headfirst into Orc. Edilio was maybe half Orc’s size, but Orc was knocked off his feet. He sprawled out on the concrete. Chaz went after Edilio, trying to pull him off Orc. The crowd of kids who had come running down the street surged forward. There were angry voices and threats, all aimed at Orc. They yelled, Sam noted, but no one exactly jumped into the unequal fight.

But you can’t forget how easy it is to seduce people,” Ben said. “You see that everywhere, be it politics or religion. Even here in Europe, populists have been wildly successful despite the fact that this continent has a lot of experience with fanatical right- and left-wing ideology.” “Most people yearn for guidance,” Fritz said. “They want others to determine their lives for them, at least when all is said and done. In politics, the only people who are respected are so-called ‘strong’ leaders or politicians who show the way. It’s hardly surprising these people don’t have a basic understanding of democracy.” “That’s the problem,” said Ben. “People love to be told what they should do. And the worse they have it, the more grateful they are for a strong hand to push them.” “That said, we don’t exactly have it that bad here in Europe,” Hannes added. “Sure, there’s always some economic crisis and unemployment is rising, but still most people have it good enough that they can’t be enthralled by some dictator.” “Economic crises aren’t the only reason people turn to extremism,” Fritz said. “It’s also about personal crises. Look at the faces on the bus. How many people look happy?” “They’re probably just tired,” Ben joked. “But it’s true. There are plenty of studies which suggest that people in poorer countries are happier than we are. But when did you last hear politicians discuss the question of how we actually want to live? Emotional needs are basically irrelevant. It’s all about growth, recovery, optimization, and efficiency. If you work day after day in some office like a robot, there’s an inner emptiness that reality shows and dramas on television can no longer fill. Take a look at the nonsense the masses tune into night after night. You can’t consume real feelings, you have to live them.” “But that’s exactly what our society has forgotten how to do,” Fritz said. “You need someone to advise you on how to be ‘happy.’ At some schools, students can now choose Happiness as an elective. How sad is that? Have we become so far removed from real life that we have to introduce happiness as a school subject? How can society not understand something so fundamental?” “Now some charismatic, eloquent politician appears who knows exactly how to appeal to people,” Ben said. “Do you really think we would be completely immune to a politician’s temptations and promises today?” “Okay, okay!” Hannes laughed and raised his hands. “I give up. At the next neo-Nazi march, I’ll be standing in the front line of the counterdemonstration, I promise. But speaking of robots—I spent way too long spinning on the hamster wheel today. And Fritz has already given me a list of things to do tomorrow. It’s been lovely chatting, but I have to hit the hay.” “Man! But we’ve only just started planning the revolution,” Ben joked. “No, my young colleague’s right.” Fritz rose from his chair. “I just have to use the bathroom and then I’ll be on my way.” “It’s straight ahead.” Ben showed him the way and handed Hannes another beer. “Come on, you Goody Two-Shoes. Let’s have a

In the locker room had been posted a phrase uttered by Theodore Roosevelt, saying, “Don’t flinch, don’t foul, but hit the line hard.” Though intended for football, it was a motto that Nixon adopted as his own. He was far from the best player on the field, but he showed up to play every day and always gave it his full effort.

This is a hard chapter for me to write. I am as uninvolved in biblical citizenship as other Christians. Involvement means front-line duty. Front-line duty means you get shot at. When it comes to getting shot at, I am your basic, Christian coward. I don't like to fight. I don't like to get hit. I don't like to get hurt. I know that as long as I am uninformed and uninvolved, I am safe. I don't have to suffer. Then I read 1 Peter. It tells me that a Spirit-filled, Word-orientated saint will be on the front lines, doing what is right, and suffering. It is hard for me to read and think and discuss in the realm of politics. There are other things I would rather do. It is hard for me to take a firm, intelligent stand on a political issue. It is even harder for me to make it public, and defend it, and have it criticized and ridiculed. In the area of government my comfort zone is way behind the front lines. How about yours? Maybe what we both need to do is volunteer for some front line duty while we are still allowed to carry weapons.

I don’t want to die.” I say, defiantly. “Bright Side, what?” He’s confused. Of course he’s confused. No one starts a conversation like that. I repeat, “I don’t want to fucking die.” “Oh, shit, Bright Side.” I hear him take a deep breath, a primer for the conversationthat’s about to unfold. “Talk to me. What’s going on?” “I’m fucking dying, Gus. I don’t want to die. That’s what’s fucking going on.” I hit the steering wheel with my palms. “Goddammit!” I scream... Gus doesn’t deserve this, but I know he’ll deal with it better than anyone else would. “Calm down, dude. Where are you?” “I don’t know. I’m sitting in my car in a fucking parking garage in the middle of motherfucking Minneapolis, Minnesota.” That was hostile. “Are you by yourself?” “Yes,” I snap. “You’re not supposed to be driving while you’re on your pain meds.” I don’t want his fatherly tone. “I know that.” “Are you in danger or hurt?” I burst out laughing, surprised that I can’t even laugh without sounding angry. The question is absurd to me though. I’m dying. “Bright Side, shut up for a second and talk to me. Do I need to call 911? What the fuck is going on?” He sounds scared. I shake my head like he can see me. “No, no. I’m just ... I’m fucking mad, Gus. That’s all.” And at a loss for words because my mind is jumbled up into this bitter, resentful ball. I don’t know what else to say so I repeat myself. “I’m really fucking mad.” “Well shit, by all means, there’s plenty of room at my table for anger.” He gets it. That’s why I called him, after all. “I’ve been dishing out heaping servings of fury for the past month. I feel better knowing I’m not the only one in this whole debacle with some rage issues. So fire away. Fucking give it to me.” I do. An explosive, steady stream of expletives flows out of me. I’m cursing it all, shouting out questions, pounding the steering wheel, and wiping away hot, angry tears. Occasionally Gus joins in, yelling affirmations. Sometimes he waits for a pause on my part and takes his turn and sometimes he just steamrolls over the top of me... Eventually, my tears stop, and I’m able to take normal breaths. My throat feels tight and my head hurts a little, but I’m calm. On the other end of the line, Gus gets quiet, too. Silence falls between us... My voice is raspy when I decide to break the silence. “Gus?” “Yeah, Bright Side.” He sounds like himself again. Calm. “Thanks.” I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off of me. And now I need to apologize. “Sorry, dude.” He laughs. “No worries. You feel better?” I can actually smile now. “Yeah, I really do.” “Good, me too. I think we should’ve done this weeks ago.” “I think I should’ve done it months ago.” I mean it. It felt so good to let it all out. “Bright Side, you know I love you all happy and adorable in your little world of sunshine and rainbows, but you’re kinda hot when you’re angry. I dig aggressive chicks. And that was crazy aggressive.” He knows I’m going to say it, but I can’t help myself. “Whatever.” I even roll my eyes. “I think I’m gonna rename you Demon Seed.” “What? I show you my dark side and now I have to be the fucking antichrist? I don’t like that. Why can’t I just be Angry Bitch?” He laughs hard and my heart swellsbecause I haven’t heard this laugh out of Gus in a month. And I love this laugh. “Well dude, since it seems my therapysession has wrapped up, I’d better get going. I need to get home.” “Sure. Drive slowly and text me when you get there so I know you made it. And no more driving after this trip.” “Yes sir. I love you, Gus.” “Love you, too, Angry Bitch,” his voice low and dramatic. He pauses because he knows I’m not going to hang up to that. “I was just trying it out,” he says innocently.

A reflection on the stainless steel cupboard door to his left. Just a blur of motion, but he understood its meaning and spun around to see a pantry door swinging open hard, a dark-haired woman charging out of the darkness, her handgun rapidly coming into line with his position. Victor reacted faster, shooting first, two shots, hitting centre mass. The impact knocked her off her feet and threw her backwards into the adjoining room from where she’d emerged. He covered the distance fast, saw her lying on her back, alive, eyes closed, two small circles of blood around the scorch marks in her blouse. She was gasping, one lung collapsed. The gun was right next to her, but she didn’t try to get to it. She was too scared.

It's the ones that look like they're sleeping that I have a hard time with. Eventually, I notice the stillness. The absence of things I take for granted: the slow in-and-out of regular breathing, the thrum of blood pulsing under the skin. It hits me that they're not just playing a champion game of possum. It sinks in how thin the line is between me and them. One thimble of poison in my coffee and that's that. That's when the cold finger runs up my spine.

When you hit rock bottom, you feel it. You break down, walls crumbling until you're free-falling. The feelings that you tried to run from suddenly rush up around you in an unstoppable force, the gravity of your thoughts now nothing but a punishing plunge. When you slam into the bottom, that landing jolts you all the way to your very soul. You hit hard, and it cracks the very foundation of the world. The ground fragments beneath you, lines stretching far and wide. And then you're left, a pile of rubble. But I realize as I lie here, surrounded by the destruction of my plummet. These cracks that have spread out from my caustic landing, they're not evidence of my ruination. They're paths.

The fact that Devon has insisted I keep this line open when I’m walking into the lion’s den hits me hard. He’s making himself vulnerable right now for me.

You’ve never told me how he died.” “What?” “Josh. I knew he was dead, but you never told me what happened to him.” “Oh.” I swallow. Put my head back down on his shoulder since it seems safer that way. “I thought I had.” “You haven’t. I figured it was too raw and hard for you, so I never asked directly. You don’t have to tell me now if you don’t want.” “No. It’s okay. After Impact… After Impact, he got worse. A lot of people did. All the fear and the stress and the struggle to even survive. He eventually started to hit me. He’d do it once and then act all sorry and promise to never do it again. He’d be good for a while, but then he’d do it again. In the old world, I think him hitting me would have been a hard line for me. I really think I would have left after the first time. But after everything fell apart… I felt trapped. I was trapped. How the hell was I going to survive on my own in that world right after Impact. Everything was chaos. And so incredibly dangerous.” “So what happened?” he murmurs gently. “It went on like that for about six months. Then one day he hit me in the face. I tried to cover the bruise with the makeup I had left, but an older lady in town noticed and asked about it. I… I told her. The truth. That he was hitting me and it had been going on for a while. Nothing I did would make him stop.” Mack is silent. His hand is still now as it rests on my back. “Then… Then the next day…” I take a ragged breath. “Maybe it was just a coincidence. I never knew for sure. But the timing… Anyway, the next day he went off into the woods with a hunting party like normal. He never came back.” “Fuck,” Mack breathes out. “They said it was an accident. Someone else was shooting in the area and must have mistaken him for a deer or something. But he was wearing orange, so… I don’t know. But he was dead, and I was…” “You were what?” “I was so relieved. Not sad at all. Just relieved.” “Of course you were. Anyone would have been.” “And it was then I decided I was going to make the best of my freedom and new start. Even though we were going through an apocalypse, why shouldn’t I finally try to learn how to be strong?” “You did.” “Yeah. I think I did okay. I did get stronger, and maybe I’ve also finally figured out that real strength isn’t what I used to assume it was.

Computer chips are an outlier. They get better because we figure out how to cram more transistors on each one, but there’s no equivalent breakthrough to make cars use a million times less gas. Consider that the first Model T that rolled off Henry Ford’s production line in 1908 got no better than 21 miles to the gallon. As I write this, the top hybrid on the market gets 58 miles to the gallon. In more than a century, fuel economy has improved by less than a factor of three. Nor have solar panels become a million times better. When crystalline silicon solar cells were introduced in the 1970s, they converted about 15 percent of the sunlight that hit them into electricity. Today they convert around 25 percent. That’s good progress, but it’s hardly in line with Moore’s Law.

Normal is boring, Bee. It’s not something I’d wish for you.” He crossed the room to me, bringing one hand up to gently trace the line of my jaw. “Grief is a kick in the chest. It steals your breath, hits you so hard you think you’ll never stand back up again. And its not just because you’re grieving death or heartbreak or loss – you’re grieving change. You’re grieving the life that might have been, if it hadn’t all gotten fucked up along the way.” His other hand joined the one holding my jaw, so he was cupping my face in his hands. I closed my eyes and turned my cheek to rest in one of his palms. “You could spend forever thinking about the things you’ll never experience with your mother – infinity contemplating the memories she won’t ever be a part of. But at some point, you have to let the life you should’ve had go, and start living the one you’ve got,” Finn whispered. Tears spilled out from under my lashes and he caught them with his fingertips before they could fall. Ignoring the fact that I was a paint-splattered mess, he cradled me against his chest and his lips came to rest in my hair, bringing me comfort as I trembled in his arms. “Let go, Bee,” he whispered. And I did.

Ever plod along on a treadmill that tells you the number of calories burned? You might go 45 minutes before you hit 300 calories. Well, guess what? That’s 300 total calories burned in that time, and not 300 calories above what your baseline metabolism would have burned anyway, even while at rest. That’s the reason the exercise machine asks your weight: To calculate your baseline metabolic rate. The average male burns 105 calories at rest in 45 minutes. Those 195 extra calories that the exercise actually burned–only 195 calories more than if you had been taking a nap–can be undone by half a bagel in half a minute. And aerobic exercise typically spurns your appetite enough to more than offset those few actual calories burned. Here’s the skinny: One pound of fat can fuel a 130-pound female for 15 hours at target “cardio” heart range. If we were so metabolically inefficient as to burn calories at the rate the exercise equipment advertises, we would never have survived for so long, and certainly not endured the hardship of the Ice Ages. The calories expended hunting and gathering would have caused us to die of starvation long before we ever found a Wooly Mammoth. By today’s standards, we would hardly have enough metabolic economy to survive a trip to the super market, let alone hump it across enemy lines for a week-long reconnaissance mission with 120 pounds of gear.

I rang out a couple more customers as I thought about it, and...he slowly walked up to the counter and set down two spools of line. I should really figure out what the point of one being thicker than the other was. “Hi, Mr. Rhodes,” I greeted him with a smile. He’d taken his sunglasses off and slid them through one of the gaps between the buttons of his work shirt. His gray eyes were steady on me as he said in that same uninterested, stern tone from before, “Hi.” I took the first package of fishing line and scanned it. “How is your day going?” “Fine.” I scanned the next package and figured I might as well go in for the kill since no one was around. “You remember that time you said you owed me?” A day ago. He didn’t say anything, and I peeked up at him. Since his eyebrows couldn’t talk, they formed a shape that told me exactly how distrustful he was feeling right then. “You do, okay. Well,” and I lowered my voice, “I was going to ask if I could redeem that favor.” Those gray eyes stayed narrowed. This was going well. I glanced around to make sure no one was listening and quickly said, “When you aren’t busy… could you teach me about all this stuff? Even if it’s just a little bit?” That got him to blink in what I was pretty sure was surprise. And to give him credit, he too lowered his voice as he asked slowly and possibly in confusion, “What stuff?” I tipped my head to the side. “All this stuff in here. Fishing, camping, you know, general knowledge I might need to work here so I have an idea of what I’m doing.” There was another blink. I might as well go for it. “Only when you aren’t super busy. Please. If you can, but if you can’t, that’s okay.” I’d just cry myself to sleep at night. No biggie. Worst case, I could hit up the library on my days off. Hang out in the grocery store parking lot and google information. I could make it work. I would, regardless. Dark, thick, black eyelashes dipped over his nice eyes, and his voice came out low and even. “You’re serious?” He thought I was shitting him. “Dead.” His head turned to the side, giving me a good view of his short but really pretty eyelashes. “You want me to teach you to fish?” he asked like he couldn’t believe it, like I’d asked him to… I don’t know, show me his wiener. “You don’t have to teach me to fish, but I wouldn’t be opposed to it. I haven’t been in forever. But more about everything else. Like, what is the point of these two different kinds of line? What are all the lures good for? Or are they called flies? Do you really need those gadgets to start a fire?” I knew I was whispering as I said, “I have so many random questions, and not having internet makes it hard to look things up. Your total is $40.69, by the way.” My landlord blinked for about the hundredth time at that point, and I was pretty sure he was either confused or stunned as he pulled his wallet out and slipped his card through the reader, his gaze staying on me for the majority of the time in that long, watchful way that was completely different from the way the older men had been eyeballing me earlier. Not sexually or with interest, but more like I was a raccoon and he wasn’t sure if I had rabies or not. In a weird way, I preferred it by a lot. I smiled. “It’s okay if not,” I told him, handing over a small paper bag with his purchases inside. The tall man took it from me and let his eyes wander to a spot to my left. His Adam’s apple bobbed; then he took a step back and sighed. “Fine. Tonight, 7:30. I’ve got thirty minutes and not one longer.” What! “You’re my hero,” I whispered. He looked at me, then blinked. “I’ll be there, thank you,” I told him. He grunted, and before I could thank him again, he was out of there so fast I had no chance to check out his butt in those work pants of his.

Their hulls may be so tough you can’t crack them with shipboard weapons, but those creatures are living, organic beings. They can’t be immune to physics. I guarantee that if we hit one of those seed ships hard enough, it’ll kill every living thing inside.

I’m not going to pretend to know what’s going on with you,” he says. “But if you senselessly risk your life again—” “I am not senselessly risking my life. I am trying to make sacrifices, like my parents would have, like—” “You are not your parents. You are a sixteen-year-old girl—” I grit my teeth. “How dare you—” “—who doesn’t understand that the value of a sacrifice lies in its necessity, not in throwing your life away! And if you do that again, you and I are done.” I wasn’t expecting him to say that. “You’re giving me an ultimatum?” I try to keep my voice down so the others can’t hear. He shakes his head. “No, I’m telling you a fact.” His lips are just a line. “If you throw yourself into danger for no reason again, you will have become nothing more than a Dauntless adrenaline junkie looking for a hit, and I’m not going to help you do it.” He spits the words out bitterly. “I love Tris the Divergent, who makes decisions apart from faction loyalty, who isn’t some faction archetype. But the Tris who’s trying as hard as she can to destroy herself . . . I can’t love her.” I want to scream. But not because I’m angry, because I’m afraid he’s right. My hands shake and I grab the hem of my shirt to steady them. He touches his forehead to mine and closes his eyes. “I believe you’re still in there,” he says against my mouth. “Come back.

don't even care about you, Maddie. You're just the latest in their long line of desperate sluts, and the second they're done fucking you, they'll toss you aside for the next tight cunt to catch their attention." Smack. As it turned out, I would need to skip psychology anyway. My hand needed ice from punching Archer earlier and now from popping Scott in the face. "What the fuck?" Scott roared, clapping his hand to his face where my punch had landed. I made a mental note to send Cass a text, thanking him. I doubted I could have hit half as hard a couple of weeks ago.

Toughness is about embracing the reality of where we are and what we have to do. Not deluding ourselves, filling ourselves with a false confidence, or living in denial. All of that simply sends us sprinting off the line, only to slow to a walk once reality hits. Being tough begins long before we enter the arena or walk on stage. It starts with our expectations

When you hit rock bottom, you feel it. You break down, walls crumbling until you’re free-falling. The feelings that you tried to run from suddenly rush up around you in an unstoppable force, the gravity of your thoughts now nothing but a punishing plunge. When you slam into the bottom, that landing jolts you all the way to your very soul. You hit hard, and it cracks the very foundation of the world. The ground fragments beneath you, lines stretching far and wide. And then you’re left, a pile of rubble. But I realize something as I lie here, surrounded by the destruction of my plummet. These cracks that have spread out from my caustic landing, they’re not evidence of my ruination. They’re paths. Each jagged line leads from me and then diverts away, showing me all the different ways I could go from here. But I’m also in my mind, staring at the fissures around me, seeing where each one leads. Because now that I’m forced to feel what I didn’t want to, I have a decision to make. I can choose to stay stagnant here, at the bottom of the cliff, broken and unmoving. I can rage, I can wallow, I can blame, I can hide. I can let the severed parts of me sever all the rest. Or I can get up, dust myself off, and look back up. I can find a path that ensures I’ll never fall again, ensures that I don’t lose any more parts of myself. All I have to do is turn and follow my feet, one step at a time. So that’s what I’ll do. I let myself cry until all my tears dry up. There is no choked breathing or scrunched up nose. No pulled lips or furrowed brow. This is the suffering of the silent. A hurt so deep it doesn’t show itself on a face.

I’m drowning,” I managed to say. “I am drowning. And the more you do this, the more guards … You might as well be shoving my head under the water.” Nothing in those eyes, that face. But then— I cried out, instinct taking over as his power blasted through the room. The windows shattered. The furniture splintered. And that box of paints and brushes and paper … It exploded into dust and glass and wood. CHAPTER 10 One breath, the study was intact. The next, it was shards of nothing, a shell of a room. None of it had touched me from where I had dropped to the floor, my hands over my head. Tamlin was panting, the ragged breaths almost like sobs. I was shaking—shaking so hard I thought my bones would splinter as the furniture had—but I made myself lower my arms and look at him. There was devastation on that face. And pain. And fear. And grief. Around me, no debris had fallen—as if he had shielded me. Tamlin took a step toward me, over that invisible demarcation. He recoiled as if he’d hit something solid. “Feyre,” he rasped. He stepped again—and that line held. “Feyre, please,” he breathed. And I realized that the line, that bubble of protection … It was from me. A shield. Not just a mental one—but a physical one, too.

Toughness is about embracing the reality of where we are and what we have to do. Not deluding ourselves, filling ourselves with a false confidence, or living in denial. All of that simply sends us sprinting off the line, only to slow to a walk once reality hits. Being tough begins long before we enter the arena or walk on stage. It starts with our expectations.

The powerful blast first entered the director through the starboard hatchway, where Dvorak sat—in a direct line with the incoming fireball—hands tight on his steering wheel’s brodie knobs. The concussion and fireball hit him first—full force—while it raced starboard to port. As if a rag doll, Dvorak was at once lifted from his position, and slammed back, hard, against his fixed metal seat. The force then caught Stratton in the face and chest; grabbed and slammed him against the bulkhead and, according to Stratton, “…rattled me around like a piñata.” “I thought I was going blind, from the fire”, Stratton would tell Lauren, years later. On the platform, Zeke had already decided to head back inside. He managed to grab hold of the hatchway handles just as the blast raced through and circumnavigated the director. The force of the concussion hit him in the back, and face-on. As if a spirit’s presence had seized his body, it grabbed at Zimmerman’s torso and bent him forward, then backwards. The impact ripped his grip from the door handles, sucked him into the flames, and dispatched him, hard, against the platform’s railing. Inside, Hollowell was propelled backwards, across the steel cube. His head slammed against the range finder with a forceful blow, and his body was dumped next to Lott—who had pulled Lauren’s blanket tighter across his own head. The hellish fireball had sucked oxygen from the cube, shot across the steel shell, and merged with a second blast of flames through the port and rear hatchways. As if in a boxing match—in a futile attempt to protect his face from being hit by the fire and heat—Lauren held tight to the range finder. Instinct caused him to raise his right arm around the viewport, for protection.

Out of New York came a governor from the moneyed class, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and he drove Murray to fits—being from that hated family. (FDR’s cousin, Teddy, had forced Murray to remove a white supremacist plank from the Oklahoma constitution before he would allow it to join the union.) At first, Franklin Roosevelt was dismissed as a man without heft, a dilettante running on one of the nation’s great names. Then he took up the cause of the “forgotten man”—the broken farmer on the plains, the apple vendor in the city, the factory hand now hitting the rails. And though he spoke with an accent that sounded funny to anyone outside the mid-Atlantic states, and he seemed a bit jaunty with that cigarette holder, Roosevelt roused people with a blend of hope and outrage. He knew hardship and the kind of emotional panic that comes when your world collapses. He had been felled by double pneumonia in 1918, which nearly killed him, and polio in 1921, which left him partially paralyzed. He had been told time and again in the prime of his young adulthood that he had no future, that he would not walk again, that he might not live much longer. “If you spent two years in bed trying to wiggle your toe, after that anything would seem easy,” he said. Hoover believed the cure for the Depression was to prime the pump at the producer end, helping factories and business owners get up and running again. Goods would roll off the lines, prosperity would follow. Roosevelt said it made no sense to gin up the machines of production if people could not afford to buy what came out the factory door. “These unhappy times call for the building of plans that rest upon the forgotten, the unorganized, the indispensable units of economic powers,” FDR said on April 7, 1932, in a radio speech that defined the central theme of his campaign. He called for faith “in the forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid.” That forgotten man was likely to be a person with prairie dirt under the fingernails. “How much do the shallow thinkers realize that approximately one half of our population, fifty or sixty million people, earn their living by farming or in small towns where existence immediately depends on farms?

When you hit rock bottom, you feel it. You break down, walls crumbling until you’re free-falling. The feelings that you tried to run from suddenly rush up around you in an unstoppable force, the gravity of your thoughts now nothing but a punishing plunge. When you slam into the bottom, that landing jolts you all the way to your very soul. You hit hard, and it cracks the very foundation of the world. The ground fragments beneath you, lines stretching far and wide. And then your left, a pile of rubble. But I realize some thing as I lie here, surrounded by the destruction of my plummet. These cracks that have spread out from my caustic landing, they’re not evidence of my ruination. They’re paths. Each jagged line leads from me and then diverts away, showing me all the different ways I could go from here.

There is a certain strain of modern Western sociopolitical thinker that aggressively admires “meritocracy.” Every society should be a meritocracy, argue these adherents, and we should not pass laws that favor one group of people over another, for any reason. There should be no affirmative action laws for university admissions, no initiatives to gender-balance workforces. The cream shall simply rise to the top! These people (usually heterosexual, rich, white men, with a bookshelf full of Ayn Rand novels) conveniently forget that for a meritocracy to work —for a society to properly value and celebrate hard work and individual success— the people within the society need to start from the same point of origin. Otherwise, the cream isn’t rising to the top —the people who were closest to the top already are rising to the top, and the whole concept of meritocracy crumbles to dust. What they are actually calling for, these people, is a pseudo-meritocracy that does not distinguish between the accomplishments of a man with a Mayflower last name who inherited a billion dollars from his dad and those of a Black woman who was born into poverty in a redlined neighborhood in a state that enforces draconian, racist laws. (Some people, as the old saying goes, were born on third base and think they hit a triple.) It’s not a meritocracy if some runners start the race ten feet from the finish line and some are denied entry to the race because of systemic biases within the Racing Commission.

A tougher runner isn’t one who is blind with ambition or confidence, but one who can accurately assess the demands and the situation. The magic is in aligning actual and expected demands. When our assessment of our capabilities is out of sync with the demands, we get the schoolchildren version of performance. Starting a project with reckless confidence, only to look up and realize the work it entails. When such a mismatch exists, we’re more likely to spiral toward doubts and insecurities, and to ultimately abandon our pursuit. When actual and expected demands align, we’re able to pace to perfection, or outside of the athletic realm, perform up to our current capabilities. It’s why experienced writers don’t go into their first draft expecting perfection. They understand it’s going to be messy, and often not that good. Contrary to old-school toughness wisdom, a touch of realistic doubt keeps us on track and makes it more likely that we will persist. Toughness is about embracing the reality of where we are and what we have to do. Not deluding ourselves, filling ourselves with a false confidence, or living in denial. All of that simply sends us sprinting off the line, only to slow to a walk once reality hits. Being tough begins long before we enter the arena or walk on stage. It starts with our expectations.

I read that office workers spend a staggering 28 percent of their office time on email, but I bet I spend more time than that. To make my email habit more convenient, I decided to cut out salutations and closings. I’d fallen into the habit of writing an email like an old-fashioned letter, instead of using the casualness and brevity now appropriate to email. An email that says: Hi Peter—Thanks so much for the link. I’m off to read the article right now. Warmly, Gretchen takes a lot more work than an email that says: Thanks! Off to read the article right now. The first version is more formal and polite, but the second version conveys the same tone and information, and is much quicker to write. It took a surprising amount of discipline to change my response habits. It can be hard to make things easier. I had to push myself to erase the “Hi” and to hit “send” without typing a closing. But before long, it became automatic. Not long after I’d instituted my new convenient email habits, however, I responded to a reader with an email that omitted a salutation and closing, and received a pointed email in return: “I find it really interesting that you don’t say ‘Hi Lisa’ or end your email in any kind of salutation, or say ‘if I have any more questions to drop you a line.’ Please excuse me if this is rude, I am truly just curious. Is this because you are super busy (understandably) or just not your style? I had this preconceived notion after reading your book that your dialogue would be so much more friendly/ happy and personal.” Sheesh. This was nicely put, but clearly the message was “You don’t sound very friendly.” I was taken aback. Should I go back to using more elaborate courtesy? Then I decided—no. I was sorry if I didn’t sound friendly to her, but I wanted to be able to answer emails from readers, and to keep up, I needed to make this work as convenient as possible. My habits had to reflect my values. I wrote her back, very nicely, and without a salutation or closing, to explain.

The art world will be hard hit. After harassment allegations surfaced against a publisher of the contemporary-art magazine Artforum, the Los Angeles Times published a gender tally of art museum directorships. Females hold 48 percent of them—not a promising start for a diversity crusader. There is a silver lining, however: Only three women run museums with annual budgets of more than $15 million, and they’re paid less than their male counterparts. It doesn’t matter if director salaries are commensurate with experience and credentials; sexism is assumed, and impossible to rebut. Two months before the explosion of #MeToo, New York mayor Bill de Blasio anticipated the coming pressures on museum management. The city’s culture funding would henceforth be contingent on the diversity of an arts organization’s employees and board members, he announced.

I often said I wouldn't have pursued programming as a career if I still did drugs. This is probably true, since weed was always immensely crippling for me. I would have weed hangovers for days, and while stoned, was unable to read or do much of anything besides clean and play video games. Whether or not this would have turned out to be true is academic, but it's definitely true that I wouldn't have become a programmer if I hadn't lost my mind, because the recovery process taught me my most valuable skill as a programmer: how to not think. Programming requires the acceptance that you are entering meaningless symbols into a machine that's going to spit out other meaningless symbols, and this can be hard to accept. It requires abandoning all hope for an answer for the existential "why?" in favour of shuffling boolean values ad infinitum. By no interpretation of the concept of understanding does a computer understand what you're telling it or what it's telling you. On top of that, programming as an act is more often hindered than helped by thinking. Despite zero years of training in computer science, I've found I have an edge in debugging because I never look or ask for an explanation. Ninety percent of the computer bugs in a program are tiny, one-line errors, and you just have to find that error. Holding the entire logical structure of a million lines of code in your mind in futile. The task is to find the references and connections and track them back until you hit the problem. If I get an error message, I copy it into Google, because someone somewhere has encountered and solved the problem, probably by tracking down the people who originally wrote the program. In seven years of programming, I've solved exactly two undocumented bugs via pure deductive reasoning.

I thought briefly of the clichés, about how you were supposed to see your life flash before your eyes. I was so much luckier. Who wanted to see a rerun, anyway? I saw him, and I had no will to fight. It was so clear, so much more defined than any memory. My subconscious had stored Marcel away in flawless detail, saving him for this final moment. I could see his perfect face as if he were there, the exact shade of his icy skin, the shape of his lips, the line of his jaw, the gold glinting in his furious eyes. He was angry, naturally, that I was giving up. His teeth were clenched, and his nostrils flared with rage. ‘No! Bell, no!’ My ears were flooded with the freezing water, but his voice was clearer than ever. I ignored his words and concentrated on the sound of his voice. Why would I fight when I was so happy where I was? Even as my lungs burned for more air and my legs cramped in the icy cold, I was content. I'd forgotten what real happiness felt like. Happiness. It made the whole dying thing bearable. The current one at that moment, shoving me abruptly against something hard, a rock invisible in the gloom. It hit me solidly across the chest, slamming into me like an iron bar, and the breath whooshed out of my lungs, escaping in a thick cloud of silver bubbles. Water flooded down my throat, choking and burning. The iron bar seemed to be dragging me, pulling me away from Marcel, deeper into the dark, to the ocean floor. Goodbye, I love you, was my last thought. PARIS AT THAT MOMENT, MY HEAD BROKE THE SURFACE.

This was followed by the sweet sound of Millie’s voice. It was such a great combination and we knew that we sounded good. But the highlight was when Jack broke into his awesome rap. To me, that was the coolest sound ever. The reaction from the audience was amazing. And the cheering and whistling of the kids in our grade spurred us on as we continued with more hit songs, perfectly played. When our final song came to an end, the audience was on their feet, demanding more. All we could do was stare at the sight in front of us. It was unbelievable that they loved our music so much. Without a doubt, it was the proudest moment of my life. And after a nod from Mrs. Harding, giving us permission to continue, we burst into another song. Glancing back towards her, I caught the beaming smile on her own face and could see that she was filled with pride as well. When we later lined up for the last of the official photos, I realized that Blake’s eye was as black as the cap on his head. But no one cared and we all joked about the stories that would be told when looking back at those photos in years to come. Out of all the photos taken, one of my favorites was the one that my brother snapped just before leaving. What made it even more special was the fact that he later decided to keep a copy for himself. That meant more to me than anything. It had been such an incredible night, one that I knew I would never forget. And when my parents surprised me afterward with a family dinner at a special restaurant in town, I couldn’t have felt happier. In addition to graduating, I had received the best report card ever and it was definitely time to celebrate. As I lay in bed later that night, reliving every minute of the previous several hours in my head, not in a million years did I anticipate that in a week’s time, an abrupt turn of events would change everything. And when I was later faced with the news, I simply could not come to terms with how things had changed so dramatically. It was incomprehensible and I did not understand. Too sudden and too unexpected, nothing could ever have prepared me.

Last night I was lying on the bed doing a double crostic and looked up a quotation in the paperbacked Quotation Dictionary that I carry around with me specifically for that purpose. I immediately became lost in the book and read all the Shakespeare ones right through very slowly. There was hardly a line there that I didn't immediately know but seeing the miraculous words in print again doomed me to a long trance of nostalgia, a stupor of melancholy, like listening to really massive music, music that moans and thunders and plumbs fathomless depths. i wandered through the book for a long time but no other writer hit me with quite the same regard as William S. What a stupendous God he was, he is. What chance combination of genes went to the making of that towering imagination, that brilliant gift of words, that staggering compassion, that understanding of all human frailty, that total absence of pomposity, that wit, that pun, that joy in words and the later agony. It seems that he wrote everything worth writing and the rest of his fraternity have merely fugued on his million themes.