Mom Insisted Quotes

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The cultural insistence that parenting is the 'most important' job in the world is a smart way to satiate unappreciated women without doing a damn thing for them.
Jessica Valenti (Why Have Kids?: A New Mom Explores the Truth About Parenting and Happiness)
Money doesn't make you happy," Mom insists, whipping carrots and lettuce out of the cart. "Money doesn't make you laugh when you're lonely, or make you full of contentment on Christmas morning.
Roxanne St. Claire (Don't You Wish)
My mom insisted on saying such things, even though almost no one understood what she meant. My Dad sometimes called her Addlebrain because she read so many books.
Haven Kimmel
The car was packed by six fifteen, whereupon Mom insisted that we eat beakfast with Dad, although I had a moral opposition to eating before dawn on the grounds that I was not a nineteenth-century Russian peasant fortifying myself for a day in the fields.
John Green (The Fault in Our Stars)
I’d been stuck in one gender my whole life. It never bothered me. Now I wondered how that would feel for Alex. The only analogy I could come up with wasn’t a very good one. My second grade teacher, Miss Mengler (aka Miss Mangler), had forced me to write with my right hand even though I was left-handed. She’d actually taped my left hand to the desk. My mom had exploded when she found out, but I still remembered the panicky feeling of being restrained, forced to write in such an unnatural way because Miss Mengler had insisted, 'This is the normal way, Magnus. Stop complaining. You’ll get used to it.
Rick Riordan (The Hammer of Thor (Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, #2))
Gwen was kind of amazed. A mother with several degrees and a prestigious position at an Ivy League college did not ensure that she’d be any less embarrassing to her child than a mother who became a nurse through night school. Gwen knew this when Alla launched into her “unfortunate changes in my vagina after the birth of Lachlan” discussion. “No. It was his shoulders. He’s always had very large shoulders. I mean look at him. Even as a baby they were freakishly long.” “Freakishly?” Lock snapped. “They stretched me right out.” “Mom!” Brody shrugged and reached for more moo goo gai pork. “I didn’t mind.” “Dad!” “Well, darling, you were always quite large, so it made things a little easier for both of us when it came to sex.” “Mom!” Alla shook her head. “I don’t know what happened to you, Lachlan MacRyrie.” She turned to Gwen. “I’ve always insisted on being quite open about human bodies when talking to my children. There’s no shame in a woman’s body. And like everything else in the world, it ages. So while you still have the exquisite body you’ve been blessed with, Gwen dear, and that prebirth vagina— enjoy it.” “Is there any way to get you to stop?” Lock begged.
Shelly Laurenston (The Mane Squeeze (Pride, #4))
My mom insists that my friendships online aren’t real. She says that until you meet someone in person, you don’t really know them. I don’t agree,
Daniel H. Wilson (Press Start to Play)
After that exercise, the ship of my life might or might not be sailing on calm seas. The challenging days of my existence might or might not be bright and promising. From that encounter on, whether my days are stormy or sunny and if my nights are glorious or lonely, I maintain an attitude of gratitude. If pessimism insists on occupying my thoughts, I remember there is always tomorrow. Today I am blessed.
Maya Angelou (Mom & Me & Mom)
In theory, taarof means putting others before yourself. In practice, it means when someone comes to your house, you have to offer them food; but since your guest is supposed to taarof, they have to refuse; and then you, the host, must taarof back, insisting that it's really no trouble at all, and that they absolutely must eat; and so on, until one party gets too bewildered and finally gives in... It's not an American Social Cue. When Mom met Dad's parents for the first time, they offered her a drink, which she politely declined- and that was that. She really did want something to drink, but she didn't know how to go about asking.
Adib Khorram (Darius the Great Is Not Okay (Darius The Great, #1))
Love is the strangest, most illogical thing in the world.” “I’m not talking about love,” Hadley insisted. “I’m talking about marriage.” Mom shrugged. “That,” she said, “is even worse.
Jennifer E. Smith
Terry gets annoyed when I describe his mother as cold. She isn't cold, he insists, just a little standoffish, and not so gabby as certain members of my family. While Terry's mom doesn't believe in asking intrusive questions, like "How are you?", she's still a warm and loving mom; just quiet and undemonstrative.
Dan Savage (The Kid: What Happened After My Boyfriend and I Decided to Go Get Pregnant)
Mom let out a wistful sigh. “Finally out of the spotlight and into the background,” she said. “I’ve missed it there.” “People will still watch, my dear,” Dad said. “Just try to keep your chin up tonight, and I’ll be right beside you if you need me.” “So, same as always?” He smiled. “Same as always.” “Look, I don’t plan to kick you out or anything, but if you insist on being mushy all the time, I’ll have you in a cottage faster than you can say P-D-A.
Kiera Cass (The Crown (The Selection, #5))
Life is too hard to behave normal all the time. Just the other day my mom told me I should learn to behave more neurotypically because then I would make more friends. This attitude is truly not great -- insisting that I behave in a way that makes no sense to me. This illustrates the hopelessness of trying to be your own person because this means you must behave like everyone else to be accepted. Being different is not seen as a positive trait. I feel if I have to wear a different face, then I will attract people I don't care to know.
Jeremy Sicile-Kira (A Full Life with Autism: From Learning to Forming Relationships to Achieving Independence)
After the derailment I wondered obsessively about the great whatever. Much seemed to ride on the character of the whatever, including the degree and tenacity of my guilt in the matter. But miles pass, years climb up your shoulders. My insistence on Mom's and Dad's joyous afterlife gradually dimmed.
Leif Enger (Virgil Wander)
Rocketing fears for Grandfather aside, the whole music puzzle starts to make sense. “It’s more than a flash mob,” I insist. “Ask Professor Walker, this is Grandfather’s exit song. It’s like his portal of departure.” But Mom’s not listening. She’s preoccupied, apparently puzzled by Dad’s astonishment. Why isn’t anyone listening to me?
Michael Benzehabe (Zonked Out: The Teen Psychologist of San Marcos Who Killed Her Santa Claus and Found the Blue-Black Edge of the Love Universe)
I HATE ACTING CLASS. I’M two months into the one Barbara Cameron insisted I sign up for if I were to be represented by her. I go every Saturday from eleven a.m. to two
Jennette McCurdy (I'm Glad My Mom Died)
I maintain an attitude of gratitude. If pessimism insists on occupying my thoughts, I remember there is always tomorrow. Today I am blessed.
Maya Angelou (Mom & Me & Mom)
You take care of yourself, and that’s important,” her mom says. “And you don’t hurt anyone.” “But I do hurt people,” Chloe insists. “Do you do it on purpose?” “No.” “Okay, then, you’re human.
Casey McQuiston (I Kissed Shara Wheeler)
It was a wedding gift from Ron’s ex. She sent us a gravy boat shaped like a turkey, where the neck is the handle and the gravy comes out the ass. I insist on using it at least twice a year. He shakes his head.
Laurie Gelman (Class Mom)
Her next words took me by surprise. I lay as still as I could, barely breathing, afraid that if I moved she would stop speaking her heart. “My mom wanted six children. She only got me, and that sucks for her because I was a total weirdo.” “You were not,” I said. She twisted her head up to look at me. “I used to line my lips in black eyeliner and sit cross-legged on the kitchen table … meditating.” “Not that bad,” I said. “Crying out for attention.” “Okay, when I was twelve I started writing letters to my birth mother because I wanted to be adopted.” I shook my head. “Your childhood sucked, you wanted a new reality.” She snorted air through her nose. “I thought a mermaid lived in my shower drain, and I used to call her Sarah and talk to her.” “Active imagination,” I countered. She was becoming more insistent, her little body wriggling in my grip. “I used to make paper out of dryer lint.” “Nerdy.” “I wanted to be one with nature, so I started boiling grass and drinking it with a little bit of dirt for sugar.” I paused. “Okay, that’s weird.” “Thank you!” she said. Then, she got serious again. “My mom just loved me through all of it.
Tarryn Fisher (Thief (Love Me with Lies, #3))
Sorry,” I say while I poop and Mom wets a paper towel with water. I’m embarrassed she still insists on wiping my butt. I tried to tell her recently that now that I’m eight, I think I can handle it, but she looked like she was gonna cry and said she needs
Jennette McCurdy (I'm Glad My Mom Died)
After that exercise, the ship of my life might or might not be sailing on calm seas. The challenging days of my existence might or might not be bright or promising. From that encounter on, whether my days are stormy or sunny and if my nights are glorious or lonely, I maintain an attitude of gratitude. If pessimism insists on occupying my thoughts, I remember there is always tomorrow.
Maya Angelou (Mom & Me & Mom)
We hated the gym. We loved it. We escaped to it. We avoided it. We had complicated relationships with our bodies, while at the same time insisting that we loved them unconditionally. We were sure we had better, more important things to do than worry about them, but the slender yoga bodies of moms in Lululemon at school pickup taunted us. Their figures hinted at wheatgrass shots, tennis clubs, and vagina steaming treatments. We found them aspirational. So we sweated on the elliptical and lifted ten-pound weights, inching closer to the bodies we told ourselves we were too evolved to want.
Chandler Baker (Whisper Network)
May was used to strange things like this. Her mom always said all sorts of quirks came with a house as old as theirs. May used to insist it was ghosts. But Mrs. Bird had long ago given her one too many stern looks on the topic. So May simply sank beneath the water and let bubbles drift out of her nose.
Jodi Lynn Anderson (May Bird and the Ever After (May Bird, #1))
When Mom made a comment about taking the dog back, Uncle Merv insisted that, if he’s just going to sleep in a cage until he dies, he might as well sleep in our living room until he dies.
K.A. Tucker (Be the Girl)
Puggle isn’t a word, Bridge.” Letting her down gently had no effect. She stomped a boot on the ground, making the contents of the mystery pink bag rattle in her hand. “It is,” she insisted. “Ask someone.” I looked from left to right, wondering who she was expecting me to stop. As busy as the park was, I couldn’t see a single person who looked knowledgeable in Australian wildlife. “What am I supposed to ask, Bridget?” I asked. “Excuse me ma’am, do you know what a puggle is?” She raised her free hand, bouncing on the spot. “I know! I know!” she squealed. “It’s a baby ’chidna.” I made a mental note to hold off on the sarcasm for a year or two. I decided to dazzle her with science instead. I took my phone from my pocket and Googled it – then had to eat my words because a baby echidna is indeed called a puggle. “How can you possibly know the things you do?” She grinned, reminding me too much of her mom. “I’m a smart girl, Ry.
G.J. Walker-Smith
but Mom told me that I was normal. Yes, normal,” she insisted, pointing the celery at Kate. “You two are the weird ones. I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but you’re both kind of … nerds.
Julie Garwood (Slow Burn (Buchanan, #5))
When I was a kid, I used to have these panic attacks thinking about how I could never be anyone else. I couldn't be my mom or my dad, and for my whole life, I'd have to walk around inside a body that kept me from ever truly knowing anyone else. It made me feel lonely, desolate, almost hopeless. When I told my parents about this, I expected them to know the feeling I was talking about, but they didn't. "That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with feeling that way, though, sweetie!" Mom insisted. "Who else do you think about being?" my dad said with his particular blunt fascination. The fear lessened, but the feeling never went away. Every once in a while, I'd roll it back out, poke at it. Wonder how I could ever stop feeling lonely when no one could ever know me all the way. When I could never peer into someone else's brain and see it all. And now I'm crying because reading this story makes me feel for the first time that I'm not in body. Like there's some bubble that stretches around me and Alex and makes it so we're just two different colored globs in a lava lamp, mixing freely, dancing around each other, unhindered. I'm crying because I'm relieved. Because I will never again feel as alone as I did during those long nights as a kid. As long as I have him, I will never be alone again.
Emily Henry
People look at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart. If we insist on correcting the outward appearance, we will destroy our child’s heart. Your child’s faith is a precious thing. Don’t let it be destroyed.
Susan Cottrell ("Mom, I'm Gay," Revised and Expanded Edition: Loving Your LGBTQ Child and Strengthening Your Faith)
From the moment I was first pregnant, and those around me insisted that treats such as cold cuts and nail polish could cut my unborn child's potential IQ in half, I got into the habit of NOT seeking out the little things that brought me joy. Like soft cheese. And getting too close to a Starbucks. Then my son came, and I was too busy crying while searching for his User Manual to consider a manicure or massage. I lasted about a week as a new mom before reaching out to others in my situation online. As exhausted, cranky, and confused as I was, I needed friends. It didn't take long for this gaggle of desperate, sleepless women to meet up in person...
Kim Bongiorno (I Just Want to Pee Alone: A Collection of Humorous Essays by Kick Ass Mom Bloggers)
From that encounter on, whether my days are stormy or sunny and if my nights are glorious or lonely, I maintain an attitude of gratitude. If pessimism insists on occupying my thoughts, I remember there is always tomorrow. Today I am blessed.
Maya Angelou (Mom & Me & Mom)
There is a story for children, There’s No Such Thing as a Dragon, by Jack Kent, that I really like. It’s a very simple tale, at least on the surface. I once read its few pages to a group of retired University of Toronto alumni, and explained its symbolic meaning.*2 It’s about a small boy, Billy Bixbee, who spies a dragon sitting on his bed one morning. It’s about the size of a house cat, and friendly. He tells his mother about it, but she tells him that there’s no such thing as a dragon. So, it starts to grow. It eats all of Billy’s pancakes. Soon it fills the whole house. Mom tries to vacuum, but she has to go in and out of the house through the windows because of the dragon everywhere. It takes her forever. Then, the dragon runs off with the house. Billy’s dad comes home—and there’s just an empty space, where he used to live. The mailman tells him where the house went. He chases after it, climbs up the dragon’s head and neck (now sprawling out into the street) and rejoins his wife and son. Mom still insists that the dragon does not exist, but Billy, who’s pretty much had it by now, insists, “There is a dragon, Mom.” Instantly, it starts to shrink. Soon, it’s cat-sized again. Everyone agrees that dragons of that size (1) exist and (2) are much preferable to their gigantic counterparts. Mom, eyes reluctantly opened by this point, asks somewhat plaintively why it had to get so big. Billy quietly suggests: “maybe it wanted to be noticed.
Jordan B. Peterson (12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos)
I. Jumped,” she said. I took off for my room. Lorraine stood her ground, insisting that Mom was only trying to get attention. Out of the myriad of differences between Lorraine and me, this was the biggest one: I dodged the draft. She went to war.
Beth Raymer (Fireworks Every Night)
Still, this moment belongs to the two of them, Mom and this handsome stranger. He reaches the passenger side door and stares down at her with steely violet eyes-down at my mother who never cries, down at my mother who’s now bawling like a spanked child-his face contorted in a rainbow of so many emotions, some that I can’t even name. Then Grom the Triton king sinks to his knees in front of her, and a single tear spills down his face. “Nalia,” he whispers. And then my mother slaps him. It’s not the kind of slap you get for talking back. It’s not the kind of punch she dealt Galen and Toraf in our kitchen. It’s the kind of slap a woman gives a man when he’s hurt her deeply. And Grom accepts it with grace. “I looked for you,” she shouts, even though he’s inches from her. Slowly, as if in a show of peace, he takes the hand that slapped him and sandwiches it between his own. He seems to revel in the feel of her touch. His face is pure tenderness, his voice like a massage to the nerves. “And I looked for you.” “Your pulse was gone,” she insists. By now she chokes back sobs between words. She’s fighting for control. I’ve never seen my mother fight for control. “As was yours.” I realize Grom knows what not to say, what not to do to provoke her. He is the complete opposite of her, or maybe just a completion of her. Her eyes focus on his wrist, and tears slip down her face, leaving faint trails of mascara on her cheeks. He smiles and slowly pulls his hand away. I think he’s going to show her the bracelet he’s wearing, but instead he rips it off his wrist and holds it out for her inspection. From where I’m standing it looks like a single black ball tied to some sort of string. By my mom’s expression, this black ball has meaning. So much meaning that I think she’s forgotten to breathe. “My pearl,” she whispers. “I thought I’d lost it.” He encloses it in her hand. “This isn’t your pearl, love. That one was lost in the explosion with you. For almost an entire season, I scoured the oyster beds, looking for another one that would do. I don’t know why, but I thought maybe if I found another perfect pearl, I would somehow find you, too. When I found this though, it didn’t bring me the peace I’d hoped for. But I couldn’t bring myself to discard it. I’ve worn it on my wrist ever since.” This is all it takes for my mom to throw herself into his arms, bringing Rachel partially with her. Even so, it’s probably the most moving moment I’ve ever encountered in my eighteen years. Or at least it would be, if my mom weren’t clinging to a man who is not my dad.
Anna Banks (Of Triton (The Syrena Legacy, #2))
Generation Wuss” in recent years. My huge generalities touched on millennials’ oversensitivity, their sense of entitlement, their insistence that they were always right despite sometimes overwhelming proof to the contrary, their failure to consider anything within its context, their joint tendencies of overreaction and passive-aggressive positivity—incidentally, all of these misdemeanors happening only sometimes, not always, and possibly exacerbated by the meds many this age had been fed since childhood by overprotective, helicopter moms and dads mapping their every move.
Bret Easton Ellis (White)
A flash of lightning ghosts into the room, and when it leaves again, my eyes follow it back out to sea. In the window's reflection, I glimpse a figure standing behind me. I don't need to turn around to see who creates such a big outline-or who makes my whole body turn into a goose-bump farm. "How do you feel?" he says. "Better," I say to his reflection. He hops over the back of the couch and grabs my chin, turning my head side to side, up and down, all around, watching for my reaction. "I just did that," I tell him. "Nothing." He nods and unhands me. "Rach-Uh, my mom called your mom and told her what happened. I guess your mom called your doctor, and he said it's pretty common, but that you should rest a few more days. My mom insisted you stay the night since no one needs to be driving in this weather." "And my mother agreed to that?" Even in the dark, I don't miss his little grin. "My mom can be pretty persuasive," he says. "By the end of the conversation, your mom even suggested we both stay home from school tomorrow and hang out here so you can relax-since my mom will be home supervising, of course. Your mom said you wouldn't stay home if I went to school." A flash from the storm illuminates my blush. "Because we told her we're dating." He nods. "She said you should have stayed home today, but you threw a fit to go anyway. Honestly, I didn't realize you were so obsessed-ouch!" I try to pinch him again, but he catches my wrist and pulls me over his lap like a child getting a spanking. "I was going to say, 'with history.'" He laughs. "No you weren't. Let me up." "I will." He laughs. "Galen, you let me up right now-" "Sorry, not ready yet." I gasp. "Oh, no! The room is spinning again." I hold still, tense up. Then the room does spin when he snatches me up and grabs my chin again. The look of concern etched on his face makes me feel a little guilty, but not guilty enough to keep my mouth shut. "Works every time," I tell him, giving my best ha-ha-you're-a-sucker smirk. A snicker from the entryway cuts off what I can tell is about to be a good scolding. I've never heard Galen curse, but his glower just looks like a four-letter word waiting to come out. We both turn to see Toraf watching us with crossed arms. He is also wearing a ha-ha-you're-a-sucker smirk. "Dinner's ready, children," he says. Yep, I definitely like Toraf. Galen rolls his eyes and extracts me from his lap. He hops up and leaves me there, and in the reflection, I see him ram his fist into Toraf's gut as he passes. Toraf grunts, but the smirk never leaves his face. He nods his head for me to follow them. As we pass through the rooms, I try to remember the rich, sophisticated atmosphere, the marble floors, the hideous paintings, but my stomach makes sounds better suited to a dog kennel at feeding time. "I think your stomach is making mating calls," Toraf whispers to me as we enter the kitchen. My blush debuts the same time we enter the kitchen, and it's enough to make Toraf laugh out loud.
Anna Banks (Of Poseidon (The Syrena Legacy, #1))
What have I been telling you since you were a boy? Whenever something bad happens to us,” Mom said as she tucked me into my new bed, insisting that I needed some sleep after staying up all night, “something good happens—often to someone else. And that’s The Good Luck of Right Now. We must believe it. We must. We must. We must.
Matthew Quick (The Good Luck of Right Now)
The frenzied hypernatalism of the women's magazines alone (and that includes People, Us, and InStyle), with their endless parade of perfect, "sexy" celebrity moms who've had babies, adopted babies, been to sperm banks, frozen their eggs for future use, hatched frozen eggs, had more babies, or adopted a small Tibetan village all to satisfy their "baby lust," is enough to make you want to get your tubes tied. (These profiles always insist that celebs all love being "moms" much, much more than they do their work, let alone being rich and famous, and that they'd spend every second with their kids if they didn't have that pesky blockbuster movie to finish.)
Susan J. Douglas (The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood and How It Has Undermined All Women)
the ship of my life might or might not be sailing on calm seas. The challenging days of my existence might or might not be bright and promising. From that encounter on, whether my days are stormy or sunny and if my nights are glorious or lonely, I maintain an attitude of gratitude. If pessimism insists on occupying my thoughts, I remember there is always tomorrow. Today I am blessed.
Maya Angelou (Mom & Me & Mom)
Hi, Amy, it's mom. Well, by the time you see this, I won't be here anymore, and I know how much that sucks, for both of us. So seeing as how I won't be around to thoroughly annoy you, I thought I would give you a little list of the things that I wish for you. Well, there's the obvious. An education. Family. Friends. And a life that is full of the unexpected. Be sure to make mistakes. Make a lot of them, because there's no better way to learn and to grow, all right? And, um, I want you to spend a lot of time at the ocean, because the ocean forces you to dream, and I insist that you, my girl, be a dreamer. God. I've never really believed in God. In fact, I've spent a lot of time and energy trying to disprove that god exists. But I hope that you are able to believe in god, because the thing that I've come to realize, sweetheart... is that it just doesn't matter if god exists or not. The important thing is for you to believe in something, because I promise you that that belief will keep you warm at night, and I want you to feel safe always. And then there's love. I want you to love to the tips of your fingers, and when you find that love, wherever you find it, whoever you choose, don't run away from it. But you don't have to chase after it either. You just be patient, and it'll come to you, I promise, and when you least expect it, like you, like spending the best year of my life with the sweetest and the smartest and the most beautiful baby girl in the world. You don't be afraid, sweetheart. And remember, to love is to live.
Jen Dawson's Creek
His mother had always mothered him—she insisted on coming by once a week and ironing for us, and when she was done ironing, she’d say, “I’ll just help tidy,” and after she’d left, I’d look in the fridge and find she’d peeled and sliced his grapefruit for him, put the pieces in a snap-top container, and then I’d open the bread and discover all the crusts had been cut away, each slice returned half naked. I am married to a thirty-four-year-old man who is still offended by bread crusts. But I tried to do the same those first weeks after his mom passed. I snipped the bread crusts, I ironed his T-shirts, I baked a blueberry pie from his mom’s recipe. “I don’t need to be babied, really, Amy,” he said as he stared at the loaf of skinned breads. “I let my mom do it because it made her happy, but I know you don’t like that nurturing stuff.
Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl)
I observed an eighteen-year-old friend of one of our daughters talking to his mother on the telephone. As he hung up the phone in frustration he said, “She makes me so angry, she’s always telling me what to think and where to go and how to do things.” He was obviously upset and filled with anger. I told him he had one of two choices. He could either continue to practice being right, or practice being kind. If you insist on being right you will argue, get frustrated, angry, and your problem will persist with your mom, I explained. If you simply practice being kind, you can remind yourself that this is your mom, she’s always been that way, she will very likely stay that way, but you are going to send her love instead of anger when she starts in with her routine. A simple statement of kindness such as, “That’s a good point, Mom, I’ll think about it,” and you have a spiritual solution to your problem.
Wayne W. Dyer (There's a Spiritual Solution to Every Problem)
What did you think when I first told you about the animals I found?” He seemed confused. It obviously wasn’t what he’d expected. “Violet, I was seven years old. I thought it was badass. I think I was probably even jealous.” She made a face at him. “Didn’t you think it was creepy? Or that I was weird?” “Yeah,” he agreed enthusiastically. “That’s why I was so jealous. I wanted to be the one finding dead bodies. You were like an animal detective or something. You were only weird ‘cause you were a girl.” He grinned. “But I learned to overlook that since you always took me on such cool adventures.” Violet released a breath, smiling. She knew he was telling the truth, which only made it funnier to hear him saying the words out loud. Of course, what little boy didn’t want to go scavenging through the woods and digging in the dirt? She tried again. “Did you ever tell anyone? Does your mom know?” He lifted her hand to his mouth and rubbed her knuckles across his lower lip, his gaze locked with hers. “No,” he promised. “I swore I wouldn’t, not even her. I think she knows something, or at least she thinks you have the worst luck ever, since you found all those dead girls.” He lowered his voice. “She was really worried about you after the shooting last year. You’re like a daughter to her.” He leaned close. “Of course, that makes it kind of creepy when I do things like this.” He kissed her. It was intimate. Not soft or sweet this time, it was deep and passionate, stealing Violet’s breath. She laid her hand against his chest, savoring the feel of his heartbeat beneath her palm, and then traced her fingertips up to his neck, into his hair. He pulled her over the console that separated them, dragging her onto his lap. He ran his hands up her back restlessly, drawing her as close as he could. It was nearly impossible for her to pull herself away. “Wait,” she insisted breathlessly. “Please, wait.” She had her hands braced against his shoulders, struggling more against herself than him. His glazed eyes teased her. “I thought I was the one who was supposed to say no. I’m the girl, right?” She sighed heavily, leaning her head against his shoulder and trying to recapture her runaway thoughts. She still wanted to talk. She wanted the other things, too, but she needed to sort through her thoughts first. “Sorry, it’s just…I have a lot of…” She shrugged against him. His damp T-shirt was warm and practically paper-thin, tempting her to touch him. She ran her finger down the length of his stomach. She knew it wasn’t fair to tease him, but she couldn’t help herself. He was too enticing. “…I have some stuff I need to work through.” It was the best she could do for an explanation. He caught her hand before she’d reached his waistline, and he held it tightly in his grip. “I’m trying to be patient, Violet, I really am. If there’s something you want to tell me…Well, I just wish you’d trust me.” “I’ll get there,” she explained. “I’ll figure it all out. I’m just a little confused right now.” He let out a shaky breath and then he kissed the top of her head, still not releasing her hand. “So, when you do, we’ll pick up where we left off.” She nodded against him. She thought she would keep talking; she still had so many doubts about what she should, and shouldn’t, be doing. But instead she just stayed there, curled up on his lap, absorbing him, taking relief from his touch…and strength from his presence.
Kimberly Derting (Desires of the Dead (The Body Finder, #2))
Once we went to a family picnic back when my mother was still speaking to her family. We ate hot dogs and hamburgers that my mom’s dad cooked on the grill, and my mom’s stepmom, a woman she insisted was evil but seemed nice enough to me. She made apple pie for dessert. We ate big, warm slices with rivers of vanilla ice cream melting into the crust. The pie made me feel good inside: warm and full and happy. Then my mom said her stepmom probably made those pies from poisoned apples, and I spent the rest of the night thinking of Snow White eating the poisoned apple and sleeping for years. I was afraid to go to sleep that night.
Marybeth Mayhew Whalen (The Things We Wish Were True)
My huge generalities touched on millennials’ oversensitivity, their sense of entitlement, their insistence that they were always right despite sometimes overwhelming proof to the contrary, their failure to consider anything within its context, their joint tendencies of overreaction and passive-aggressive positivity—incidentally, all of these misdemeanors happening only sometimes, not always, and possibly exacerbated by the meds many this age had been fed since childhood by overprotective, helicopter moms and dads mapping their every move. These parents, whether tail-end baby boomers or Gen Xers, now seemed to be rebelling against their own rebelliousness because they felt they’d never really been loved by their own selfish narcissistic true-boomer parents, and who as a result were smothering their kids and not teaching them how to deal with life’s hardships about how things actually work: people might not like you, this person will not love you back, kids are really cruel, work sucks, it’s hard to be good at something, your days will be made up of failure and disappointment, you’re not talented, people suffer, people grow old, people die. And the response from Generation Wuss was to collapse into sentimentality and create victim narratives, instead of grappling with the cold realities by struggling and processing them and then moving on, better prepared to navigate an often hostile or indifferent world that doesn’t care if you exist.
Bret Easton Ellis (White)
Jay's downstairs waiting." With her father on one side, and the handrail on the other, Violet descended the stairs as if she were floating. Jay stood at the bottom, watching her, frozen in place like a statue. His black suit looked as if it had been tailored just for him. His jacket fell across his strong shoulders in a perfect line, tapering at his narrow waist. The crisp white linen shirt beneath stood out in contrast against the dark, finely woven wool. He smiled appreciatively as he watched her approach, and Violet felt her breath catch in her throat at the striking image of flawlessness that he presented. "You...are so beautiful," he whispered fervently as he strode toward her, taking her dad's place at her arm. She smiled sheepishly up at him. "So are you." Her mom insisted on taking no fewer than a hundred pictures of the two of them, both alone and together, until Violet felt like her eyes had been permanently damaged by the blinding flash. Finally her father called off her mom, dragging her away into the kitchen so that Violet and Jay could have a moment alone together. "I meant it," he said. "You look amazing." She shook her head, not sure what to say, a little embarrassed by the compliment. "I got you something," he said to her as he reached inside his jacket. "I hope you don't mind, it's not a corsage." Violet couldn't have cared less about having flowers to pin on her dress, but she was curious about what he had brought for her. She watched as he dragged out the moment longer than he needed to, taking his time to reveal his surprise. "I got you this instead." He pulled out a black velvet box, the kind that holds fine jewelry. It was long and narrow. She gasped as she watched him lift the lid. Inside was a delicate silver chain, and on it was the polished outline of a floating silver heart that drifted over the chain that held it. Violet reached out to touch it with her fingertip. "It's beautiful," she sighed. He lifted the necklace from the box and held it out to her. "May I?" he asked. She nodded, her eyes bright with excitement as he clasped the silver chain around her bare throat. "Thank you," she breathed, interlacing her hand into his and squeezing it meaningfully. She reluctantly used the crutches to get out to the car, since there were no handrails for her to hold on to. She left like they ruined the overall effect she was going for. Jay's car was as nice on the inside as it was outside. The interior was rich, smoky gray leather that felt like soft butter as he helped her inside. Aside from a few minor flaws, it could have passed for brand-new. The engine purred to life when he turned the key in the ignition, something that her car had never done. Roar, maybe-purr, never. She was relieved that her uncle hadn't ordered a police escort for the two of them to the dance. She had half expected to see a procession of marked police cars, lights swirling and sirens blaring, in the wake of Jay's sleek black Acura. Despite sitting behind the wheel of his shiny new car, Jay could scarcely take his eyes off her. His admiring gaze found her over and over again, while he barely concentrated on the road ahead of him. Fortunately they didn't have far to go.
Kimberly Derting (The Body Finder (The Body Finder, #1))
When she finally reached it, she bent forward and looked through the peephole. Jay was grinning back at her from outside. Her heart leaped for a completely different reason. She set aside her crutches and quickly unbolted the door to open it. "What took you so long?" Her knee was bent and her ankle pulled up off the ground. She balanced against the doorjamb. "What d'you think, dumbass?" she retorted smartly, keeping her voice down so she wouldn't alert her parents. "You scared the crap out of me, by the way. My parents are already in bed, and I was all alone down here." "Good!" he exclaimed as he reached in and grabbed her around the waist, dragging her up against him and wrapping his arms around her. She giggled while he held her there, enjoying everything about the feel of him against her. "What are you doing here? I thought I wouldn't see you till tomorrow." "I wanted to show you something!" He beamed at her, and his enthusiasm reached out to capture her in its grip. She couldn't help smiling back excitedly. "What is it?" she asked breathlessly. He didn't release her; he just turned, still holding her gently in his arms, so that she could see out into the driveway. The first thing she noticed was the officer in his car, alert now as he kept a watchful eye on the two of them. Violet realized that it was late, already past eleven, and from the look on his face, she thought he must have been hoping for a quiet, uneventful evening out there. And then she saw the car. It was beautiful and sleek, painted a glossy black that, even in the dark, reflected the light like a polished mirror. Violet recognized the Acura insignia on the front of the hood, and even though she could tell it wasn't brand-new, it looked like it had been well taken care of. "Whose is it?" she asked admiringly. It was way better than her crappy little Honda. Jay grinned again, his face glowing with enthusiasm. "It's mine. I got it tonight. That's why I had to go. My mom had the night off, and I wanted to get it before..." He smiled down at her. "I didn't want to borrow your car to take you to the dance." "Really?" she breathed. "How...? I didn't even know you were..." She couldn't seem to find the right words; she was envious and excited for him all at the same time. "I know right?" he answered, as if she'd actually asked coherent questions. "I've been saving for...for forever, really. What do you think?" Violet smiled at him, thinking that he was entirely too perfect for her. "I think it's beautiful," she said with more meaning than he understood. And then she glanced back at the car. "I had no idea that you were getting a car. I love it, Jay," she insisted, wrapping her arms around his neck as he hoisted her up, cradling her like a small child." "I'd offer to take you for a test-drive, but I'm afraid that Supercop over there would probably Taser me with his stun gun. So you'll have to wait until tomorrow," he said, and without waiting for an invitation he carried her inside, dead bolting the door behind him. He settled down on the couch, where she'd been sitting by herself just moments before, without letting her go. There was a movie on the television, but neither of them paid any attention to it as Jay reclined, stretching out and drawing her down into the circle of his arms. They spent the rest of the night like that, cradled together, their bodies fitting each other perfectly, as they kissed and whispered and laughed quietly in the darkness. At some point Violet was aware that she was drifting into sleep, as her thoughts turned dreamlike, becoming disjointed and fuzzy and hard to hold on to. She didn't fight it; she enjoyed the lazy, drifting feeling, along with the warmth created by the cocoon of Jay's body wrapped protectively around her. It was the safest she'd felt in days...maybe weeks... And for the first time since she'd been chased by the man in the woods, her dreams were free from monsters.
Kimberly Derting (The Body Finder (The Body Finder, #1))
I didn’t want a fancy engagement ring or a gaudy wedding band; for me, a plain wedding ring was a perfect symbol. I like simple, especially in a wedding ring: it reminds you that love is about love, nothing else--not money, not appearances, not showing off. But it seemed almost impossible to convince anyone of that. Including Chris. He kept asking me what I wanted, and wouldn’t take “simple” for an answer. Then my mother got into the act. My grandmother had left her a diamond from a ring that she had had. Mom suggested that I use it as the centerpiece of an engagement ring. I told her thanks, but no thanks. “I don’t care whether you wear it as an engagement ring or a belly button ring,” she insisted after we went around a bit. “But I’m sending it.” She did. It was lovely. Chris and I ended up taking it to a local jewelry store. We found a wonderful setting we both loved and had the jeweler set the diamond in it. We got our wedding rings the same day, adding an engraving on the inside. “All of me,” Chris wrote on mine. “My love, my life,” I said on his.
Taya Kyle (American Wife: Love, War, Faith, and Renewal)
The story really is short. Nine pages, about a boy who was born with a pair of wings. All his life, people tell him that this means he should try to fly. He’s afraid to. When he finally does, jumps off a two-story roof, he falls. He breaks his legs and wings. He never gets them reset. As he recovers, the bone heals in its misshapen form. Finally, people stop telling him that he must’ve been born to fly. Finally, he’s happy. When Alex comes back out, I’m crying. He asks me what’s wrong. I say, “I don’t know. It just speaks to me.” He thinks I’m making a joke and chuckles along, but for once, I wasn’t referencing the gallery girl who tried to sell us a twenty-one-thousand-dollar bear sculpture. I was thinking about what Julian used to say about art. How it either makes you feel something or it doesn’t. When I read his story, I started crying for a reason I can’t totally explain, not even to Alex. When I was a kid, I used to have these panic attacks thinking about how I could never be anyone else. I couldn’t be my mom or my dad, and for my whole life, I’d have to walk around inside a body that kept me from ever truly knowing anyone else. It made me feel lonely, desolate, almost hopeless. When I told my parents about this, I expected them to know the feeling I was talking about, but they didn’t. “That doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with feeling that way, though, sweetie!” Mom insisted. “Who else do you think about being?” my dad said with his particular blunt fascination. The fear lessened, but the feeling never went away. Every once in a while, I’d roll it back out, poke at it. Wonder how I could ever stop feeling lonely when no one could ever know me all the way. When I could never peer into someone else’s brain and see it all. And now I’m crying because reading this story makes me feel for the first time that I’m not in my body. Like there’s some bubble that stretches around me and Alex and makes it so we’re just two different colored globs in a lava lamp, mixing freely, dancing around each other, unhindered. I’m crying because I’m relieved. Because I will never again feel as alone as I did during those long nights as a kid. As long as I have him, I will never be alone again.
Emily Henry (People We Meet on Vacation)
I have to call your mom,” Stephen said. “You don’t have to do that,” I insisted, my voice mellowing as I returned, almost instantly, to my old self. Manic episodes can fade away as quickly as they arise. “I don’t want her to worry.” Mom was a worrier by nature, and I had tried to spare her the full story of what was happening to me so far. “I have to,” he insisted and coaxed her home number out of me. He stepped into the hallway and waited two interminably long rings before Allen, my stepfather, picked up the phone. “Hello,” he said groggily in his thick Bronx accent. “Allen, it’s Stephen. I’m at the hospital. Susannah had a seizure, but she’s doing fine.” In the background, my mom shouted, “Allen, what is it?” “She’s going to be okay. They’re discharging her,” Stephen continued. Despite my mom’s rising panic, Allen maintained his composure, telling Stephen to go back home and sleep. They would come in the morning. When he hung up the phone, my mom and Allen looked at each other. It was Friday the Thirteenth. My mom felt the foreboding, and she began to cry uncontrollably, certain that something was seriously wrong. It was the first and last time she would allow herself to completely succumb to her emotions in the frightening months that followed.
Susannah Cahalan (Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness)
Hey,” Keefe said, grabbing Sophie’s arm as she tried to stomp away. “I get it. You’re mad at me-” “No, you don’t get it,” Sophie interrupted. “You claim we’re a team, and then you change the rules the first chance you get and drag me into whatever insane plan you’ve come up with and expect me to just be okay with it. Well, I’m not okay with it.” “Yeah. I’m sensing that. But-” “There’s no ‘but’ with this. Either you swear that you’ll be honest with me from now on- and I mean actually honest. No more surprises. Or...I can’t trust you anymore.” “You can trust me,” he promised. “You heard Dimitar. My mom’s message told him to challenge me. So he would’ve done it whether I took the title of Mercadir or not, and things would’ve ended up exactly the same way.” “Maybe,” Sophie agreed quietly. “But you didn’t know that when you demanded the title, so it doesn’t count.” Keefe sighed. “I’m just trying to keep you safe. Is that really such a horrible thing?” “I’m not some damsel in distress who needs you to swoop in-” “I know that, Foster. Believe me, I’m super aware of how powerful you are. And brilliant. And special. And-” “The sucking ups’ getting a bit desperate,” Ro warned him. “I’m just saying she’s important,” Keefe insisted, before turning back to Sophie. “You’re the one who matters--I’m just some pawn in my mom’s creepy game. So if I see a way to take the hit and make sure you’re not the one covered in bandages, I’m going to do it. And I thought you of all people would understand that, considering how many times you’ve put yourself at risk, trying to protect your friends.” “There’s protecting and there’s steamrolling, Keefe. You’re preplanning ways to betray me. You went there today knowing exactly what you were going to say. You’d done research- which you didn’t bother sharing with me. That’s not teamwork. That’s the Keefe Show, and we’ve already seen how that ends.
Shannon Messenger (Nightfall (Keeper of the Lost Cities, #6))
Every once in a while at a restaurant, the dish you order looks so good, you don't even know where to begin tackling it. Such are HOME/MADE's scrambles. There are four simple options- my favorite is the smoked salmon, goat cheese, and dill- along with the occasional special or seasonal flavor, and they're served with soft, savory home fries and slabs of grilled walnut bread. Let's break it down: The scramble: Monica, who doesn't even like eggs, created these sublime scrambles with a specific and studied technique. "We whisk the hell out of them," she says, ticking off her methodology on her fingers. "We use cream, not milk. And we keep turning them and turning them until they're fluffy and in one piece, not broken into bits of egg." The toast: While the rave-worthiness of toast usually boils down to the quality of the bread, HOME/MADE takes it a step further. "The flame char is my happiness," the chef explains of her preference for grilling bread instead of toasting it, as 99 percent of restaurants do. That it's walnut bread from Balthazar, one of the city's best French bakeries, doesn't hurt. The home fries, or roasted potatoes as Monica insists on calling them, abiding by chefs' definitions of home fries (small fried chunks of potatoes) versus hash browns (shredded potatoes fried greasy on the griddle) versus roasted potatoes (roasted in the oven instead of fried on the stove top): "My potatoes I've been making for a hundred years," she says with a smile (really, it's been about twenty). The recipe came when she was roasting potatoes early on in her career and thought they were too bland. She didn't want to just keep adding salt so instead she reached for the mustard, which her mom always used on fries. "It just was everything," she says of the tangy, vinegary flavor the French condiment lent to her spuds. Along with the new potatoes, mustard, and herbs de Provence, she uses whole jacket garlic cloves in the roasting pan. It's a simple recipe that's also "a Zen exercise," as the potatoes have to be continuously turned every fifteen minutes to get them hard and crispy on the outside and soft and billowy on the inside.
Amy Thomas (Brooklyn in Love: A Delicious Memoir of Food, Family, and Finding Yourself)
It doesn’t feel right. Not now.” “But you’re the same, Jemma. You haven’t changed. This is what you want, remember?” “See, that’s where you’re wrong. I have changed. And”--I shake my head--“I don’t even know what I want anymore.” He opens his mouth as if he’s about to say something, but closes it just as quickly. A muscle in his haw flexes as he eyes me sharply, his brow furrowed. “I thought you were stronger than this,” he says at last. “Braver.” I start to protest, but he cuts me off. “When I get home, I’m going to e-mail you these video files. I don’t know anything about making films, but if you need any help, well…” He shrugs. “You know my number.” With that, he turns and walks away. I leap to the ground. “Ryder, wait!” He stops and turns to face me. “Yeah?” “I…about Patrick. And then…you and me. I feel awful about it. Things were so crazy during the storm, like it wasn’t real life or something.” I take a deep, gulping breath, my cheeks burning now. “I don’t want you think that I’m, you know, some kind of--” “Just stop right there.” He holds out one hand. “I don’t think anything like that, okay? It was…” He trails off, shaking his head. “Shit, Jemma. I’m not going to lie to you. It was nice. I’m glad I kissed you. I’m pretty sure I’ve been wanting to for…well, a long time now.” “You did a pretty good job hiding it, that’s for sure.” “It’s just that…well, I’ve had to listen to seventeen years’ worth of how you’re the perfect girl for me. And goddamn, Jem. My mom already controls enough in my life. What food I eat. What clothes I wear. Hell, even my underwear. You wouldn’t believe the fight she put up a few years back when I wanted to switch to boxer briefs instead of regular boxers.” I swallow hard, remembering the sight of him wearing the underwear in question. Yeah, I’m glad he won that particular battle. “Anyway, if my parents want it for me, it must be wrong. So I convinced myself that you were wrong for me. You had to be.” His gaze sweeps across my face, and I swear I feel it linger on my lips. “No matter what I felt every single time I looked at you.” Oh my God. I did the exact same thing--thinking he had to be wrong for me just because Mama insisted we were a perfect match. Now I don’t know what to think. What to feel. What’s real and what’s a trying-to-prove-something fabrication. But Ryder…he gets it. He’s lived it too. I let out a sigh. “Can you imagine how different things would be if our families hated each other? If they were feuding like the First Methodists and the Cavalry Baptists?” “I bet it’d be a whole lot less complicated, to tell you the truth. Heck, we probably would’ve already run off together or something by now.” “Probably so,” I say, a smile tugging at my lips.
Kristi Cook (Magnolia (Magnolia Branch, #1))
I thought we were meeting by the field house,” I call out as I make my way over. He doesn’t even turn around. “Nah, I’m pretty sure I said the parking lot.” “You definitely said the field house,” I argue. Why can’t he ever just admit that he’s wrong? “Geez, field house, parking lot. What difference does it make?” Mason asks. “Give it a rest, why don’t you.” I shoot him a glare. “Oh, hey, Mason. Remember when your hair was long and everyone thought you were a girl?” Ryder chuckles as he releases a perfect spiral in Mason’s direction. “She’s got you there.” “Hey, whose side are you on, anyway?” Mason catches the ball and cradles it against his chest, then launches it toward Ben. I just stand there watching as they continue to toss it back and forth between the three of them. Haven’t they had enough football for one day? I pull out my cell to check the time. “We should probably get going.” “I guess,” Ryder says with an exaggerated sigh, like I’m putting him out or something. Which is particularly annoying since he’s the one who insisted on going with me. Ben jogs up beside me, the football tucked beneath his arm. “Where are you two off to? Whoa, you’re sweaty.” I fold my arms across my damp chest. “Hey, southern girls don’t sweat. We glow.” Ben snorts at that. “Says who?” “Says Ryder’s mom,” I say with a grin. It’s one of Laura Grace’s favorite sayings--one that always makes Ryder wince. “The hardware store,” Ryder answers, snatching the ball back from Ben. “Gotta pick up some things for the storm--sandbags and stuff like that. Y’all want to come?” “Nah, I think I’ll pass.” Mason wrinkles his nose. “Pretty sure I don’t want to be cooped up in the truck with Jemma glowing like she is right now.” “Everybody thought you and Morgan were identical twin girls,” I say with a smirk. “Remember, Mason? Isn’t that just so cute?” “I’ll go,” Ben chimes in. “If you’re getting sandbags, you’ll need some help carrying them out to the truck.” “Thanks, Ben. See, someone’s a gentleman.” “Don’t look now, Ryder, but your one-woman fan club is over there.” Mason tips his head toward the school building in the distance. “I think she’s scented you out. Quick. You better run.” I glance over my shoulder to find Rosie standing on the sidewalk by the building’s double doors, looking around hopefully. “Hey!” Mason calls out, waving both arms above his head. “He’s over here.” Ryder’s cheeks turn beet-red. He just stares at the ground, his jaw working furiously. “C’mon, man,” Ben says, throwing an elbow into Mason’s side. “Don’t be a dick.” He grabs the football and heads toward Ryder’s Durango. “We better get going. The hardware store probably closes at six.” Silently, Ryder and I hurry after him and hop inside the truck--Ben up front, me in the backseat. We don’t look back to see if Rosie’s following.
Kristi Cook (Magnolia (Magnolia Branch, #1))
You do understand what I mean!” he exclaimed, pleased to see Maude responding to his song. “I chose Nina Simone to show you something else. Just like you, Nina Simone had a classical background. When she was younger, she wanted to become a concert pianist. Her skill was beyond measure and she used it in a wide repertoire of jazz, blues, and R&B songs. And I think you can do the same. Music knows no limits and I truly understand why James insisted on signing you, Maude.” Maude remained silent, still thinking about his rendition of Nina Simone. “All you have to do is dig deeper. Try finding some suffering in you. Don’t sing the Cenerentola with a smile. Although you look like a girl who’s had it all. You know, the nice girl from the North of France, who grew up in a quiet, small town with her loving mom and dad and brothers and sisters, always top of her class, quick-tempered when things didn’t go her way. A bit spoiled, I guess. You have to put all that—” “Spoiled?” Maude blurted in utter disbelief, the word echoing through her mind. Of all the things he could’ve said about her, spoiled was the last word that could have appeared remotely appropriate to describe her. As for suffering, she’d had plenty of that, too, which is why she didn’t want to think about it. Not while she was so happy in New York and Carvin and the Ruchets were the last thing she wanted in her head. She painfully pushed the Ruchets away from her mind and turned to Matt, eyes flaring up again. “You know nothing about me, Matt,” she said, her voice quivering with emotion. “And you obviously know nothing about suffering, or you wouldn’t idealize it the way that you do. You see it as a romantic notion that seemingly gives depth to songwriting. And it does. Not because the singers actually thought of woe in a purely aesthetic way, but because that’s how they actually lived. You will never understand that,” she finished, trembling from head to toe. And with that, she grabbed her bag, coat, gloves, scarf, and stormed out of Matt’s Creation Room, slamming the door behind her.
Anna Adams (A French Girl in New York (The French Girl, #1))
You’re so pale.” Ashley’s hands were on Miranda’s shoulders now, patting gently. “Do you want some water?” “Maybe she’s going to pass out,” Parker said. “Maybe you should slap her or something.” “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Parker!” “Well, I didn’t mean hit her hard--” “This isn’t the football field. Nobody’s going to hit anybody.” “I’m fine.” Miranda nodded. “Honest. I’m fine.” But her stomach was churning, dry heaves almost, at the back of her throat. She should have had something for lunch, should have eaten breakfast like Mom told her to do. “What about my grandfather?” But it was as if she hadn’t spoken. “She is pale,” Gage insisted. “Do you think she’s gonna be sick?” Parker was instantly on his feet. “Turn her the other way!
Richie Tankersley Cusick (Walk of the Spirits (Walk, #1))
They had also tried controlled crying with Adam, which was why he, at two, was so insistent on keeping his mom nearby at all times. This was clearly a case in which the trust had to be rebuilt before any other problems could be examined.
Tracy Hogg (Sleep: Secrets to Getting Your Baby to Sleep Through the Night)
What, Mother, could possibly happen in forty-eight hours?” She chose not to answer. “I’ll strap a fire extinguisher on my back and lug around the mobile phone, okay?” “Even when you sleep . . .” she insisted. I put my hand over my heart. “So help me, Mom, I’ll look so weird, no one will come near me.” “That’s my girl.
Joan Bauer (Thwonk)
Let us more and more insist on raising funds of Love, of kindness, of understanding, of peace. Money will come if we seek first the Kingdom of god—the rest will be given. –Blessed Mother Teresa
Lisa M. Hendey (The Handbook for Catholic Moms: Nurturing Your Heart, Mind, Body, and Soul (CatholicMom.com Book))
I think that is why he insisted I stay with him until my mom whirled into town for Christmas. He was there in these moments when I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't fall back to sleep. Those moments when the heavy malaise twisted in discontent.
Jennifer L. Armentrout (Forever with You (Wait for You, #5))
idea. I told Mom we should empty out each room, clean it thoroughly, and put back only the things that were essential. That was the one way, it seemed to me, to get rid of the clutter. But Mom said my idea was too time-consuming, so all we ended up doing was straightening piles of paper into stacks and stuffing dirty clothes into the chest of drawers. Mom insisted that we chant Hail Marys while we worked. “It’s a way of cleansing our souls while we’re cleaning house,” she said. “We’re killing two birds with one stone.” The
Jeannette Walls (The Glass Castle)
Feeling overwhelmed and maybe a bit underappreciated, we moms gravitate toward the insistence of well-meaning mom-fluencers who tell us what we “deserve”—we “deserve” a break. Praise. Recognition. To take our lives back and to remember that we’re more than just a mother. We’re told we deserve to be “authentic” selves by reclaiming “autonomy” over our lives and taking back the identity we had before we became moms. There’s some truth in these assurances. We do need a break. It would be nice for our husbands to acknowledge our hard work. We do have roles in addition to being a mom. But the deceptive premise in each of them is that we’re entitled to a tangible reward for simply doing our job. In that way, motherhood is subtly depicted as something that happened to us rather than something we chose and that God graciously gave us.
Allie Beth Stuckey (You're Not Enough (and That's Ok): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love)
Mom says as we both enter the background-designated trailer bathroom. I’d been holding my poop for an hour and couldn’t hold it anymore, so I finally asked a person with a walkie-talkie if I could please go, even though Mom tells me I might be labeled difficult for doing so. “Sorry,” I say while I poop and Mom wets a paper towel with water. I’m embarrassed she still insists on wiping my butt. I tried to tell her recently that now that I’m eight, I think I can handle it, but she looked like she was gonna cry and said she needs to do it until I’m at least ten because she doesn’t want skid marks on my Pocahontas underwear. I know if I did it there wouldn’t be skid marks, but it’s Mom’s tears I’m more worried about.
Jennette McCurdy (I'm Glad My Mom Died)
Mark had insisted that their mom and dad wanted to be cremated and no one could find any instructions to the contrary, and when Louise had called Stuhr’s and they’d told her that the contract Mark had signed was nonrefundable, she’d Googled it and discovered that plenty of families interred cremains in a burial plot. So, cremation it was.
Grady Hendrix (How to Sell a Haunted House)
He’s the dark, rugged type. The type your mom insists is bad for you even though she secretly wants to fuck him.
H.D. Carlton (Shallow River)
The fresh air that teachers and parents in Scandinavia insist that children get every day is not just good for them—it’s actually essential to their health and well-being.
Linda Åkeson McGurk (There's No Such Thing as Bad Weather: A Scandinavian Mom's Secrets for Raising Healthy, Resilient, and Confident Kids (from Friluftsliv to Hygge))
One of Mia’s classmates also needed to wear orthodontic headgear to correct an underbite. Although his headgear wasn’t as complicated as Mia’s, he didn’t want to wear it as long as he needed to each day and balked at his mother’s insistence. A few days after Mia showed up at school in her headgear, the little boy’s mother stopped me at school and told me how she had been struggling with her son about his headgear. “But last week he came home after school so excited and said, ‘Mom, you will not believe what Mia has on!’” “What?” “Headgear! If she can do it, so can I!” When I told Mia the story, her entire face lit up. She was so proud of herself, but more than that, she loves to help others. Knowing she had given someone else courage and strength was a great blessing to her.
Missy Robertson (Blessed, Blessed ... Blessed: The Untold Story of Our Family's Fight to Love Hard, Stay Strong, and Keep the Faith When Life Can't Be Fixed)
I frequently forward the message that our spirit people are quite all right where they are. They respond with eagerness when a guest recognizes them, and are happy to spend some time conversing back and forth, through me. Yet they also seem to know that this kind of communication is only temporary, so most are quick to point out before they leave that they will meet their physical friends one day in the future. A forty-ish woman came for an appointment one day with her friend. As I tuned in, I felt the presence of a young woman who’d passed before her time in a vehicle accident. My client acknowledged her daughter, who had died at the age of nineteen while traveling to a camping weekend with friends. The spirit conveyed her joy at her mother’s presence, and insistently repeated that she really was safe and happy. Her younger sister needed to hear this message in particular, and she urged her mother to pass it on. “Do you miss us?” the mother asked. “Do you think about us and miss us, are you counting the days till we can be together again, too?” With a feeling of frustration from the spirit, I had to translate, “I’m fine!” yet again. This spirit came across as being almost dismissive of her family’s grief. As her mother cried on my couch, the spirit came through very much like a teenaged girl, saying “Oh Mom, come on! I’m fine!” After we concluded, I spent some time in meditation asking for help. How could I translate a spirit’s genuine well-being, without sounding dismissive myself? How could I show my clients that the spirit people are so certain of meeting again, that they rarely spend much time trying to convince us?
Priscilla A. Keresey (It Will All Make Sense When You're Dead: Messages From Our Loved Ones in the Spirit World)
Madison! This is too perfect. Join us.” Reed stood coolly in the middle of the hall, oblivious to the swarm of kids around him. “Reed, I’d love to join you,” Madison shouted above the bustle. “But I told Piper I’d meet her in the parking lot.” “This’ll just take a minute,” Reed insisted. Madison hesitated. Much as she wanted to avoid talking to Jeremy, she didn’t want to look like a rude jerk. She maneuvered her way around Jeremy and stood next to Reed. “Of course you know Jeremy,” Reed said, not letting her off the hook. Jeremy answered for her. “We’re like this,” he said, holding up two fingers at arm’s length. “Funny,” Madison replied without a smile. Reed seemed oblivious to their awkwardness. “Listen up. My mom’s a marketing specialist and she might be able to get us some airtime on some of the local radio stations. What do you think?” Jeremy nodded. “That would be extremely cool.” “Would the interviews be separate?” Madison asked, not wanting to spend any time in close proximity to Jeremy. “I’d prefer to do mine alone--or with you, Reed.” Jeremy scowled. “What is it with you, Madison? Can’t you at least be civil?” “Not to you,” Madison said with an angry toss of her head. “Give me a break,” Jeremy snapped. “Whoa! Time out! Truce!” Reed quickly stepped between them and draped his arms around their shoulders. “Look, this is just an election. You don’t need to get so malignant.” “Save the lecture for someone who needs it,” Jeremy grumbled. “Like Miss Stuck-up.” Madison clutched her chest as if she’d been shot in the heart. “Oh, you got me,” she said melodramatically. “I’m mortally wounded.” Jeremy’s cheeks flared a deep red. Clenching his fists at his sides, he took several deep breaths. Clearly he was trying not to say anything back to Madison. At last he turned to Reed and said evenly, “The radio station idea is a good one. I’ll catch you later to discuss it.” He turned on his heel and strode away. Madison felt the heat creep into her own face. Most of the students nearby had witnessed the entire exchange. Madison felt pretty certain that, at this moment, she looked like a complete, raving idiot. Reed shook his head in amazement. “Wow. I don’t need to do a thing to win this election,” he said with a chuckle. “I’ll just stand back and let you two destroy each other.
Jahnna N. Malcolm (Perfect Strangers (Love Letters, #1))
One of my favorite examples of how souls retain their personality quirks and charms happened when I did a group reading for a bunch of sisters and their mom after their father had died. His soul came through and said that when Mom goes on her cruise, he’ll be with her. He described how amazing it would be--the whole family would be on a large boat, and because it was a Disney cruise, Mickey Mouse and Cinderella would be there too. The woman was very confused, since she hadn’t planned a vacation for herself recently, much less such an indulgent one. “I don’t know what my husband’s talking about,” she said. “I can’t afford to go on a trip like that.” But her husband’s soul kept at it. He was insistent! After lots of sideways glances, the kids burst out laughing. “Okay, Dad, we’ll tell her!” they said. The girls had planned a surprise birthday cruise for the family for their mom’s seventieth birthday. “This is so typical,” the mom said. “He could never keep anything to himself!” Clearly, he’s still into blowing secrets from the Other Side.
Theresa Caputo (There's More to Life Than This)
My little man,” she said. “No.” She stretched out her hand to him. “Come.” “I can’t,” he said. “Sam, I’m your mother. I love you. Come with me.” “Mom…” “Just reach out to me. I’m safe. I can carry you away, out of this place.” Sam shook his head slowly, slowly, like he was drowning in molasses. Something was happening to time. Astrid wasn’t breathing. Nothing was moving. The whole world was frozen. “It will be like it was,” his mother said. “It was never…,” he began. “You lied to me. You never told me…” “I never lied,” she said, and frowned at him, disappointed. “You never told me I had a brother. You never told—” “Just come with me,” she said, impatient now, jerking her hand a little like she would when he was a little kid and refused to take her hand to cross the street. “Come with me now, Sam. You’ll be safe and out of this place.” He reacted instinctively, the little boy again, reacted to the “mommy” voice, the “obey me” voice. He reached for her, stretched his hand out to her. And pulled it back. “I can’t,” Sam whispered. “I have someone I have to stay here for.” Anger flashed in his mother’s eyes, a green light, surreal, before she blinked and it was gone. And then, out of the bleached, unreal world, Caine stepped into the eerie light. Sam’s mother smiled at Caine, and he stared at her wonderingly. “Nurse Temple,” Caine said. “Mom,” she corrected. “It’s time for both my boys to join me, to come away with me. Out of this place.” Caine seemed spellbound, unable to tear his gaze away from the gentle, smiling face, the piercing blue eyes. “Why?” Caine asked in a small child’s voice. Their mother said nothing. Once again, for just a heartbeat, her blue eyes glowed a toxic green before returning to cool, icy blue. “Why him and not me?” Caine asked. “It’s time to come with me now,” their mother insisted. “We’ll be a family. Far from here.” “You first, Sam,” Caine said. “Go with your mother.” “No,” Sam said. Caine’s face darkened with rage. “Go, Sam. Go. Go. Go with her.” He was shouting now. He seemed to want to grab Sam physically, push him toward the mother they had not quite shared, but his movements were odd, disjointed, a jerky stick figure in a dream. Caine gave up trying. “Jack told you,” he said dully. “No one told me anything,” Sam said. “I have things I have to do here.” Their mother extended her arms to them, angry, demanding to be heeded. “Come to me. Come to me.” Caine shook his head slowly. “No.” “But you’re the man of the house now, Sam,” his mother wheedled. “My little man. Mine.” “No,” Sam said. “I’m my own man.” “And I was never yours,” Caine sneered. “Too late now, Mother.” The face of their mother wavered. The tender flesh seemed to break apart in jigsaw-puzzle pieces. The gently smiling, pleading mouth melted, collapsed inward. In its place a mouth ringed with needle-sharp teeth. Eyes filled with green fire. “I’ll have you yet,” the monster raged with sudden violence. Caine stared in horror. “What are you?” “What am I?” the monster mocked him savagely. “I’m your future. You’ll come to me on your own in the dark place, Caine. You will come willingly to me.
Michael Grant
I’ll call a cab and go to my car. I’ll sleep there for the night and figure out what to do in the light of day.” He’d started shaking his head about halfway through her proclamation and hadn’t stopped. “Do you honestly think I’m going to let you sleep in a car abandoned in some ditch on the side of the highway?” She scowled, hackles rising. “There’s no letting me. I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.” I think. No, screw that. I know. “Hey,” he said, voice soft. He wrapped his fingers around her wrist and, when she tried to yank away, held tight. “I know you can. You’ve already proven yourself.” Her frown deepening, she cast a suspicious glance in his direction. She was stuck in the middle of nowhere with no resources. Any idiot could see that. “I’ve proven nothing other than I can land myself in a huge mess.” One brow rose. “Oh? How long did you walk tonight? By yourself, in the dark?” “I didn’t have a choice, and I don’t have a choice now.” “There are always choices, Maddie. Don’t forget, you made a hell of a big one today.” “That doesn’t count,” she said, voice rising. Temper, temper, Maddie. She shook the voice away. “I know my options, and I’m going back to my car.” He studied her. Summing her up like the lawyer he used to be. “I don’t want to ask, but I’m going to anyway. Why don’t you want to call your family?” “Because I don’t want to.” The words shot out of her mouth, surprising her with their force. “What about friends?” Penelope and Sophie would walk through fire for her, but they weren’t an option, at least not tonight. “They’re probably at my mom’s house, consoling my family.” He scrubbed a hand over his stubbled jaw. “Won’t they be worried?” “I’m sure they are,” she said. Her voice had taken on an edge that she hoped would pass for determined, but she feared that it bordered on petulance. “But I’m not calling them. I wrote a note and stole my own car from the parking lot, so it’s not like they’ll think I’ve been kidnapped.” “What did you do, hotwire the thing?” Amusement was plain in the deep tone of his voice. “If you must know, I have three extremely overprotective older brothers, a worrywart mother, and a . . .” She paused, trying out the words in her mind and deciding she wanted to own them. “. . . suffocating ex-fiancé. They insisted I have one of those industrial-strength, military-grade, combination-lock hideaway keys. My uncle brought my car to the church because his was in the shop. So really, it’s their fault this happened.” That was the moment she’d known she was going to run. Surrounded by the smell of gardenias that made her want to gag, she’d pushed her bridesmaids out the door, begging for a few minutes of peace and quiet. She’d gone over to the window, desperate for the smell of fresh air, and there sat her little Honda. The cherry red of the car had glowed in the sun like a gift from heaven. A sudden, almost reverent calm descended on her. It had felt like peace: a feeling so foreign to her that it had taken a moment to recognize it. Mitch laughed, pulling her away from those last minutes in the church and back to the temptation sitting next to her. “Princess, you really are something,” he said, still chuckling.
Jennifer Dawson (Take a Chance on Me (Something New, #1))
another, as if we are afraid of disturbing the balance we have created. “Eloise made your favorite, Mama. Of course, it’s not as good as yours, but she used your recipe.” Trisha brings out the baingan bharta dish and sets it in the middle. She ushers us toward the table, insisting we take our seats. “You’re wearing saris again?” Trisha stops, staring. I take in Mom’s outfit. Today she chose to wear a green sari. It is not one I recognize, but from the simple design along the edge, I can tell it is old. The newer ones have strips
Sejal Badani (Trail of Broken Wings)
The trouble is that gender dysphoria is not something you can see so Mom and Dad thought they had a son. They’d spent ten years thinking they had a son before my continued insistence that I was a girl wore through Mom’s defenses and she realized what I was trying to tell her.
Rachel Gold (Just Girls)
More recently, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird faced each other on the basketball court as arch-competitors—first in high school, continuing through college, and culminating in the NBA, with Johnson playing for the LA Lakers and Bird playing for the Boston Celtics. The rivalry of these two champions became legendary—as did their dislike for one another, which seemed to grow in intensity with every passing year. Somewhere along the way Converse paid each of them to shoot a shoe commercial; they faced each other on the court, Bird wearing white shoes, Johnson wearing black. Bird insisted that they film the commercial at his farm in Indiana. The shoot began icily, with both superstars circling each other, but when they broke for lunch and started to go their separate ways, Bird’s mother announced that she had made lunch and invited everyone to the table. In Larry Bird’s words, “It was at the table that I discovered Earvin Johnson. I never liked Magic Johnson very much. But Earvin I like, a lot. And Earvin didn’t come out until I met him at Mom’s table.
Leonard Sweet (From Tablet to Table: Where Community Is Found and Identity Is Formed)
When Zev still didn’t say anything, Toby visibly stiffened, seemingly steeling his courage, and then continued speaking. “Is something going on with Jonah?” “We haven’t talked about Jonah since he moved away,” Zev answered after a short pause. “I know.” “That was three and a half years ago,” Zev continued. “I know.” He probably should have been surprised that Toby had known he’d kept in touch with Jonah, but Zev wasn’t. Lori was pretty perceptive, and she probably knew exactly where Zev went when he traveled for business. And what Lori knew, Toby knew. Whether they were aware of the nature of Zev’s feelings for the human wasn’t clear, but Zev was too tired to try to make excuses. “He’s gonna go to medical school.” Zev still hadn’t moved his arm from his face, so he couldn’t see Toby’s reaction. “Medical school?” Toby’s voice was tempered but confused. “That’s, like, four years of school and then four years of residency. Which means eight more years away from Etzgadol.” Eight more years away from me. The last part was really the crux of the problem, but Zev didn’t dare say it out loud. It’d give away too much. Still, it didn’t make sense. A few years away so they could grow up and be old enough to tie when they came back together, Zev was almost able to understand. But that time had passed, Zev had figured out how to tie with a male, and he was ready for his mate to join him. Why would nature give him a mate who insisted on staying away? Zev felt like he was missing something. Like there was a lesson he should be learning, but he had no clue what it was. Instead, he just felt frustrated and angry. So many thoughts were swirling in his mind that he hadn’t registered Toby’s long silence until the other man spoke again. “You know my mom works with Doc Carson.” The change in topic was weird, but welcome, so Zev engaged Toby in the conversation. “Yeah, I know.” “So I was asking her the other day if she thinks he’d take me on at the clinic when I get my nursing degree, and you know what she told me?” The conversation was about as interesting as watching paint peel, but at least it got Zev thinking about something other than Jonah. Almost.
Cardeno C. (Wake Me Up Inside (Mates, #1))
Opening up your heart is messy—and risky. But keeping your heart spotless is risky too,” Mom insisted, and I committed the words to heart, even if I wasn’t sure I believed them. Mom had a poet’s soul.
Noelle W. Ihli (Gray After Dark)
One random Friday, the president announced that an asteroid was on a collision course for Earth. My world and everyone else’s—the entire planet—fell into chaos. Everything that was capable of collapsing eventually did. My grandfather showed up the next day as stores were being ransacked and riots were erupting in the streets. He begged us to run. Escape to his survival-adapted cabin in the middle of nowhere where he’d stored up years’ worth of food and provisions. My parents finally agreed, but they insisted on taking the time to pack all their favorite possessions while Grandpa and I waited impatiently in his old truck. The delay was a mistake. Large groups of violent looters were already hitting the wealthy neighborhoods in town, plundering houses and killing anyone who resisted. My mom and dad didn’t resist. Neither of them had ever thrown a punch or loaded a gun in their lives. But they were killed anyway, and Grandpa and I barely made it out of there alive. By then the interstates and highways were impossible, clogged with cars and roadblocked by aggressive militia groups whose day had finally arrived. Grandpa took us on smaller back roads, shooting at or running over anyone who tried to stop us, until we reached his remote cabin and left the remains of civilization behind. We stayed there—living off everything he’d stored up and using the self-sustaining energy and plumbing systems he’d installed—for more than eight years. A couple of years ago, as our supplies were running low, we realized we’d finally have to leave the safe isolation of our home long enough to scavenge for food and provisions. This region of the Ozarks was abandoned a long time ago as the protected forests and uncultivated wildland overtook the former pockets of residents, but there are still plenty of abandoned buildings remaining.
Claire Kent (Homestead (Kindled, #7))
My love for reading was the only hobby Mom and I had in common. She always let me pack extra books on our trips. In Paris, she’d shopped for handbags at boring designer stores. I’d insisted we go to Princes’ Park, where the Paris Saint-Germain football club played. But the day we’d had the most fun was when we’d bounced from bookshop to bookshop together.
Devney Perry (Crossroads (Haven River Ranch, #1))
For all his faults, my dad is always a gentleman.” Even though I’d always insisted on doing the little things for her, I’d never told her why. “Even when he is furious with my mom for losing two grand in a night, he treats her with respect. Opens doors. Holds out her coat. Pulls out her chair.” I hadn’t learned much from Dad—mostly what not to do—but that had been one of the good lessons.
Devney Perry (Garnet Flats (The Edens, #3))
Have you spoken with your sister lately? She has been running quite an extensive campaign with The Daily Solaria insisting that you are still planning to claim the throne together. Care to comment?” Portia asked hopefully and I wished I could scream at her and tell her the truth, that my father was a monster, that he was using the shadows to control Tory, that he used dark magic daily, that he was allied with the Nymphs, that he planned on taking over the kingdom and destroying anyone who stood in his way. But I just stood there, my features schooled, my heart pounding out of rhythm. “Oh, I’m not running for the throne anymore,” Tory said simply and my heart scrunched up in my chest. She reached out to run her hand up and down Father’s arm. “I’ve found my true place now.” Portia blinked furiously and Mom carefully kept her serene expression in place, but there was a dark horror behind her eyes. “By the stars, so you are officially renouncing your claim to the throne of Solaria?” Portia asked, dollar signs flashing in her eyes at being the first to get the scoop on this. Hell no. Don’t do this, Tory. “Absolutely,” Tory said with a weirdly empty smile.
Caroline Peckham (Fated Throne (Zodiac Academy, #6))
My mom and I don't look much alike. She's wild, with red curly hair, freckles, and hazel eyes. I take after my father, she says. The few pictures I've seen of him prove her right. The pale skin, black hair, elfin features, and green eyes are nearly identical. I may have gotten my looks from my father, but I get my determination and stubbornness from my mother. She limps around the kitchen serving up our breakfast, and I resist the urge to help her, to insist she sits. I know she's in pain. I can see it eating away at her, in the pinched expressions on her face and weariness of her eyes. It's gotten worse over the years, and her pain pills are less and less effective. But despite it all, she won't let me help. My mother is nothing if not proud and fiercely independent. We sit at our two-person plastic kitchen table surrounded by peeling yellow walls with cheap flea market paintings of flowers and fruit decorating them. I love our kitchen, as tiny and old as it is. It's cheery and always smells of cinnamon and honey. I'm
Karpov Kinrade (Vampire Girl (Vampire Girl, #1))
But when he got to his office, after dropping Peter off at camp, Dakota wasn’t there. She’d left early the day before. He checked the machine to see if she’d called in sick, but there wasn’t any message. By ten, he was worried and wondering whom to talk to. Just when he picked up the phone to call Pia, Dakota walked in. She looked like hell. Her face was pale, her eyes red and swollen. There was an air of grief and loss about her, as if something important to her had been taken away from her. He was on his feet the second he saw her. “What happened?” he demanded. She shook her head. “Nothing.” “It’s not nothing. Were you in an accident? Did someone hurt you?” If she’d had a boyfriend, he would assume he’d beaten her or slept with her best friend. But as far as he knew, Dakota wasn’t dating. “I’m fine,” she said, her mouth trembling as she spoke. “You have to believe me.” “Then you need to be more convincing.” She forced a smile that was more ghoulish than happy. “How’s that?” “Frightening.” She sighed. “I’m fine. I know I look bad. I’m not hurt, I’m not sick.” She swallowed. “Everything is how it’s always been.” “Dakota, get real. Something happened.” “No, it didn’t.” Tears filled her eyes. “It didn’t.” The tears spilled down her cheeks. Instinctively, he walked toward her, but she shook her head and backed away. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I can’t do this. I can’t be here today. I need a day or two. Sick days, vacation days, whatever you want.” He felt helpless and confused. “Take whatever time you need. Can I call someone? One of your sisters? Your mom?” “No. No one. I’m fine. I have to go.” With that she grabbed her purse and practically ran out of the office. Raoul stared after her, not sure what he was supposed to do now. Let her go? Follow her? Call a friend? She wasn’t physically hurt—he could figure out that much. So what had happened? Had she heard bad news? But if there’d been a disaster in the family, he would have heard about it. News traveled fast in Fool’s Gold. He would give her time, he decided. If she wasn’t back at work in a couple of days, he would go talk to her. If she wouldn’t talk to him, he would insist she talk to someone else.
Susan Mallery (Finding Perfect (Fool's Gold #3))
I’ll bring you a monkey bread muffin.” My eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Were you at Plum & Honey already this morning?” “Yes. The girls insisted.” He paused. “And I might have asked your mom what your favorite muffin was.” “Look at you being a nice guy.” “I know.” He put his grump face back on. “Don’t fucking tell anyone.
Melanie Harlow (Ignite (Cloverleigh Farms, #6))
My parents have always taught us that love is love, and even though Mom is a firm believer that all of her children should get married, settle down, and have a family, she's never insisted on what kind of family that should be.
James Ramos (Daniel, Deconstructed)
Our cabin was about twenty feet square and had a fireplace and four windows, one on each side of the door, and on each side wall. It even had its own outhouse in the back. He painted both buildings inside and out, put a new wood floor in the cabin and the outhouse, and even got glass for the windows. Mom Connor didn’t understand why we didn’t just live with them in the big house, but James insisted that we had to have our own place, and I’m glad he did. It was better for both of us. I didn’t know then, but I was later to learn that it didn’t work to have two women under one roof.
Donna Foley Mabry (Maude)
The type your mom insists is bad for you even though she secretly wants to fuck him, too.
H.D. Carlton (Shallow River)
I can't tell Mom. Can't tell her that her insistence on my productivity doesn't matter. That her insistence that I think about my future doesn't matter. None of that matters. I won't be around in the future. The decision has already been made. I won't be around. Whether it's now or in a week or in a few months. It's going to happen. Soon. I'm almost relieved.
Barry Lyga (Bang)
What else would you call it?” I ask him. It was a wedding gift from Ron’s ex. She sent us a gravy boat shaped like a turkey, where the neck is the handle and the gravy comes out the ass. I insist on using it at least twice a year.
Laurie Gelman (Class Mom (Class Mom, #1))
Five days after the food was Easter Sunday. The only church that had not been flooded in the neighborhood invited everyone to services, come as you are. Mom decreed we were going to church. "Church!?" I thought. What in the world was she thinking? We had been cleaning up flood mud for three days with no water to clean ourselves up. Mom insisted. She said that Calvary Baptist was going to allow women into the sanctuary in pants and that was something we were not going to miss. (In 1977 this was earthshattering for sure.) I guess we would take a stand for women's equality!
Donna L. Burgraff (Appalachian Magazine's Mountain Voice: 2017: A Collection of Memories, Histories, and Tall Tales of Appalachia)
In our large family, someone is always the problem child, the hot potato, the one the others are talking about, worrying over, bitching about. I had my turn more than anybody. My sister Lisa said that the tug of the family—insistent, nagging, and never-ending—kept me from flying off the edge in irretrievable ways. “We were raised with values of family and church and all that stuff, but mostly family,” she said, the two of us sharing a cigarette at her kitchen table in the spring of 2007. “No matter how screwed up you were and how you screwed Mom and Dad over, there is always somebody calling you up on the phone, brothers or sisters, saying, ‘What’s going on?’ There is always a good cop and a bad cop, but we always had each other.
David Carr (The Night of the Gun)
No, I’ll go,” Mom insisted. “I need to make sure we get an exact replica. Knowing you, you’d come back with a stuffed elephant and try to pass that off as Snowball.
Rob Buyea (What Comes Next)
I had a dream where I was in a place that served steak and mashed potatoes and the soup! The pasta soup was heavenly even better than my mother’s homemade recipe. Every spoonful of the soup reminded me of the sun. The mashed potatoes were so smooth that they could slide down my gullet. The steak was medium-rare, my favorite, and every bite reminded me of the steak my mom made but it was one hundred and one times better.  And there was also iced tea and every sip of it felt refreshing like a cold, winter morning with the sun shining merrily and my mom and I throwing snowballs at each other. I  ate and drank until I could eat no more. I felt as if my stomach was about to combust. But then in came the tiramisu. It was better than anything I had ever tasted. The rich smell of coffee wafted up from it. It reminded me of the coffee shop my mom went to when I was little. Despite the fact that my stomach was about to explode I managed to fit in three more slices of tiramisu before I could eat no more. But then came the Ice cream. It was my favorite flavor, mango. The ice cream was silky and sweet. It was like I was on a sunny June morning, a ray of sunlight shining in my face. The sensation intensified as mango juice dribbled down my chin like sunlight itself. I managed six scoops before I was sure my belly would explode. Every moment of eating the ice cream was sunsational. Finally came the float. It was vanilla ice cream on top of some Fanta even though my mom insisted root beer was one hundred times better. It tasted amazing. It was like the early spring making our ice crack in the pond on which my mother and I go ice skating every winter. It was happy but also sad at the same time as if my old life called back for me.
Zining Fan (The Fall of Naquinn)
Mom, this is Hollis,” I mumble to myself, locking the car with the remote and heading into the garage. “No, no, go on in. I’ll just start the grill. No, I insist,” I pout, deserted and alone.
Sara Ney (Hard Fall (Trophy Boyfriends, #2))
Silver confetti falls from the ceiling. The music launches again, and the sleek young mob dances feverishly, arms in the air. My head throbs along with the bass. Why had I agreed to this? I plug my ears with my fingers. I feel ridiculous beside these twenty-somethings. Marie and her friend apparently do not. They’re drinking the champagne and bopping their heads to the music. I watch a group of girls pucker for a photographer. They’re practically falling out of their tops. I hear Emily’s voice. Prude. “I have to go to the bathroom,” I tell Marie, and slide out of the booth. And I’m thinking of those catacombs, seemingly endless. I can see Emily, the version of her in that coffin. Embalming, the displacement of blood and interstitial fluids by embalming chemicals. I had looked the process up, after Mom insisted on a viewing. She was so beautiful, she cried. I want to see her one more time. The body is washed in disinfectant, limbs are massaged and manipulated, eyes glued closed, mouth and jaw secured with wires. The embalming solution contains dye to simulate a lifelike skin tone. A warm peach tone, the funeral director told us. I could barely stand it. I make my way to the second floor, where the music isn’t techno, only sultry R&B.
Liska Jacobs (The Worst Kind of Want)
He opened the small brown bag and held it toward her, and she could smell the butter. Notably, though, there was no grease soaking the bottom of the bag, like when Mom brought home donuts. She peered in. "I think it's a croissant. And a chocolate croissant. And some kind of roll. And some other thing I didn't know what it was." "Chausson aux pommes," Rosie said, pulling it from the bag. She was pretty sure anyway- it had the distinctive half-moon shape, and the slashes on top let her see a peek of what looked like apple filling. "What's that?" Rosie stilled as Henry shifted closer to her. He was just looking at the pastry, and she knew that, but still. He was close, and he smelled warm, and sleepy. And male. "It's kind of like an apple croissant," she said, ignoring the rapid rise of her heartbeat. "Or an apple strudel. An apple turnover, I guess." "Try it." "You should have the first bite. You got it." "I insist," Henry said, and he wouldn't take it from her. So she bit in, and the pastry flaked instantly, then yielded into sweet, soft cinnamon apples. It was so good that she had to imagine this would be the best thing she'd try today. But then Henry was grinning, chocolate smeared on his face, and he passed her the pain au chocolat, and she thought that had to be the best thing. But then the classic croissant was so perfect, each layer of lamination distinct, and then the brioche was dangerously rich, yet so light at the same time, and the éclair's filling was perfectly smooth, and the baguette made Rosie rethink what, exactly, the stuff she'd been eating for the last sixteen years was, because it couldn't possibly be bread, not like this...
Stephanie Kate Strohm (Love à la Mode)
and the brother were just… white. I was sick to my stomach and I wanted the whole thing to be over. But it wasn’t.” She turned toward him. “It… destroyed the family. I mean, all of them were a little strange, but it turned into a catastrophe. A few months after the murder, Cassie’s mom committed suicide, then the father had his medical license suspended. I always thought there was something a little weird about the brother… anyway, that’s when these terrible notes started to arrive. They came to my apartment and the office, in different envelopes, usually just a sentence or two. They were awful… calling me names, demanding to know why I hated Cassie or why I wanted to hurt the family. The police talked to the brother and the notes stopped. For a while, anyway, but when they started arriving again, they were… different. More threatening. Way scarier. So the police talked to him again, and I guess he just… snapped. Denied that he was responsible and insisted that I was out to get him, that the police were in cahoots with me. He ended up in a psychiatric hospital. Meanwhile, the father’s threatening to sue me. The police theorized that Cassie’s boyfriend might be responsible for the notes. Of course, when the police talked to him, he denied sending them, too. That’s when the panic attacks started. I had the sense that whoever was sending those notes would never leave me alone and that’s when I knew I had to go home.” Colin said nothing. He knew there was nothing he could say that would make
Nicholas Sparks (See Me)
She looked at me listlessly. “Kristen, why haven’t you talked to him?” The question surprised me. My best friend hadn’t been my best friend in a long time. We didn’t talk about me or what I was going through. We didn’t really talk about anything. I went back to scrolling through the artist’s album on her phone so I wouldn’t have to look at her. “What’s there to say?” She laughed. It actually startled me it was so sudden, and I stared at her in surprise. “Go home, Kristen.” I blinked at her. “What?” She took her phone from my hands. “Go home. Talk to him. Be with him. Be happy.” I furrowed my brow. “Nothing has changed, Sloan.” She stared at me with red-rimmed eyes. “You don’t think you’re worth it.” I shifted uncomfortably. “What are you talking about?” “Your mom. All your life she made you feel like you were never good enough. And so you don’t think you’re good enough for Josh either. But you are.” I shook my head. “No. That’s not it, Sloan.” “Yeah. It is.” “Sloan, he doesn’t know what’s best for him. He’s just thinking about right now.” “No. You’re the one who doesn’t know what’s best for you. She ruined you. She spent your whole childhood setting a bar she knew you’d never reach, and now you think you have to be perfect to be good enough for anyone.” We stared at each other. Then Sloan’s chest started to rise and fall in the rapid way that told me a breakdown was coming. I instinctively pulled tissues from a box on the end table just as her eyes started to tear up. “Kristen? Brandon’s accident is my fault.” I was used to this. She lost focus a lot. This time I was glad for the change of subject. “No, Sloan, it wasn’t.” I took the plate from her lap and put it on the coffee table and gathered up her hands. “None of this was your fault.” She bit her lip, the tears falling down her cheeks. “It is. I should have never let him ride that bike. I should have insisted.” I shook my head, scooting closer to her. “No. He was a grown man, Sloan. He was a paramedic. He went on those accident calls—he knew the risks. Don’t you dare put this on yourself.” Her chin quivered. “How can I not? Shouldn’t I have protected him from himself? I loved him. It was my job.
Abby Jimenez
I stared hard at Suzanne, at her perfect heart-shaped face and reddish-brown skin, feeling comforted somehow by the youthful smoothness of her cheeks and the girlish curve in her lips. She seemed oddly undiminished by the illness. Her dark hair was still lustrous and long; someone had put in two ropy braids that reached almost to her waist. Her track runner's legs lay hidden beneath the blankets. She looked young, like a sweet, beautiful, twenty-six-year-old who was maybe in the middle of a nap. I regretted not coming earlier. I regretted the many times, over the course of our seesawing friendship, that I'd insisted she was making a wrong move, when possibly she'd been doing it right. I was suddenly glad for all the times she'd ignored my advice. I was glad that she hadn't overworked herself to get some fancy business school degree. That she'd gone off for a lost weekend with a semi-famous pop star, just for fun. I was happy that she'd made it to the Taj Mahal to watch the sunrise with her mom. Suzanne had lived in ways that I had not.
Michelle Obama (Becoming)
Oppositional, defiant children . . . Change from content to angry in seconds. Fight the inevitable, such as going to bed, going to school, or coming to the table at mealtimes, even when they know that eventually they’ll be forced to comply. Insist on having their own way when playing with friends. Argue as vociferously about performing the little tasks as the big ones, as long as it’s something they don’t want to do. May lie or cheat to escape responsibility for their actions. Like to “get back at” people instead of forgetting about minor slights. Are easily irritated. May seem hostile toward particular people for no obvious reason. Ignore commands. Deliberately disobey their parents and sometimes other adults. Break rules indiscriminately. Verbally refuse to follow instructions. Badger, annoy, or taunt people, sometimes apparently for fun. Interrupt others’ play. Seem to have a chip on their shoulder. Can’t control their temper as well as other children of their age. Often break or destroy things out of anger. May indulge in self-destructive behavior such as holding their breath or banging their head. Show little respect or regard for their parents, especially Mom.
Russell A. Barkley (Your Defiant Child: 8 Steps to Better Behavior)