Nails And Lashes Quotes

I look down at our knees, slightly touching. Jeans against jeans. Does she notice the heat transferring from her body to mine? Does she even realize what she's doing to me? I know, I know. I'm not a virgin and the slightest touch of a girl's knee is driving me insane. I don't even know what I'm feeling for Maggie, I just know that I'm feeling. It's something I've tried to avoid and deny until yesterday, when I held her in my arms while her tears spilled onto my shirt. God, our knees touching isn't enough. I need more. She's knotting her fingers together on her lap as if she doesn't know what to do with them. I want to touch her, but what if she pulls away like before? I've never been such a wuss with a girl in my life. I bite my bottom lip as I slide my hand about millionth of a millimeter closer to her hand. She doesn't seem fazed so I move closer. And closer. When the tips of my fingers touch her wrist, she freezes. But she doesn't jerk her hand away. God, her skin is so soft, I think as my fingers trail a path from her wrist to her knuckles to her smooth, manicured nails. I swear touching her like this is driving me nuts. It's more erotic, more intense than any other time with Kendra. I feel awkward and inexperienced as a freshman again. I look up. Everyone else is oblivious to the intensity of emotions running rampant in the back of the public bus. When I look back down at my hand covering hers, I'm grateful she hasn't come to her senses and pulled away. As if she knows my thoughts, we both turn our hands at the same time so our hands are palm against palm...finger against finger. Her hand is dwarfed against mine. It makes her seem more delicate and petite than I'd realize. I feel a need to protect her and be her champion should she ever need one. With a slight shift of my hand, I lace my fingers through hers. I'm holding hands. With Maggie Armstrong. I'm not even going to think about how wrong it is because it feels so right. She's avoided looking right at me, but now she turns her head and our eyes lock. God, how come I never noticed before how long her lashes were and how her brown eyes have specks of gold that sparkle when the sun shine on them? The bus stops suddenly and I look out the window. It's our stop. She must have realized this because she pulls her hand away from mine and stands. I follow behind, still reeling.

If you ask all the cells in my body, they only answer your name. Follicles push the hair upwards so they may brush against your skin. Nails grow faster as well. Lungs breathe rapidly in hopes of inhaling your scent. Toes curl to smile and knees form dimples when you are near. Brain fireworks. Stomach fills with flies of butter and swallows, and swans swoon. Cattle, rhinos, and walruses too— there’s a stampede when you are near. I love you from the bottom of my liver to the tip of my lashes. One wink from you and heart stops, like a sneeze. Bless you. I cannot even begin to tell you what happens to soul, for soul is off flying with its mate.

When you lash two boats together, you don’t just join ropes, but sails and anchors as well. When

Now, from the crown of my head to the curve of my toe-nails, there was an unguent for every part of me - oil for my eyebrows and cream for my lashes; a jar of tooth-powder, a box of blanc-de-perle; polish for my fingernails and a scarlet stick to redden my mouth; tweezers for drawing the hairs from my nipples, and a stone to take the hard flesh from my heels.

Look — here it comes, its bones are plastic, it builds itself from pallet slat & bottle top, rises from sift, is lashed & trussed with fishing line. It is drift: it has cuttlefish nails & sea-poppy horns, it breathes in rain & it breathes out rust.

HAMBRE (HUNGER) Anhelo tu boca, tu voz, tu pelo. En silencio y con hambre, rodando por las calles. El pan no me alimenta, me rompe el alba. Tengo hambre por tu sonrisa, Tus manos el color de una cosecha salvaje, Con hambre de las piedras pálidas que son tus uñas, Quiero comer tu piel como una almendra entera. Necesito el rayo de sol que quema de tu hermosa cuerpo, Tu nariz soberana del elegante cara, Quiero comer la sombra fugaz de tus pestañas, Paseo con hambre, olfateando el crepúsculo, Buscandote, por tu corazón caliente, Como una puma en los páramos de las montañas… ******************************** I long for your mouth, your voice, your hair. Silent and starving, rolling through the streets. Bread does not nourish me, The dawn breaks me. I have a hunger for your smile. Your hands the color of a savage harvest, I hunger for the pale stones are your nails, I want to eat your skin like a whole almond. I need the sunshine that burns from your beautiful body. Your nose,sovereign on an elegant face, I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes, I move on, hungry, sniffing the twilight, Looking for you, for your warm heart, As a cougar in the wilds of the mountains ...

His thought processes imploded when she grabbed his ass, her nails digging in a way that set his body on fire. He loved the way her breath was hot on his cheek, the way her eyes had gone unfocused and fluttered closed, her lashes resting softly on her cheeks. She was here and for tonight, this weekend, she was his.

Had I guns (as I had goods) to work my Christian harm. I had run him up from the quarter deck to trade with his own yard-arm; I had nailed his ears to my capstan-head, and ripped them off with a saw, And soused them in the bilgewater, and served them to him raw; I had flung him blind in a rudderless boat to rot in the rocking dark, I had towed him aft of his own craft, a bait for his brother shark; I had lapped him round with cocoa husk, and drenched him with the oil, And lashed him fast to his own mast to blaze above my spoil; I had stripped his hide for my hammock-side, and tasseled his beard in the mesh, And spitted his crew on the live bamboo that grows through the gangrened flesh.

Your dad told me what happened today . . . out in the woods. He told me that you tracked down the guy who’s been killing all the girls around here . . . that you put yourself in danger.” Violet couldn’t tell if he was angry or annoyed . . . or both. He ran his hand through his messy hair in an agitated gesture that indicated he was getting all worked up. “And it’s not like it was the first time you’ve done that. Trouble seems to follow you wherever you go, and you’re the only person I know who doesn’t seem to care. I don’t even want to think about what could have happened to you if I hadn’t shown up last night while Grady was . . . assaulting you.” He paused as if it really was too much to think about, and then he continued to rail at her. “You can’t even go to the mall safely. I made a promise to your parents, and you just wandered off without even telling me where you were going.” His voice was suddenly too abrasive, and it felt to Violet like he was scratching his nails across a chalkboard. She bristled against the accusation in his tone, and suddenly he wasn’t the only one who was upset. “And you didn’t speak to me for a week!” she lashed back at him. “What was that all about? I spent the entire week waiting for you to stop ignoring me. And all because I didn’t bother to check in with you? You don’t get to tell me what to do! You’re not my father, you know.” “Thanks for clarifying that, Violet,” he said sardonically. “It would be creepy if you got your boyfriend and your father confused.” Violet practically jumped when he said the word boyfriend. Obviously she’d noticed that they’d gone beyond just friendship, but she hadn’t been entirely sure what that meant for them. Apparently Jay had it all figured out.

Kids didn’t just disappear unless someone made them disappear.‘Relax, mate,’ the head of security said. ‘We’ve never lost one yet.’ Lots of kids wandered off at the Easter Show, he told them. They were always found, usually somewhere near the food.Doug had tried to relax, to stay calm, but he could feel the panic building inside him.The place was too big.There were too many people.Lockie could be anywhere. The police were called. It took hours for everyone to leave the showgrounds because every family was stopped. Every parent was questioned and every child identified. It was way past midnight when everyone had finally gone home, and still they had not found Lockie.The head of security changed his tone. The police held whispered conversations in groups. They began to look at him with sympathy in their eyes.Doug felt his heart slow down. There was a ringing in his ears. He was underwater and he couldn’t swim.Lockie was gone.They had lost one.Sammy had gone from impatience to hunger to exhaustion. She didn’t understand what was happening.Sarah sat next to the pram twisting her hands. She did not cry. She didn’t cry for days, but every time Doug went near her he could hear her muttering the word ‘please’. ‘Please, please, please, please.’ It drove Doug mad and he had to move away because he wanted to hit her, to snap her out of her trance. He had never lifted a hand to his wife or his children, but now he had to close his fist and dig his nails into his palm to keep himself from lashing out Sarah didn’t believe in hitting children; she believed in time out and consequences. It was different to the way Doug had been raised but he had come around to the idea. The thought of anyone—especially himself—hurting Sarah and the kids was almost too much to bear.Doug sometimes wondered, after, if whoever had taken his son had hit him. When he did think about someone hurting his boy he could feel his hands curl into fists. He would embrace the rush of heat that came with the anger because at least it was a different feeling to the sorrow and despair. Anger felt constructive. He wanted to kill everyone, even himself. But as fast as the anger came it would recede and he would be back at the place he hated to be. Mired in his own helplessness. There was fuck-all he could do.

Tell me what you and my dad were talking about." Jay jerked away from her as if she'd just slapped him. And Violet realized that she might as well have. He sat up quickly, as if his mind had suddenly cleared from the sensuous haze, and abruptly the teasing grin was wiped clean from his face. "Never mind," she blurted, trying to backpedal. "Forget I said anything." She wanted to go back to where they just were. But it was too late. The determined set of his jaw told her that. "No," he said harshly. "I think we should talk about this, Violet." Even the way he said her name was suddenly hard and angry. "Your dad told me what happened today...out in the woods. He told me that you tracked down the guy who's been killing all the girls around here...that you put yourself in danger." Violet couldn't tell if he was angry or annoyed...or both. He ran his hand through his messy hair in an agitated gesture that indicated he was getting all worked up. "And it's not like it was the first time you've done that. Trouble seems to follow you wherever you go, and you're the only person I know who doesn't seem to care. I don't even want to think about what could have happened to you if I hadn't shown up last night while Grady was...assaulting you." He paused as if it really was too much to think about, and then he continued to rail at her. "You can't even go to the mall safely. I made a promise to your parents, and you just wandered off without even telling me where you were going." His voice was suddenly too abrasive, and it felt to Violet like he was scratching his nails across a chalkboard. She bristled against the accusation in his tone, and suddenly he wasn't the only one who was upset. "And you didn't speak to me for a week!" she lashed back at him. "What was that all about? I spent the entire week waiting for you to stop ignoring me. And all because I didn't bother to check in with you? You don't get to tell me what to do! You're not my father, you know." "Thanks for clarifying that, Violet," he said sardonically. "It would be creepy if you got your boyfriend and your father confused." Violet practically jumped when he said the word boyfriend. Obviously she'd noticed that they'd gone beyond just friendship, but she hadn't been entirely sure what that meant for them. Apparently Jay had it all figured out. But that didn't mean he could push her around.

Open the so-called body and spread out all its surfaces: not only the skin with each of its folds, wrinkles, scars, with its great velvety planes, and contiguous to that, the scalp and its mane of hair, the tender pubic fur, nipples, nails, hard transparent skin under the heel, the light frills of the eyelids, set with lashes - but open and spread, expose the labia majora, so also the labia minora with their blue network bathed in mucus, dilate the diaphragm of the anal sphincter, longitudinally cut and flatten out the black conduit of the rectum, then the colon, then the caecum, now a ribbon with its surface all striated and polluted with shit ; as though your dress maker' s scissors were opening the leg of an old pair of trousers, go on, expose the small intestines' alleged interior, the jejunum, the ileum, the duodenum, or else, at the other end, undo the mouth at its corners, pull out the tongue at its most distant roots and split it, spread out the bats' wings of the palate and its damp basements, open the trachea and make it the skeleton of a boat under construction; armed with scalpels and tweezers, dismantle and lay out the bundles and bodies of the encephalon; and then the whole network of veins and arteries, intact, on an immense mattress, and then the lymphatic network, and the fine bony pieces of the wrist, the ankle, take them apart and put them end to end with all the layers of nerve tissue which surround the aqueous humours and the cavernous body of the penis, and extract the great muscles, the great dorsal nets, spread them out like smooth sleeping dolphins. Work as the sun does when you're sunbathing or taking grass.

Here is what I would like for you to know: In America, it is traditional to destroy the black body—it is heritage. Enslavement was not merely the antiseptic borrowing of labor—it is not so easy to get a human being to commit their body against its own elemental interest. And so enslavement must be casual wrath and random manglings, the gashing of heads and brains blown out over the river as the body seeks to escape. It must be rape so regular as to be industrial. There is no uplifting way to say this. I have no praise anthems, nor old Negro spirituals. The spirit and soul are the body and brain, which are destructible—that is precisely why they are so precious. And the soul did not escape. The spirit did not steal away on gospel wings. The soul was the body that fed the tobacco, and the spirit was the blood that watered the cotton, and these created the first fruits of the American garden. And the fruits were secured through the bashing of children with stovewood, through hot iron peeling skin away like husk from corn. It had to be blood. It had to be nails driven through tongue and ears pruned away. “Some disobedience,” wrote a Southern mistress. “Much idleness, sullenness, slovenliness…. Used the rod.” It had to be the thrashing of kitchen hands for the crime of churning butter at a leisurely clip. It had to be some woman “chear’d… with thirty lashes a Saturday last and as many more a Tuesday again.” It could only be the employment of carriage whips, tongs, iron pokers, handsaws, stones, paperweights, or whatever might be handy to break the black body, the black family, the black community, the black nation. The bodies were pulverized into stock and marked with insurance. And the bodies were an aspiration, lucrative as Indian land, a veranda, a beautiful wife, or a summer home in the mountains. For the men who needed to believe themselves white, the bodies were the key to a social club, and the right to break the bodies was the mark of civilization. “The two great divisions of society are not the rich and poor, but white and black,” said the great South Carolina senator John C. Calhoun. “And all the former, the poor as well as the rich, belong to the upper class, and are respected and treated as equals.” And there it is—the right to break the black body as the meaning of their sacred equality. And that right has always given them meaning, has always meant that there was someone down in the valley because a mountain is not a mountain if there is nothing below.*

Blue Eyes, you will say yes to me?” “Tonight? Now?” “Yes, tonight. Before this time between us passes.” When she sat, silent, watching, Hunter lifted her of his lap and rose, drawing her up beside him. She studied his every move, poised as if for flight. Hunter’s hands shook as he unfastened her braids and ran his fingers through the intertwined strands of gold, combing them into a shimmering cloud about her shoulders. Then he framed her face between his palms and slowly bent his head. He wanted so badly to make a glad song inside of her. In his way, he was as terrified of her memories as she was. As his lips drew close to hers, Loretta’s nerves leaped. This was it, no turning back. His mouth came within an inch, then nearer. Her eyes widened. Then their lips touched, silk on silk, their breath mingling, their lashes fluttering closed. Her mind screamed a warning as her senses spun out of control. Something deep within her belly quickened, sending shocks of longing through her. She twisted her face aside, shivering as his mouth trailed across her cheek to her ear. “Hunter?” She grasped his shoulders for support, digging her nails into his flesh. “Hunter?” “I am here. Be easy.” He slid a hand to the nape of her neck and turned her face back to him. “Be easy.

He wanted to close his eyes at the declaration, remembering the heat of a crimson iron close enough to curl his lashes. The hand that did not hold his cane tightened on a bit of silk in his socket, and something pricked him. The enchanted nail Kit had given him, and Will drew strength from it.

Even with all of this plot to be dispensed, the songs do rise organically out of the script. Doris’s first entrance, in head-to-toe buckskin, finds her astride a stagecoach, belting out the very catchy Sammy Fain/Paul Francis Webster song “The Deadwood Stage (Whip Crack Away).” The rollicking tune and exuberant Day vocal match the physical staging of the song, and character is revealed. Similarly, later in the film there is a lovely quiet moment when Calamity, Bill, the lieutenant, and Katie all ride together in a wagon (with Calamity driving, naturally) to the regiment dance, softly singing the lilting “Black Hills of Dakota.” These are such first-rate musical moments that one is bound to ask, “So what’s the problem?” The answer lies in Day’s performance itself. Although Calamity Jane represents one of Day’s most fondly remembered performances, it is all too much by half. Using a low, gravelly voice and overly exuberant gestures, Day, her body perpetually bent forward, gives a performance like Ethel Merman on film: She is performing to the nonexistent second balcony. This is very strange, because Day is a singer par excellence who understood from her very first film, at least in terms of ballads, that less is more on film. Her understated gestures and keen reading of lyrics made every ballad resonate with audiences, beginning with “It’s Magic” in Romance on the High Seas. Yet here she is, fourteen films later, eyes endlessly whirling, gesturing wildly, and spending most of her time yelling both at Wild Bill Hickok and at the citizens of Deadwood City. As The New York Times review of the film held, in what was admittedly a minority opinion, “As for Miss Day’s performance, it is tempestuous to the point of becoming just a bit frightening—a bit terrifying—at times…. David Butler, who directed, has wound her up tight and let her go. She does everything but hit the ceiling in lashing all over the screen.” She is butch in a very cartoonlike manner, although as always, the tomboyish Day never loses her essential femininity (the fact that her manicured nails are always evident helps…). Her clothing and speech mannerisms may be masculine, but Day herself never is; it is one of the key reasons why audiences embraced her straightforward assertive personality. In the words of John Updike, “There’s a kind of crisp androgynous something that is nice—she has backbone and spunk that I think give her a kind of stiffness in the mind.

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Queene Levress’s sharp eyes cut to Thessalie like she wondered why the old scholar was there. “Prince,” she said to Cress, “I’ve come to deliver the tragic news myself.” Her white lashes glittered in the lanterns’ glow. “Tell me your news, my Queene,” Cress said. “A human assassin attacked us from across the gate. She killed a fairy of the North this morning. She must pay for it with her life, but I plan to wait until the new faeborn year to deal with it.” “What?” Thessalie blanched at Cress’s side. “A human killed a fairy? That hasn’t happened in a hundred faeborn years—” “Why have you come to tell me this yourself?” Cress cut off the scholar to ask the Queene. Queene Levress looked at him for a long while, tapping her long nails together. “Because the murdered fairy was part of your Brotherhood,” the Queene said. “He was the second son of High Lord Gwess of our North Court.” The life drained from Cress’s chest. “Whyp…?” he whispered. “He crossed the gate against our laws. He would have likely been killed when he came back anyway.” The Queene glanced at her silver nails. “Thankfully, I had a spy following him who cleaned up the mess.

Passionate Crucifix by Maisie Aletha Smikle I came for the lame I came for the maim I came for the dame I came for all bearing no shame I was loved I was hated I was envied I was despised and chastised I healed the sick I resurrected the dead I gave you my body But yet you wanted my soul My soul you cannot have It belongs to my Father in Heaven The pain I bore I need no more You hit me...You beat me You arrested me without a charge You drove nails in my body And hang me tall for all to see Oh the cruelty you have done to me I bled from your lashes you inflicted I gave you water when you thirst But you gave me vinegar for my thirst Oh how my soul doth burst From the thorns you have stuck in my flesh My body ached from your infliction You have no affection I said Father let thy will be done I said angels do not come I ordered the order of all things I allowed you to crucify me You are ruthless mean and unkind I'd rather be with my Father in heaven A thousand angels I will not call Instead I will leave my ghost with you I do not want to be in the flesh among you Take my holy ghost if you please Leave it if you please The choice is yours to please I could have called a thousand angels But I would rather live with my heavenly Father I will see you in Heaven If my Father let you in I will not remain with you in the flesh anymore You are unkind ruthless and mean You hammered nails in my flesh like wood And cared not about the pain I withstood

I have four pets,’ Bjørnar Nicolaisen tells me at 69.31°N, ‘two cats and two sea eagles. I feed them all together on the shore, there by the throne, with the best fish in the world!’ He gives a huge laugh, and points east through the window of his living room: snow-filled fields sloping away to a rocky beach that borders a fjord several miles in width. Steel-blue water in the fjord, choppy where the currents are running. Far across the fjord, ranks of smooth-snowed peaks gleam in the late sunlight. They are shaped more wildly than any mountains I have ever seen before. Witches’ hats and shark fins and jabbing fingers, all polished white as porcelain. I cannot see a throne on the shore, though. ‘Here, try these.’ He hands me a pair of binoculars. Black leather-clad barrels, weathered in places to brown. Polished eye-pieces – and a Nazi eagle engraved into the left-hand barrel-back. ‘Wehrmacht-issue,’ says Bjørnar. ‘Beautiful lenses. An officer’s. When my father was dying, he asked me what I wanted from his possessions. “One thing only,” I told him, “the binoculars you took from the Germans.”‘ I lift the binoculars and the shoreline leaps to my eyes, close enough to touch. Calibrated cross-hairs float in my vision. I pan right along the beach. Nothing. I switch back left. Yes, there, a chair of some kind – but six or seven feet tall, built from driftwood lashed and nailed together. It looks like something the ironborn of Westeros might have made. ‘I take the eagles a cod or a saithe whenever I come back from a good day’s fishing. I feed them by my chair, there.’ ‘Bjørnar, you are the only person I know who counts sea eagles among his pets.’ ‘I am more of a cat person,’ Bjørnar replies. ‘Than a dog person or than an eagle person?’ ‘Than a people person!’ Bjørnar laughs and laughs – a deep, explosive laugh coming from far inside his chest.

Oh my God, Mom, really? Fake lashes. Fake lips. Fake boobs. Fake smile as soon as the cameras are on. Fake dye in your hair and fake paint on your nails and fake bleach on your teeth, and newsflash: everybody knows that a deviated septum is code for nose job. There’s literally nothing about you that’s real.

Will you glance at this picture for just a moment? You see a man on His knees in the garden of Gethsemane sweating drops of blood. Next, you see that sorrowful sufferer tied to a pillar and lashed with terrible scourges until His shoulder bones are seen like white islands in the midst of a sea of blood. Then, you see the same man hanging on the cross with hands extended and His feet nailed firm, dying, groaning, bleeding. You hear Him say, It is finished (John 19:30). Jesus Christ of Nazareth has done all of this in order that God might consistently, with His justice, pardon sin. The message to you is this: Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved (Acts 16:31). That is, trust Him, renounce your works and your ways, and set your heart on this man alone, who gave Himself for sinners.

When I returned from the triclinium, where the guests were finishing their honey cakes and drinking from jeweled goblets of pear juice, a woman entered the kitchen from a side door. Out of all the surprises I'd had that day, she was the most surprising of all. The vision of her dark eyes, waves of auburn curls, and the sylphlike curve of her hips would haunt me in the days to come. "I came for Apicata's meal," she said. Her voice floated across the room, undulations of sound washing over my skin. This was the woman Aelia had said would come for the tray. Passia. The name glittered in my mind as I made the connection. "Is that it?" She pointed, one long finger tipped with carefully curved, pink-pale nails. I had been standing like a statue, stunned by my close proximity to what I thought might be the physical manifestation of Venus herself. "That's the plate, yes, over there. There." Suddenly I wished she would leave. If not, all would be lost. I wouldn't be able to complete the cena, wouldn't be able to direct the servers, and would end up under the lash as the result of my gloomy failure to live up to Apicius's expectations. Inside my head, I said a prayer to Venus that Passia would go, but in the same breath, I begged the goddess that Passia would remember me, as I knew I would remember every sumptuous detail about the moments she stood before me.

Passionate Crucifix by Maisie Aletha Smikle I came for the lame I came for the maim I came for the dame I came for all bearing no shame I was loved I was hated I was envied I was despised and chastised I healed the sick I resurrected the dead I gave you my body But yet you wanted my soul My soul you cannot have It belongs to my Father in Heaven The pain I bore I need no more You hit me You beat me You drove nails in my body And hang me tall for all to see Oh the cruelty you have done to me I bled from your lashes you inflicted I gave you water when you thirst But you gave me vinegar for my thirst Oh how my soul doth burst From the thorns you have stuck in my flesh My body ached from your infliction You have no affection I said Father let thy will be done I said angels do not come I ordered the order of all things I allowed you to crucify me You are ruthless mean and unkind I'd rather be with my Father in heaven A thousand angels I will not call Instead I will leave my ghost with you I do not want to be in the flesh among you Take my holy ghost if you please Leave it if you please The choice is yours to please I could have called a thousand angels But I would rather live with my heavenly Father I will see you in Heaven If my Father let you in I will not remain with you in the flesh anymore You are unkind ruthless and mean You hammered nails in my flesh like wood And cared not about the pain I withstood

And now, without the book to read, sitting there with Brandon in the middle of the night, I had nothing to do but think. I checked my watch: 2:12 a.m. I pictured Kristen, sleeping on her side under her flower bedspread. Her hand tucked under her favorite pillow—the one with the beige flannel pillowcase. Stuntman Mike curled up on top of the blanket in the tangle of her legs. The clock on her nightstand giving me just enough light to see her long lashes across her smooth cheeks. I mentally pulled the blanket up to her chin and kissed her forehead and saw her eyes flutter open as she smiled at me. Fuck, I missed her. “I wish you could talk to me,” I said to Brandon. “Tell me what to do. I need you to wake up and straighten me out. Or even better, wake up and straighten her out.” I dragged a hand down my face. When I saw her today, it just confirmed what I already knew. I wasn’t ever going to get over her. I wasn’t ever going to not miss her. She was punishing me for a crime I didn’t even know I’d committed. For things I had said and things I wanted before I knew what they’d mean later. Every comment had been a nail in the board across the door she’d closed on me. “I don’t even know how to begin to convince her,” I said. “She won’t even speak to me.” I snorted. “Leave it to me to be in love with the world’s most stubborn woman.” I tried to think about what Brandon’s response to this would be. He was always so level-headed. He would know what to do. The more I tried to sway her, the further she distanced herself. The more I told her I loved her, the more she shut down. And I didn’t know how to stop it.

John actually saw the crucifixion. He witnessed the effects of the crown of thorns piercing the brow of the Savior. He saw the face of Jesus marred. He saw the results of the 39 lashes on His lacerated, raw back. John witnessed firsthand the nails piercing His hands and feet. He heard the desperate cries of the Son of Man, the only Son of God, for help. The sound of Jesus’ words from the cross probably echoed in John’s heart and mind all his life. According to John 21:20, the John who was at the cross was the same John who had laid his head on the chest of the Messiah at the Last Supper.