Roommate Sayings And Quotes

I was eleven years old, and I’d lost my mother, and my soul, and the Crucible gave me you.” “It made us roommates,” he says. I shake my head. “We were always more.” “We were enemies.” “You were the centre of my universe,” I say. “Everything else spun around you.

You have a roommate." "Yeah." He sounds confused. "The, um, picture on your door surprised me." "NO. No. I prefer my women with...fewer carnivorous beasts and less weaponry." He pauses and smiles. "Naked is okay. What she needs are a golden retriever and a telescope. Maybe then it would do it for me." I laugh. "A squirrel and a laboratory beaker?" "A bunny rabbit and a flip chart," I say. "Only if the flip chart has mathematical equations on it." I fake swoon onto his bed. "Too much, too much!

Liam cleared his throat again and turned to fully face me. “So, it’s the summer and you’re in Salem, suffering through another boring, hot July, and working part-time at an ice cream parlor. Naturally, you’re completely oblivious to the fact that all of the boys from your high school who visit daily are more interested in you than the thirty-one flavors. You’re focused on school and all your dozens of clubs, because you want to go to a good college and save the world. And just when you think you’re going to die if you have to take another practice SAT, your dad asks if you want to go visit your grandmother in Virginia Beach.” “Yeah?” I leaned my forehead against his chest. “What about you?” “Me?” Liam said, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “I’m in Wilmington, suffering through another boring, hot summer, working one last time in Harry’s repair shop before going off to some fancy university—where, I might add, my roommate will be a stuck-up-know-it-all-with-a-heart-of-gold named Charles Carrington Meriwether IV—but he’s not part of this story, not yet.” His fingers curled around my hip, and I could feel him trembling, even as his voice was steady. “To celebrate, Mom decides to take us up to Virginia Beach for a week. We’re only there for a day when I start catching glimpses of this girl with dark hair walking around town, her nose stuck in a book, earbuds in and blasting music. But no matter how hard I try, I never get to talk to her. “Then, as our friend Fate would have it, on our very last day at the beach I spot her. You. I’m in the middle of playing a volleyball game with Harry, but it feels like everyone else disappears. You’re walking toward me, big sunglasses on, wearing this light green dress, and I somehow know that it matches your eyes. And then, because, let’s face it, I’m basically an Olympic god when it comes to sports, I manage to volley the ball right into your face.” “Ouch,” I said with a light laugh. “Sounds painful.” “Well, you can probably guess how I’d react to that situation. I offer to carry you to the lifeguard station, but you look like you want to murder me at just the suggestion. Eventually, thanks to my sparkling charm and wit—and because I’m so pathetic you take pity on me—you let me buy you ice cream. And then you start telling me how you work in an ice cream shop in Salem, and how frustrated you feel that you still have two years before college. And somehow, somehow, I get your e-mail or screen name or maybe, if I’m really lucky, your phone number. Then we talk. I go to college and you go back to Salem, but we talk all the time, about everything, and sometimes we do that stupid thing where we run out of things to say and just stop talking and listen to one another breathing until one of us falls asleep—” “—and Chubs makes fun of you for it,” I added. “Oh, ruthlessly,” he agreed. “And your dad hates me because he thinks I’m corrupting his beautiful, sweet daughter, but still lets me visit from time to time. That’s when you tell me about tutoring a girl named Suzume, who lives a few cities away—” “—but who’s the coolest little girl on the planet,” I manage to squeeze out.

I have never been a nag. I have always been rather proud of my un-nagginess. So it pisses me off, that Nick is forcing me to nag. I am willing to live with a certain amount of sloppiness, of laziness, of the lackadaisical life. I realize I am more type A than Nick, and I try not to inflict my neat-freaky, to-do-list nature on him. Nick is not the kind of guy who is going to think to vacuum or clean out the fridge. He truly doesn't see that kind of stuff. Fine. Really. But I do like a certain standard of living - I think it's fair to say the garbage shouldn't literally overflow, the plates shouldn't sit in the sink for a week with smears of bean burrito dried on them. That is just being a good grown-up roommate. And Nick's doing anything anymore, so I nag, and it pisses me off: You are turning me into what I never have been and never wanted to be, a nag because you are not living up to your end of a very basic compact. Don't do that, It's not ok to do.

You know, Talon. Towels look really good on you. You go outside like that and you’ll start a whole new fashion craze. (Sunshine) Do you always say everything that comes to your mind? (Talon) Mostly. I do have some thoughts I keep to myself. I used to not care and would say anything at all, but then one time my college roommate called the psycho unit on me. You know, they really do have white coats. (Sunshine)

He isn’t like us Low. You know that right.” I knew what Cage was saying. Marcus was out of my league. He didn’t want me thinking there could ever be anything between me and his roommate. I was low class. Marcus was a rich kid. “I’m not stupid Cage.

One of my roommates, Rafael, he's an expert on monsters. Not that he talks about them. I can just tell. People who have monsters recognize each other. They know each other without even saying a word.

Sorry, I had to buy you dinner,” I explain while I unwrap half of my brat, like a burrito. “Why’s that?” he asks, taking a bite of his. “My roommate insisted it’s the polite thing to do before I fuck you.” I say it just loud enough for him to hear. He clears his throat, mid chew, then swallows before speaking. A slow, sexy grin follows before he speaks. “Will you call me in the morning?” His eyes flicker with amusement. “No.” I shake my head slowly. “I won’t have left yet, as I’ll be expecting you to make me breakfast after I bought you this expensive dinner”—I signal the brats—“and made you come.

I said, "Jesse, don't flatter yourself that I did this for you. I mean, it has been nothing but one giant pain in the neck, having you for a roommate. Do you think I like having to come home from school or from work or whatever and having to explain stuff like the Bay of Pigs to you? Believe me, life with you is no picnic." He didn't say anything. He just kept pulling me along. "Or what about Tad?" I said, bringing up what I knew was a sore subject. "I mean, you think I like having you tag along on my dates? Having you out of my life is going to make things a lot simpler, so don't think, you know, I did this for you. I only did it because that stupid cat of yours has been crying its head off. And also because anything I can do to make your stupid girlfriend mad, I will." "Nombre de Dios, Susannah," Jesse muttered. "Maria's not my girlfriend." "Well, she certainly used to be," I said. "And what about that, anyway? That girl is a full-on skank, Jesse. I can't believe you ever agreed to marry her. I mean, what were you thinking, anyway? Couldn't you see what she was like underneath all that lace?

Price,” Wrath said, still looking at his brother. “Well, here’s the thing.” As the king cursed, the man, Lassiter, laughed. “It’s not a price, though.” “What. Is. It.” “We’re a two-for-one-deal.” “Excuse me?” “I come with him.” “The fuck you do.” The man lost any levity in his voice. “It’s past of the arrangement, and believe me, I wouldn’t choose this either. Fact is, he’s my last change, so yeah, I’m sorry, but I go with him. And if you say no, by the way, I’m going to level us all like that.” The man snapped his fingers, a brilliant white spark flaring against the night sky. After a moment, Wrath turned to John. “This is Lassiter, the fallen angel. One of the last times he was on earth, there was a plague in central Europe –“ “Okay, that was so not my fault –” “ – that wiped out two-thirds of the human population.” “I’d like to remind you that you don’t like humans.” “They smell bad when they’re dead.” “All you mortal types do.” John could barely follow the conversation; he was too busy staring into Tohr’s face. Open your eyes…open your eyes…please God… “Come on, John.” Wrath turned back to the Brotherhood and started walking. When he came up to them, he said softly, “Our brother is returned.” “Oh, Christ, is he alive,” someone said. “Thank God,” someone else groaned. “Tell them,” Lassiter demanded from behind. “Tell them he comes with a roommate.” As one, the Brothers’ heads snapped up. “Fuck. Me, “Vishous breathed. “I will so pass on that,” Lassiter muttered.

It’s midnight!” he says frantically, slapping at the door. “Call her. Call your roommate!” “Oh, shit,” I mutter. I retrieve my phone and begin to dial Emory’s number. “I was about to dial 911,” Emory says as she answers. “Sorry, we almost forgot.” “Do you need to use the code word?” she asks. “No, I’m fine. I already locked him out, so I don’t think he’s going to murder me tonight.” Emory sighs. “That sucks,” she says. “Not that he didn’t murder you,” she adds quickly. “I just really wanted to hear you say the code word.” I laugh. “I’m sorry my safety disappoints you.” She sighs again. “Please? Just say it for me one time.” “Fine,” I say with a groan. “Meat dress. Are you happy?” There’s a quiet pause before she says, “I don’t know. Now I’m not sure if you said the code word just to make me happy or if you’re really in danger.

So what now?" he said. "What do you mean?" "What do we do now? We can't just be roommates." "You said you didn't like me." "I don't like you. I don't like how your hair smells, and how I can't stop thinking about waking up and seeing your face. I hate how my bed felt empty when you left. I don't like how good you were with my family, especially Harper, and how I wanted to see you with then again, but not just as a guest. As a member. You're right. I don't like you at all." "When did you change your mind?" "My mind never changed. I've wanted you since the moment you opened the door and had that stunned look on your face. It just took me a while to admit it. Why deny it now? It is what it is and it's not going to change." "Oh." "This doesn't mean I'm going to be nice. I'm still going to be an ass. I'll just be an ass who apologizes and brings you flowers to say he's been a dick." "Chocolate," I said. "What?" "I'd rather have chocolate when you apologize." "Chocolate it is." He smiled. "So does that mean what I think it means?" "No. It just means that you get to bring me chocolate when you've been an ass. I'm going to weigh three hundred pounds." I focused my attention back on the peppers. I couldn't think about Hunter's declaration of... whatever it was. Footsteps didn't make me look up. "Taylor, look at me. Please." Damn. If only he didn't say please. "I can't promise to not make you mad. I can't promise that I won't hurt you. All I can promise is that I want you in my life, and I'll do anything to keep you there.

My roommate’s not suicidal But it sounds sexier than saying that she closes her eyes sometimes when she’s changing lanes.

If it isn’t snide or contemptuous, it isn’t worth the time to say it.

I remember my college roommate Bridget saying, after I first told her about Strane, Your life is like a movie. She didn’t understand the horror of watching your body star in something your mind didn’t agree to.

There are worse things than being thirty-five, single, and female in New York. Like: Being twenty-five, singled, and female in New York. It's a rite of passage few women would want to repeat. It's about sleeping with the wrong men, wearing the wrong clothes, having the wrong roommate, saying the wrong thing, being ignored, getting fired, not being taken seriously, and generally being treated like shit. But it's necessary.

As I brush my teeth, I scroll through my phone to see if Sabrina texted when my phone was on silent last night. She didn’t. Damn. I was hoping my speech—and that amazing fucking kiss—might’ve changed her mind about going out with me, but I guess it didn’t. I do, however, find the most mind-boggling conversation in the group chat I have with my roommates. All the messages are from last night, and they’re bizarre as fuck. Garrett: The hells, D?! Dean: It’s not what you think!! Logan: It’s hard to mistake ur romantic bath with that giant pink thing! In ur ass! Dean: It wasn’t in my ass! Garrett: I’m not even going to ask where it was Dean: I had a girl over! Garrett: Suuuuuuuuure Logan: Suuuuuuuuure Dean: I hate you guys Garrett: <3 Logan: <3 I rinse my mouth out, spit, and drop the toothbrush into the little cup on the sink. Then I quickly type out a text. Me: Wait… what did I miss? Since we have practice in twenty minutes, the guys are already awake and clearly on their phones. Two photos pop up simultaneously. Garrett and Logan have both sent me pics of pink dildos. I’m even more confused now. Dean messages immediately with, Why do you guys have dildo pics handy? Logan: ALINIMB Dean: ?? Me: ?? Garrett: At Least It’s Not In My Butt. I snort to myself, because I’m starting to piece it together. Logan: Nice, G! U got that on the first try! Garrett: We spend too much time 2gether. Me: PLEASE tell me u caught D playing w/ dildos. Logan: Sure did. Dean is quick to object again. I HAD A GIRL OVER! The guys and I rag on him for a couple more minutes, but I have to stop when Fitzy stumbles into the bathroom and shoves me aside. He’s got crazy bedhead and he’s buck-naked. “Gotta piss,” he mumbles. “Mornin’, sunshine,” I say cheerfully. “Want me to make you some coffee?” “God. Yes. Please.” Chuckling, I duck out of the bathroom and walk the four or so steps into his kitchenette. When he finally emerges, I shove a cup of coffee in his hand, sip my own, and say, “Dean shoved a dildo up his ass last night.” Fitzy nods. “Makes sense.” I snicker mid-sip. Coffee spills over the rim of my cup. “It really does, huh?

Here’s the thing. I’m tired of this roommate bullshit. I want more than that. I want you to be my girl. I want you in my bed, just like this. I want to take you out, show you off, and get the jealous looks from all the other assholes who wish you were theirs. I want, more than anything, for you to be my sweetheart, because that’s what you’ve become to me, even if I started saying it by being an ass. I want to be able to call you mine for real, not pretend.” Sighing, I pause. “Charlie, I want—I need—you to be my fucking girl.

He tells about his Sudanese roommate at Georgetown who owned a prayer rug with a compass to find Mecca built right into it. "After a few weeks in America, he rolled it up and used the compass to go camping," Han says.

Dear Daniel, How do you break up with your boyfriend in a way that tells him, "I don't want to sleep with you on a regular basis anymore, but please be available for late night booty calls if I run out of other options"? Lily Charlotte, NC Dear Lily, The story's so old you can't tell it anymore without everyone groaning, even your oldest friends with the last of their drinks shivering around the ice in their dirty glasses. The music playing is the same album everyone has. Those shoes, everybody has the same shoes on. It looked a little like rain so on person brought an umbrella, useless now in the starstruck clouded sky, forgotten on the way home, which is how the umbrella ended up in her place anyway. Everyone gets older on nights like this. And still it's a fresh slap in the face of everything you had going, that precarious shelf in the shallow closet that will certainly, certainly fall someday. Photographs slipping into a crack to be found by the next tenant, that one squinter third from the left laughing at something your roommate said, the coaster from that place in the city you used to live in, gone now. A letter that seemed important for reasons you can't remember, throw it out, the entry in the address book you won't erase but won't keep when you get a new phone, let it pass and don't worry about it. You don't think about them; "I haven't thought about them in forever," you would say if anybody brought it up, and nobody does." You think about them all the time. Close the book but forget to turn off the light, just sit staring in bed until you blink and you're out of it, some noise on the other side of the wall reminding you you're still here. That's it, that's everything. There's no statue in the town square with an inscription with words to live by. The actor got slapped this morning by someone she loved, slapped right across the face, but there's no trace of it on any channel no matter how late you watch. How many people--really, count them up--know where you are? How many will look after you when you don't show up? The churches and train stations are creaky and the street signs, the menus, the writing on the wall, it all feels like the wrong language. Nobody, nobody knows what you're thinking of when you lean your head against the wall. Put a sweater on when you get cold. Remind yourself, this is the night, because it is. You're free to sing what you want as you walk there, the trees rustling spookily and certainly and quietly and inimitably. Whatever shoes you want, fuck it, you're comfortable. Don't trust anyone's directions. Write what you might forget on the back of your hand, and slam down the cheap stuff and never mind the bad music from the window three floors up or what the boys shouted from the car nine years ago that keeps rattling around in your head, because you're here, you are, for the warmth of someone's wrists where the sleeve stops and the glove doesn't quite begin, and the slant of the voice on the punch line of the joke and the reflection of the moon in the water on the street as you stand still for a moment and gather your courage and take a breath before stealing away through the door. Look at it there. Take a good look. It looks like rain. Love, Daniel Handler

I'm Cooper Taylor. I'm a Scorpio. I enjoy women, long walks on the beach, and my roommate says I use girly shampoo. Oh, and I generally hate anyone in the film industry because they're total assholes. Guess you could say I'm you Pai Mei." "Willow Avery. Actress, Cancer, and according to my team, on my last leg before porn.

When I am alone in the apartment these days, not often, but sometimes, I will say softly out loud, “Mommy!” And I don’t know what it is—if I am calling for my own mother, or if I am hearing Becka’s cry to me that day when she saw the second plane go into the second tower. Both, I think. But this is my story. And yet it is the story of many. It is Molla’s story, my college roommate’s, it may be the story of the Pretty Nicely Girls. Mommy. Mom! But this one is my story. This one. And my name is Lucy Barton.

How ’bout the new roommates?” “Fine. I mean, kind of weird. One of them claims to be a psychic. But I don’t think they’re, like, serial killers.” She hums, only half-listening. “Remember the rules. Number one—” “Us versus everyone.” “And number two—” “If they’re gonna kill you, get their DNA under your fingernails.” “Thatta girl,” she says.

He tilted my head up with his index finger. Tingles spread on my skin. "Pain, obstacles, betrayal and all shitty things that happen in life shape everyone, just as much as good things do. Don't regret anything if in the end you can say you're an amazing woman.

But that’s what makes it so fun! Life is scary. So why wouldn’t we enjoy and make fun of that fear? It’s like life is trying to makes us fear it, and on this day we just mock its attempts and say ‘no, not today, today I’m not scared of anything you throw at me'.

You like it when I speak in Spanish to you.” Yes. Obviously. “I guess I do.” “I can say it again for you, would you like that?” he offered, and then, instead of waiting for my answer—Yes please, sir, and can you record it, too, so I can play it for years to come?

Get a degree in mechanical engineering, Hiro. Get a pilot’s license, Hiro. Learn meditation and hypnosis, Hiro. Slip your roommate out of prison, Hiro. Drive thousands of clones and humans around in space, Hiro. Sit on your butt for four hundred years, Hiro.’ That’s what they told me. Not once did they say, Get shot and chased and stabbed by crazed crewmates, Hiro!” “To be fair, you were one of the people doing the chasing, crazed at the time too,” Maria said. “Semantics,” he said.

This is going to sound slightly stalkerish, but I can't help but notice you’ve decapitated Jack Skellington and put him on your ears." "What can I say?" Yvette shrugs. "I like bones." "So do I, actually, because our skeletons support a massive interconnected muscular structure and without them we would be blobs of flesh. Also we wouldn't have middle fingers to flip people off with. Are you in Room 14B?" Yvette's eyes widen. "Yeah, so you're -" "MY ROOMMATE!" I screech. A passing guy winces and flips me off. I loudly inform him he has his skeleton to thank for that.

In the Broadway play In Defense of the Cave Man, a man says that when he was first married, he saw his wife cleaning the bathroom and asked her, “Are we moving?” In his bachelor days that was the only time he and his roommates bothered to clean the bathroom.

Marriages suffer from this same cycle. You start dating someone with wonder and anticipation, drunk on love. You romanticize everything about your partner, and even mundane activities like going to the grocery store together can seem like a fantastic date. But then you fall into a routine, and years later, you’ve become roommates, circling the same safe topics while packing lunches, the monotony broken only by occasional date nights. Deep down, you know why these parts of your life have gone stale. It’s because nothing new is happening. You may say you fear change, but the lack of change in your life is why you feel so blah. Monotony will drive any human relationship or endeavor into a ditch.

What terrified her was the set of circumstances that allowed her to eat a full pound of spaghetti, the unmoored, untethered quality of her life, in which no one—no mother, sister, roommate, professor, boyfriend, anyone—was there to monitor her habits and behaviors, to say, “Haven’t you had enough?” or “Can I share that with you?” or “Let’s have dinner together tonight” or even “What are you doing for dinner?” She woke up, went to work, came home, alone.

Without commentary, you take the scissors from him, and you cut off the rest of his hair, and then you take out his electric shaver, and you shave his hair down as close as you can. "Who's the NPC now?" you say to him. "I'm the one with the controller. I'm the one with the task." "You find your crazy roommate in the bathroom. He's cut off half of his hair in a fit of nonsensical despair. What do you do?" Sam says, imitating the form of interactive fiction. He runs his fingers through his hair. "Don't tell Sadie about any of this." "Brother, I think she'll notice." You take his head in your hands and you kiss him on the crown.

Rob went on to say, "I don't think sin is as black and white as people want it to be. I think sin comes in an array of colors, and one of them is so bright that it blinds us to our ability to love. And if I don't think I can love you just because you're gay, then Satan wins; because without love, the only color left is hate.

Above all, believe. Cultivate your swagger. Make this your new religion: You are funny and talented, and you’re going to try something new. This is the exact right time for that. This is the most important year of your life, and for once you are NOT going to let yourself down. If you fall down and feel depressed, you will get back up. If you feel lethargic and scared, you will try something else: a new routine, a new roommate situation, a healthier diet. You will read books about comedy. You will work tirelessly and take pride in your tireless work. And you will take time every few hours to stop and say to yourself, “Look at me. I’m doing it. I’m chasing my dream. I am following my calling.” It doesn’t matter if your dreams come true, if agents swoon and audiences cheer. Trust me on that: It truly doesn’t matter. What matters is the feeling that you’re doing it, every day. What matters is the work—diving in, feeling your way in the dark, finding the words, trusting yourself, embracing your weird voice, celebrating your quirks on the page, believing in all of it. What matters is the feeling that you’re not following someone else around, that you’re not half-assing this, that you’re not waiting for something to happen, that you’re not waiting for your whole life to start. What matters is you, all alone at your desk at five in the morning. I write this from my own desk at five in the morning, my favorite place, a place where I know who I am and what I’m meant to accomplish in this life. Savor that precious space. That space will feel like purgatory at first, because you’ll realize that it all depends on you. That space will feel like salvation eventually, because you’ll realize that it all depends on you.

We’re roommates.” Immediately, he backpedals. “I-I mean, not just roommates, obviously…” “No, we’re much more than that,” Lyssa supplies, nodding at my son encouragingly. This is like watching a bad sitcom. They’re both terrible liars. “We’re like, all the things,” Mason says finally. Lyssa smiles brightly. “All of them!” And then they high five. Christ.

The sexy, blond, god of a doctor whom I’d masturbated to for weeks after the fish hook incident… was now my roommate. Simon. Simon says… commence freak out.

When you say you’re a fan of the gore, what do you mean?” “The all supernatural bunch, love. The scarier the merrier.

I…” What the hell was she supposed to say? I think I’m unreasonably attached to you? I should’ve known you’d have a magical dick?

How to find your life passion.” Here’s what it says: Think about what you already love doing.

Shooting him a glare that says "mess with my roommate any more and I'll stab you with a spork

Also, he had the kind of mustache a college roommate of hers used to say looked like it had crawled up to find a warm spot to die.

Brat.” “You say that a lot.” She grinned. “Type it into Pornhub.

Maybe you don’t need to think as much as everyone else,” he said. “You know, because of your mighty IQ score.” “I don’t believe in IQ scores.” “Only people with high IQ scores say that.

And these women were not concerned in the least that Kellan had roommates. In fact, I don't think they were even concerned that he had neighbors. Maybe they were operating under the false assumption that Kellan gave out awards for who could be the loudest... who was the more enthusiastic... who could say "Oh, God !" the most. Then again, maybe the jerk actually did give out prizes.

Most women have been in a relationship that they know is no good for them. Your friends and family know it is no good for you, but you’re too besotted to see straight. It may take a few attempts, some late-night crying sessions, some serious talking to from your girlfriends, but eventually you’re able to leave and look back with a mixture of regret and disbelief that you put up with that person for so long. The relationship may not have been physically abusive, but bad relationships can fall anywhere on a continuum, from the guy who doesn’t call when he says he will to the guy who has a wandering eye to the guy who cheats with your college roommate.

Audrey gives me a knowing little wink and reaches for a piece of salami. “Where’s mine?” says her husband from the floor. “Don’t ask me to find your salami in front of all these people, honey.” There’s a roar of laughter

He throws himself onto my bed. “What you’re essentially saying is that if your roommate is a great chick, fun to hang out with, totally normal, then she’s off limits. If she’s burn-the-bunny crazy, though, she’s all mine.

Ugh! I can’t look anymore,” I say in frustration, “If I read one more status about being happy and in a relationship I’m going to throw my computer out the window.” I hear a laugh behind me and spin my chair around to see my roommate and best friend, Sarah, standing there eating a bowl of cereal. “What’s so funny?” I demand. “That you’re going to throw your computer out the window just because people are happy and in love.” Sarah rolls her eyes

For a while now, I have been conscious of a tension in my relationship with you,” Svetlana said. “And I think that’s the reason. It’s because we both make up narratives about our own lives. I think that’s why we decided not to live together next year. Although obviously it’s also why we’re so attracted to each other.” “Everyone makes up narratives about their own lives.” “But not to the same extent. Think about my roommates. Fern, for example. I don’t mean that she doesn’t have an inner life, or that she doesn’t think about the past or make plans for the future. But she doesn’t compulsively rehash everything that happens to her in the form of a story. She’s in my story – I’m not in hers. That makes her and me unequal, but it also gives our relationship a kind of stability, and safeness. We each have our different roles. It’s like an unspoken contract. With you, there’s more instability and tension, because I know you’re making up a story, too, and in our story, I’m just a character.” “I don’t know,” I said. “I still think everyone experiences their own life as a narrative. If you didn’t have some kind of ongoing story in mind, how would you know who you were when you woke up in the morning?” “That’s a weak definition of narrative. That’s saying that narrative is just memory plus causality. But, for us, the narrative has aesthetics, too.” “But I don’t think that’s because of our personalities,” I said. Isn’t it more about how much money our parents have? You and I can afford to pursue some narrative just because it’s interesting. You could go to Belgrade to come to terms with your life before the war, and I could go to Hungary to learn about Ivan. But Fern has to work over the summer.” “...Fern is just an example. Valerie’s parents are engineers, she doesn’t have to work, but she’s still more like Fern than she is like us” “I don’t know,” I said. “I guess it feels elitist to look at it that way.” “Don’t you think you pretending not to be elitist is disingenuous?” Svetlana said. “If you really think about who you are, and what you value?

Believe it or not, I don’t just sit through hours of conversations with you silently judging you. And if it takes me a while to tell you things like ‘Hey, my wife left me for my college roommate,’ maybe it has nothing to do with you, okay? Maybe it’s because I don’t like saying that sentence aloud. I mean, your mom didn’t leave when your dad cheated on her, and my mom didn’t leave my dad when he broke my fucking arm, and yet I couldn’t do anything to make my wife stay.

When he turns to me, I realize I’m staring at him like a creeper. His eyes light up with amusement. “Need something?” “No,” I say too quickly. He gives me a comical frown. “Bummer. Because there are other things I could teach you besides cooking. Just saying.

Hayden, as the first girl to take pity on my brother, let me offer my condolences. Suggestion? You might want to kick the tires and check the motor before you take him for a test drive. Number four. Just saying. All our parents’ good DNA went to us first. He got the leftover scraps.

Poppy tells a story about a friend of hers who used to coach coed youth soccer on weekends. Her friend’s team of six-year-olds had decided to call themselves “The Mommies and the Daddies.” “Which friend?” I ask. “Anna, old roommate Anna?” “Actually,” Poppy says, “it’s not a story from a friend. It’s just a funny tweet I saw.

But I do like a certain standard of living—I think it’s fair to say the garbage shouldn’t literally overflow, and the plates shouldn’t sit in the sink for a week with smears of bean burrito dried on them. That’s just being a good grown-up roommate. And Nick’s not doing anything anymore, so I have to nag, and it pisses me off:

Probably best not to mention the whole roommate situation just yet. “As for looks, Mollie, she’s…pretty. Smart as hell. Uh, tall, a little thin…great smile.” There was a moment of prolonged silence, and Jackson glanced around the room to see every person’s lips pressed together as though trying desperately to hold in a laugh. “What?” he asked. “You just said she has a ‘great smile,’ ” Cole said. “And you’re telling me you’re not into this woman?” “Cole has a point,” Penelope said. “Guys only say a woman has a great smile when they’re super not attracted to her or they’re secretly in love with her.” “Oh my God,” Jackson said, running his hands through his hair in irritation.

Here’s the deal. When you get married, you become a team. The pastor at your wedding wasn’t joking when he said, “And now you are one.” It’s called unity. The old marriage vows say, “Unto thee I pledge all my worldly goods.” In other words, “I’m all in,” so combine the checking accounts. It’s hard to have unity when you separate your bank accounts. When his money is over here, and her money is over there, it’s easy to live in your own little financial world instead of working as a team. When you do your spending together, it’s about “our” money. We have an income and we have expenses and we have goals. So when you’re both in agreement on where the money is going, then you’ve taken a major step to being on the same page in your marriage, and you will create awesome levels of communication. This all boils down to trust. Do you trust your spouse or not? I’ve heard from people who keep separate bank accounts just in case their spouse leaves them. Well, why on earth would you marry someone you can’t trust? And if that’s really the case, then you need marriage counseling, not separate bank accounts! Your spouse isn’t your roommate, and this isn’t a joint business venture. It’s a marriage! You don’t run your household and your life separately. Your job is to love each other well, and that includes having shared financial goals—which is hard to do when you have separate accounts.

Where I lived at Pencey, I lived in the Ossenburger Memorial Wing of the new dorms. It was only for juniors and seniors. I was a junior. My roommate was a senior. It was named after this guy Ossenburger that went to Pencey. He made a pot of dough in the undertaking business after he got out of Pencey. What he did, he started these undertaking parlors all over the country that you could get members of your family buried for about five bucks apiece. You should see old Ossenburger. He probably just shoves them in a sack and dumps them in the river. Anyway, he gave Pencey a pile of dough, and they named our wing alter him. The first football game of the year, he came up to school in this big goddam Cadillac, and we all had to stand up in the grandstand and give him a locomotive—that's a cheer. Then, the next morning, in chapel, he made a speech that lasted about ten hours. He started off with about fifty corny jokes, just to show us what a regular guy he was. Very big deal. Then he started telling us how he was never ashamed, when he was in some kind of trouble or something, to get right down his knees and pray to God. He told us we should always pray to God—talk to Him and all—wherever we were. He told us we ought to think of Jesus as our buddy and all. He said he talked to Jesus all the time. Even when he was driving his car. That killed me. I can just see the big phony bastard shifting into first gear and asking Jesus to send him a few more stiffs. The only good part of his speech was right in the middle of it. He was telling us all about what a swell guy he was, what a hotshot and all, then all of a sudden this guy sitting in the row in front of me, Edgar Marsalla, laid this terrific fart. It was a very crude thing to do, in chapel and all, but it was also quite amusing. Old Marsalla. He damn near blew the roof off. Hardly anybody laughed out loud, and old Ossenburger made out like he didn't even hear it, but old Thurmer, the headmaster, was sitting right next to him on the rostrum and all, and you could tell he heard it. Boy, was he sore. He didn't say anything then, but the next night he made us have compulsory study hall in the academic building and he came up and made a speech. He said that the boy that had created the disturbance in chapel wasn't fit to go to Pencey. We tried to get old Marsalla to rip off another one, right while old Thurmer was making his speech, but be wasn't in the right mood.

She begins to strip like a roommate and climb into bed. They have fallen asleep. Dean wakes first, in the early afternoon. He unfastens her stockings and slowly rolls them off. Her skirt is next and then her underpants. She opens her eyes. The garter belt he leaves on, to confirm her nakedness. He rests his head there. Her hand touches his chest and begins to fall in excruciating slow designs. He lies still as a dog beneath it, still as an idiot. The next morning she is recovered. His prick is hard. She takes it in her hand. They always sleep naked. Their flesh is innocent and warm. In the end she is arranged across the pillows, a ritual she accepts without a word. It is half an hour before they fall apart, spent, and call for breakfast. She eats both her rolls and one of his. “There was a lot,” she says. She glistens with it. The inside of her thighs is wet. “How long does it take to make again?” she asks. Dean tries to think. He is remembering biology. “Two or three days,” he guesses. “Non, non!” she cries. That is not what she meant. She begins to make him hard again. In a few minutes he rolls her over and puts it in as if the intermission were ended. This time she is wild. The great bed begins creaking. Her breath becomes short. Dean has to brace his hands on the wall. He hooks his knees outside her legs and drives himself deeper. “Oh,” she breathes, “that’s the best.

I want to be successful, but I also want to be happy. I want to be loving and patient with my kids instead of cold, angry, or irritable. I want to have harmony, intimacy, deep sharing, and passionate sex with my wife. I don’t want to be distant, live like roommates, bicker, criticize, or have hurtful fights that involve attacking each other’s vulnerabilities. I want to be an inspiring leader in my business. I want my team to speak freely, challenge me, support me, and have fun working with me. I don’t want them to fear me, secretly dislike me, degrade me behind my back, and wish they had a better job. I want my clients and customers to feel cared about, inspired, challenged, and respected. I want them to feel like they got so much value out of their investment that they can’t put a dollar amount on how much better their lives are now. I don’t want them to feel let down, uncared for, like a bother, and that their growth and success is irrelevant to me. In short, I want to be a “good person” too. However you define that in your world, I’d imagine it’s pretty similar.

My roommate calls a meeting while I’m out falling from my bike into a customer’s cheesecake, and as soon as I climb the stairs she is there with a suitcase, saying she’s moving to a gut-renovated building in Harlem with her boyfriend as 'send me a picture of your pussy' pings onto my screen. As I watch my roommate leave, the idea that I have a pussy seems preposterous. I move through the apartment and try to reconcile the existence of the clitoris with the broccoli smell my roommate left behind. I rinse the cheesecake from my hair and get back out on my route, where the men who line the street remind me that technically yes, I do have a pussy, and that I will live with the terror of protecting it for the rest of my life.

It was the my-father-got-rid-of-my-piano story; something she’d share one day with her college roommates, her husband, her children, and her psychiatrist. It would earn a few crucial frames in her final reel of memories and travel with her into the next life. When it comes to the bad stuff, there’s nothing too small that’s not worth dwelling on forever. I say, anyway.

You should probably go to the doctor for that.” He rolls his eyes, stealing a bottle of water from the refrigerator and uncapping it. “Doctors are overrated.” “Yeah, funeral directors too.” He pauses with the bottle halfway to his mouth, bewilderment filtering through his eyes. “I don't understand half of what you say.” “Well, at least you understand the other half of it. There's hope for you yet. I mean, at least a fifty-fifty chance, right?” His eyes brighten. “There she is. 'Bout time you woke up. Good morning, Kennedy.” I mutter something that may or may not come out sounding like, “Fuck off,” and stomp into the living room to await what is guaranteed to be an outstanding day. I can feel the awesomeness ahead. Graham follows me, flipping a light switch and burning my eyes. “Did you just tell Blake to fuck off?” “I can't remember. It was so long ago.” I close my eyes and flop onto my back on the couch, hoping when I open my eyes it will be tomorrow. He frowns. “You never say fuck.” “Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. Fuckity fuck fuck.” “Maybe you should go back to bed.” “Maybe you should fu—” A hand claps over my mouth, and I look up, finding twinkling eyes on me. “You're cute when you're upset.” I lick his hand and he yelps as he yanks it back. “Really, Kennedy?” I smirk, finally feeling halfway decent. “Really. Carry me to the truck, servant.” The quiet grows, which makes me think he ignored me and left the room, but then I am being tossed over a shoulder. I begin to protest— loudly. “Graham! Put me down. This is no way to treat your roommate.” A hand smacks my rear and I jerk at the sting that comes. “Licking hands is no way to treat your roommate either. You wanted to be carried to the truck. I'm carrying you. Blake,” he calls. “Let's go.” Zart, Lindy (2014-11-20). Roomies (pp. 159-160). . Kindle Edition.

It's an old story," Julia says, leaning back in her chair. "Only for me, it's new. I went to school for industrial design. All my life I've been fascinated by chairs - I know it sounds silly, but it's true. Form meets purpose in a chair. My parents thought I was crazy, but somehow I convinced them to pay my way to California. To study furniture design. I was all excited at first. It was totally unlike me to go so far away from home. But I was sick of the cold and sick of the snow. I figured a little sun might change my life. So I headed down to L.A. and roomed with a friend of an ex-girlfriend of my brother's. She was an aspiring radio actress, which meant she was home a lot. At first, I loved it. I didn't even let the summer go by. I dove right into my classes. Soon enough, I learned I couldn't just focus on chairs. I had to design spoons and toilet-bowl cleaners and thermostats. The math never bothered me, but the professors did. They could demolish you in a second without giving you a clue if how to rebuild. I spent more and more time in the studio, with other crazed students who guarded their projects like toy-jealous kids. I started to go for walks. Long walks. I couldn't go home because my roommate was always there. The sun was too much for me, so I'd stay indoors. I spent hours in supermarkets, walking aisle to aisle, picking up groceries and then putting them back. I went to bowling alleys and pharmacies. I rode buses that kept their lights on all night. I sat in Laundromats because once upon a time Laundromats made me happy. But now the hum of the machines sounded like life going past. Finally, one night I sat too long in the laundry. The woman who folded in the back - Alma - walked over to me and said, 'What are you doing here, girl?' And I knew that there wasn't any answer. There couldn't be any answer. And that's when I knew it was time to go.

There’s a line from Blaise Pascal I read. Basically, it says: “All of man’s troubles arise because he cannot sit in a room quietly by himself.” If you could just sit for thirty minutes and be happy, you are successful. That is a very powerful place to be, but very few of us get there. [6] I think of happiness as an emergent property of peace. If you’re peaceful inside and out, that will eventually result in happiness. But peace is a very hard thing to come by. The irony is the way most of us try to find peace is through war. When you start a business, in a way, you’re going to war. When you struggle with your roommates as to who should clean the dishes, you’re going to war. You’re struggling so you can have some sense of security and peace later. In reality, peace is not a guarantee. It’s always flowing. It’s always changing. You want to learn the core skill set of flowing with life and accepting it in most cases. [8] You can get almost anything you want out of life, as long as it’s one thing and you want it far more than anything else. In my own personal experience, the place I end up the most is wanting to be at peace. Peace is happiness at rest, and happiness is peace in motion. You can convert peace into happiness anytime you want. But peace is what you want most of the time. If you’re a peaceful person, anything you do will be a happy activity. Today, the way we think you get peace is by resolving all your external problems. But there are unlimited external problems. The only way to actually get peace on the inside is by giving up this idea of problems. [77]

I wanted the distance so I could figure it all out.” “Your sexuality,” he guesses. “That,” I agree. “And my career, too. I need a better graphic-design job, and some more coursework. I don’t want to hear Dad’s opinions all the time. Not about that, and not about…” “Steamy-hot man-loving?” Roderick offers, and I almost choke on my sandwich. “Sorry,” he says with a grin. “I was born with no filter.

Why are you always so mad?” She laughs under her breath. “That’s easy,” she says. “Assholes, stupid customers, a shitty job, worthless parents, crappy friends, bad weather, annoying roommates who don’t know how to kiss.” I laugh at the last comment, which I’m sure was supposed to be a dig, but it felt more like an underhanded flirt. “How are you so happy all the time?” she asks. “You think everything is funny.” “That’s easy,” I say. “Great parents, being lucky enough to have a job, loyal friends, sunny days, and roommates who starred in porn films.

After weeks of only sleeping an hour or two at a time, I responded to your screaming on autopilot. I’d hear your cries even when I was sleeping. But it was grueling, how much a baby needed, how you would tug my hair and grab my shirt and latch onto my body because you owned, it, too. Look how he wants his mama, my roommates would say, and a couple of them also got goo-goo-eyed, and a sliver of fear would present itself: what if I would always be required to offer myself up, ready and willing, constantly available? What had I done? And then: what was wrong with me?

So there are stories with gods in them. What are you trying to say? That these guys had hallucinations?” “No,” said Shadow. “That's not it.” She chewed a hangnail. “I read some book about brains,” she said. “My roommate had it and she kept waving it around. It was like, how five thousand years ago the lobes of the brain fused and before that people thought when the right lobe of the brain said anything it was the voice of some god telling them what to do. It's just brains.” “I like my theory better,” said Shadow. “What's your theory?” “That back then people used to run into the gods from time to time.

like my privacy; I want my privacy. I want Kyle gone. I want my bed and to be in it by myself. “Kyle is sleeping peacefully. There’s no reason for me to stay. Are you sure you don’t want me to leave?” “Only if you want to; there’s no rush.” “Where are your roommates?” “No idea. Probably with Jameson.” Mental groan. “Who’s Jameson?” “The nerdy girl my roommate is dating.” Then I hear myself add, “If you don’t want water I can make you some hot chocolate or something. It’s motherfucking cold out.” Shut up Zeke. For fuck’s sake, shut up. Violet smiles shyly, tripping up on her speech. “S-Sure, I can do a quick hot cocoa. That sounds toasty and delicious.” Toasty. I have a girl in my house that says shit like sounds toasty.

We have to ice your vagina." The redness from my furious pain shot straight to a new form of redness from embarrassment as I stood up. "You're not icing my vagina, Ian Parker!" "I'm just saying it's the best way to get the pain down, and you don't want swollen, um, you know ... lips ..." Now it was his turn to blush a little. Who knew that the playboy of the century could get shy from talking about my inflamed vagina? "Well, if anyone's icing me down below, it's going to be me." "No, I can definitely do it. That's what roommates are for, anyway," he joked. I laughed in agony. "Roommates are for icing each other's private parts?" "I mean, only the best roommates. Think of it as a roommates-with-benefits situation." "And the benefit is holding an ice pack to my lower region?" "Yep. It's a tough job, but somebody has to do it.

Open your eyes, Cassie." His mouth was on mine before I had a chance to comply, the gentle pressure of his lips stealing the breath of my lungs and pushing out any worries I might have had about whether this was a good idea. His hand slid down to my chin, gently tilting it up a little to give him better access. I was so overwhelmed with sensation that I was helpless to do anything but let him kiss me, and to kiss him back. My hands slid up his broad chest of their own volition, the fabric his shirt soft beneath my fingers as I clutched at the ends of his collar with both hands. My touch elicited a quiet moan from the back of his throat that made me dizzy with a spike of searing desire. "We can't do this here," I mumbled against his lips. Mostly because it felt like something I was supposed to say, given that this was Sam's bathroom and an entire apartment full of people was having a party on the other side of the door. But I knew, even as I said the words, that were absolutely going to do this here. It didn't seem like Frederick even heard what I'd said. If he did, he certainly wasn't paying it any mind. His kisses grew bolder, the exquisite pressure of his mouth increasing until I parted my lips for him on a ragged sigh. He tasted like breath mints and the wine he must have pretended to drink earlier this evening. I wanted to lose myself in it--- in the way he slid his tongue along mine, coaxing a whimper from my throat; in his strong arms, as they encircled me and pulled me closer. I could feel his sharp, prominent canines against my tongue as I kissed him, something I'd certainly never noticed before when I'd seen him smile. A thrilling flash of heat shot through me, the visceral reminder of who and what he was startling me for only a moment before I lost myself in the kiss again.

The thing with Melissa is that I fully and completely and 100 percent understand and comprehend what she is saying -- to its fullest meaning -- within the first fifteen seconds. And unfailingly by the end of the third sentence. I'm not saying I'm that smart. I'm saying I get her that well. We Two Are One. But her purpose is not to merely convey to me the story or the information until I have comprehended. Her purpose is to take a long luxurious bath in my ear and to disgorge the entire unedited contents of her brain -- with sidebars, cul-de-sacs, dead ends, and repetitions -- so that she can examine those contents. She is processing. She long ago abandoned those one-line phone messages and three-sentence notes when we were roommates. When she senses, somehow, that she is running out of time or your patience, she'll say, 'okay, a long story short' -- and then continue on her winding circuitous, often amusing way for another several detailed chapters. And I understand every single word of it, every stop for gas, every detour. I think what she thinks.

Saying goodbye to everyone, I picked up my bag and began walking away as a deep husky voice called my name. I didn’t stop walking, but looked over my shoulder in time to see Brandon walking around the table toward me, and Chase holding the brunette’s head away from his as he watched us, she just continued onto his neck. Falling into step with me, he held out a hand, “We haven’t met yet, I’m Brandon Taylor.” Dear Lord that voice could warm me on the coldest day of the year. “Harper Jackson, nice to meet you.” He smiled as he held the door open for me, “You too. You seem to know the rest of the guys pretty well though we’re just meeting, they said you’re Bree’s roommate?” “Uh, yeah. I am, but I don’t really know them well. I’ve only talked to them for a total of about ten minutes before today.” “Really?” The corners of his mouth twitched up, “You seem to make quite an impression in a short amount of time then.” “Oh I definitely made an impression with them.” I muttered. He looked at me quizzically but I shook my head so he wouldn’t push it. We stopped walking when we got to the path that would take me to the dorms and him to his next class. I turned towards him and shamelessly took in his worn jeans resting low on his narrow hips and fitted black shirt before going back to his face. I hadn’t realized how tall he was when we were walking out, but he had to be at least a foot taller than me. His height and muscled body made me want to curl up in his arms, it looked like I’d fit perfectly there. I nervously bit my bottom lip while I watched his cloudy eyes slowly take in my small frame. It didn’t feel like the guys at the party, looking at me like I was something to eat. His eyes made me feel beautiful, and it thrilled me that they were on me. Thrilled me that they were on me? Get a grip Harper you just met him two seconds ago. “Come on PG, let’s go.” Chase grabbed my arm and started dragging me away. “Chase! Stop!” I yanked my arm out and shot him a dirty look. “What is your problem?” “I’m taking you and Bree to the house, and you need to pack for the weekend so let’s go.” He grabbed for me again but I dodged his hand. “The weekend, what?” “You’re staying with me, go pack.” I narrowed my eyes and started to turn towards Brandon, “Fine, hold on.” “Harper.” “Go away Chase, I’ll meet you in the room in a minute. Go find Bree.” He moved to stand closer behind me so I just sighed and gave Brandon a lame smile. “Sorry, apparently I have to go. I’ll see you tonight?” I don’t know why I asked, he actually lived there. A sexy smile lit up his face as his hand reached out to quickly brush against my arm, “See you then.” With a hard nod directed towards Chase, he turned and walked away.

I panted as he pulled me back through the entryway, hands on my waist, kissing the whole way, and collapsed backward onto the gray leather couch, which felt softer than my skin. I fell on top of him, straddling his lap. He kissed his way down my neck and across the collar of my blouse, leaving a trail of fire behind. "Enough of that," I panted, ripping my shirt over my head. Thank goodness I'd worn a decent bra today---blue satin with a bow in the middle, not frayed or torn anywhere. He eyed it with a growl of approval, but maybe it wasn't a growl for the bra at all, because a moment of fumbling over my back and---pop---I shook off my now unfastened bra. "And to think you didn't like me at first." He drank me in unabashedly, his eyes roaming from belly to breasts to nose to eyes, and each inch his eyes traveled made me feel more and more powerful. Like I could go anywhere, do anything. Except all I wanted to do was right here. I ground against him, feeling his cock already hard and strong under his zipper. "Who says I like you now?" He gasped and pulled me tighter onto him. "If this is what you do to people you don't like, what do you do to people you do like?" I silenced him with another kiss as I rubbed up and down him again. Now my own sex was throbbing, and I sucked in a breath with every movement. I kept moving up and down as he kissed my breasts, tongue tracing lightly over each nipple. When I couldn't take it anymore, I tumbled to the side, lying down on the couch and pulling him on top of me. Because his was an expensive couch and not the cheap one my old roommate had bought at Ikea, there was plenty of room for us to writhe without making me feel like I might topple off the edge. He went down to kiss my breasts again... and kept going. His tongue slid down my stomach, did a lazy circle around my belly button. I clenched my teeth, holding back a beg for more as he slowly, slowly, way too slowly unzipped my skirt and tugged it down. I kicked it off, along with my underwear, when he reached my knees, nearly clipping him on the ear. When I felt close to the edge, I reached down and pulled him up. My hand moved down and took over, zeroing in on just the right spot on my clit. It didn't take long. I shuddered against his shoulder, biting back a cry, then wondered why I was biting it back and let it out. Breathing hard, my head collapsed back into the cushion. I was a little worried that now post-orgasm clarity would descend upon me and be like, What the hell are you doing, Julie? but the post-orgasm clarity seemed to approve. With a wink and a nudge, it made me pull away, and the desire roared back inside me. "That's why it's great to have a clitoris," I told Bennett. "Multiple orgasms.

Frederick looked great in the parade of old-fashioned suits I'd seen in since we'd met, of course. More than great. But I realized now that his consistently too-formal, out-of-date attire served as a constant reminder to me that Frederick was out of my league in every imaginable way--- and completely off-limits. Untouchable. And other. Now, though... "What do you think?" he asked. "Do I look like I fit in with modern society now?" With difficulty, I tore my eyes from the broad expanse of his chest now covered in a forest-green Henley that fit him like a glove and met his gaze. He was fidgeting a little as I looked back at him, drumming his fingertips against his upper thigh again, looking at me with a nervous intensity that stole the breath from my lungs. I let my eyes trail slowly down his body, drinking him in, taking in his new shirt and the dark blue jeans that fit him so well you wouldn't have guessed he'd had no idea what size he was twenty minutes ago. The other jeans he'd tried on lay folded in a pile on the chair beside him; his suit hung neatly on a hanger in the dressing room. I focused on these other details to distract myself from how Frederick not only looked just as hot in more casual clothes as he did in his stuffy suits, but also how he now looked attainable in a way that was dangerous to me, specifically. I had to avert my eyes. Looking right at him felt a little too much like looking directly at the sun. "You look great. You look unbelievable, actually." I heard his sharp intake of breath, only then realizing that that hadn't quite been what he'd asked me. All he'd asked was whether he looked like he fit in. My stomach swooped, my face suddenly feeling like it was on fire. Idiot. "That is... that is to say---" "You think I look great?" He was looking at me with an expression that felt somewhere between surprise and pleasure. He stepped from the dressing room, stopping when he was only a few inches away from me. I took an involuntary breath, breathing in the scent of lavender soap and new clothes that clung to him.

Simon laughs when I audibly exhale. “Relieved she’s not here yet?” I roll my suitcase into one of the barren bedrooms and then plunk down on the rock-hard, hideous orange sofa in the lounge. Simon takes a swivel chair from my room and slides it in front of me, where he then plants himself. “Why are you so worried?” I cross my arms and look around the concrete room. “I’m not worried at all. She’s probably very nice. I’m sure we’ll become soul mates, and she’ll braid my hair, and we’ll have pillow fights while scantily clad and fall into a deep lesbian love affair.” I squint my eyes at a cobweb and assume there are spider eggs preparing to hatch and invade the room. “Allison?” Simon waits until I look at him. “You can’t do that. You can’t become a lesbian.” “Why not?” “Because then everyone will say that your adoptive gay father magically made you gay, and it’ll be a big thing, and we’ll have to hear about nature versus nurture, and it’ll be soooooo boring.” “You have a point.” I wait for spider eggs to fall from the sky. “Then I’ll go with assuming she’s just a really sweet, normal person with whom I do not want to engage in sexual relations.” “Better,” he concedes. “I’m sure she’ll be nice. This kind of strong liberal arts college attracts quality students. There’re good people here.” He’s trying to reassure me, but it’s not working. “Totally,” I say. My fingers run across the nubby burned-orange fabric covering the couch, which is clearly composed of rock slabs. “Simon?” “Yes, Allison?” I sigh and take a few breaths while I play with the hideous couch threads. “She probably has horns.” He shrugged. “I think that’s unlikely.” Simon pauses. “Although . . .” “Although what?” I ask with horror. There’s a long silence that makes me nervous. Finally, he says very slowly, “She might have one horn.” I jerk my head and stare at him. Simon claps his hands together and tries to coax a smile out of me. “Like a unicorn! Ohmigod! Your roommate might be a unicorn!” “Or a rhinoceros,” I point out. “A beastly, murderous rhino.” “There is that,” he concedes. I sigh. “In good news, if I ever need a back scratcher, I have this entire couch.” I slump back against the rough fabric and hold out my hands before he can protest. “I know. I’m a beacon of positivity.” “That’s not news to me.

a serious contender for my book of year. I can't believe I only discovered Chris Carter a year ago and I now consider him to be one of my favourite crime authors of all time. For that reason this is a difficult review to write because I really want to show just how fantastic this book is. It's a huge departure from what we are used to from Chris, this book is very different from the books that came before. That said it could not have been more successful in my opinion. After five books of Hunter trying to capture a serial killer it makes sense to shake things up a bit and Chris has done that in best possible way. By allowing us to get inside the head of one of the most evil characters I've ever read about. It is also the first book based on real facts and events from Chris's criminal psychology days and that makes it all the more shocking and fascinating. Chris Carter's imagination knows no bounds and I love it. The scenes, the characters, whatever he comes up with is both original and mind blowing and that has never been more so than with this book. I feel like I can't even mention the plot even just a little bit. This is a book that should be read in the same way that I read it: with my heart in my mouth, my eyes unblinking and in a state of complete obliviousness to the world around me while I was well and truly hooked on this book. This is addictive reading at its absolute best and I was devastated when I turned the very last page. Robert Hunter, after the events of the last few books is looking forward to a much needed break in Hawaii. Before he can escape however his Captain calls him to her office. Arriving, Hunter recognises someone - one of the most senior members of the FBI who needs his help. They have in custody one of the strangest individuals they have ever come across, a man who is more machine than human and who for days has uttered not a single word. Until one morning he utters seven: 'I will only speak to Robert Hunter'. The man is Hunter's roommate and best friend from college, Lucien Folter, and found in the boot of his car are two severed and mutilated heads. Lucien cries innocence and Hunter, a man incredibly difficult to read or surprise is played just as much as the reader is by Lucien. There are a million and one things I want to say but I just can't. You really have to discover how this story unfolds for yourself. In this book we learn so much more about Hunter and get inside his head even further than we have before. There's a chapter that almost brought me to tears such is the talent of Chris to connect the reader with Hunter. This is a character like no other and he is now one of my favourite detectives of all time. We go back in time and learn more about Hunter when he was younger, and also when he was in college with Lucien. Lucien is evil. The scenes depicted in this book are some of the most graphic I've ever read and you know what, I loved it. After five books of some of the scariest and goriest scenes I've ever read I wondered whether Chris could come up with something even worse (in a good way), but trust me, he does. This book is horrifying, terrifying and near impossible to put down until you reach its conclusion. I spent my days like a zombie and my nights practically giving myself paper cuts turning the pages. If when reading this book you think you have an idea of where it will go, prepare to be wrong. I've learnt never to underestimate Chris, keeping readers on their toes he takes them on an absolute rollercoaster of a ride with the twistiest of turns and the biggest of drops you will finish this book reeling. I am on a serious book hangover, what book can I read next that can even compare to this? I have no idea but if you are planning on reading An Evil Mind I cannot reccommend it enough. Not only is this probably my book of the year it is probably the best crime fiction book I have ever read. An exaggeration you might say but my opinion is my own and this real

Yet it could be a pesky little nuisance at times. Making us feel things we didn’t want to, say and do things we’d never planned on.

I’ve been inside more vaginas these last four weeks than all four years of undergrad combined. And that’s saying something, believe me.

From near strangers who profess their love after a quickie, to stalkers, to one who handcuffed herself to my bed, let’s just say I’ve not been lucky after getting lucky.” “Is your dick cursed with black magic or something?” He shrugged, dragging his eyes up to meet mine. “No, just eight inches long. I also have wicked stamina . . . and an advanced understanding of female anatomy.

I was actually just looking for a place to get a little rest.” For a second, the smile dropped from his face, and an expression passed across it that Cass couldn’t identify. “Sleep in a graveyard?” Cass frowned. “You can’t be serious.” Again Cass felt certain he was lying to her. Could he have had something to do with the body stashed in the contessa’s family tomb? Cass didn’t think so. He was a bit too relaxed for having just killed a woman. Behind him, in the darkness, Cass again thought she saw movement. Her breath caught in her throat, but it was just one of the stray cats, darting out in front of a crypt. If Falco noticed her look of alarm, he didn’t comment on it. “Why not? Normally it’s quiet,” he said, grinning at Cass. “No wild women running about. My roommate and I were drinking at Il Mar e la Spada and got into a fight as usual. Tonight I decided to avoid the inevitable thrashing.” He coughed. “His, not mine.” Il Mar e la Spada. San Domenico’s finest--and only--taverna. Cass had never been inside the decrepit old place. “Come on,” Falco said. “I’ll see you safely home to your fancy sheets. I’d say you need your beauty sleep, but it looks like you’ve been getting plenty.” He took Cass’s hand in one of his own, his warm touch like a bolt of lightning, causing her to jump.

Questions When she asked me out for coffee, I knew she was different. Her words were funny but lonely. Her eyes nervously asked questions. I was looking into a murky well, but I couldn't turn away. Sometimes I wish I could take her away. We could walk a beach sipping coffee, and she'd laugh and feel really well and not start crying. She'd be different. No one would ask me questions about being with someone so weird, lonely. 'Save me,' she whispers. It makes me lonely. My life before that first day seems far away. Her cutting habit scares me. I ask questions so maybe she can say what hurts. I offer coffee with lots of sugar and milk, something different. She dries her smudged eyes, sighs, 'Oh, well.' I wish we could hold hands by a rock well and fling in her thorny wounds, fears, loneliness. Maybe things with her will never be different. Maybe I need to pack up and run far away, but then tomorrow, alone, she'd drink bitter coffee again, and I'd be asking myself what-if questions. My counselor asks me confusing questions about whether I can cure her, make her well, and what if I hadn't gone out for that first coffee, can I really save anyone but me. 'But she's so lonely,' I say, 'and I love her and can't just turn away.' I even pray that she'll wake up smiling, different. My family says, 'Think of college, a new different life, a clean start.' Maybe a roommate will question my politics, sign us up for a trip to the mountains far away. Can, should I, forget her, and focus just on me? Well, I'd miss her too, digging into my skin, lonely for what I provide, warmth and not just in the coffee. People say I don't look well, I stopped coffee, but the broken questions just replay, won't go away. I want to be different even if I'm lonely.

Do you have a close friend who’s had a profound influence on you? Do you think it is a coincidence that she was in your dorm wing or became your roommate? Was it accidental that your desk was near his or that his family lived next door or that your father was transferred when you were in third grade so that you ended up in his neighborhood? God orchestrates our lives. “From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live” (Acts 17:26). Since God determined the time and exact places you would live, it’s no accident which neighborhood you grew up in, who lived next door, who went to school with you, who was part of your church youth group, who was there to help you and pray for you. Our relationships were appointed by God, and there’s every reason to believe they’ll continue in Heaven.

My father is a hoarder. I can say that now, and people’s eyes widen in understanding. Maybe they know someone who is a hoarder, or maybe they throw that word around to describe their messy roommate, but hoarder is now a part of our

Finally, I applied to one of my roommates, more sagacious than the rest, for advice. Dave, I said. I’m broke and without prospects. I’ve blown my GI Bill on flying lessons. I can’t hide out here in college much longer. What should I do? Well, he said, at this crucial juncture you need to coldly appraise yourself. “I’ve only known you these few short years, but it strikes me you wouldn’t be good for anything important; I’d have to say you’re lazy, self-absorbed, glib and facetious, always ready to mock the suggestions of others, but never offering anything positive of your own. Intellectually shallow, no tap root anywhere, spiritually neutered, without feeling or compassion, unsteady of focus, lacking the fortitude for the long pull, with no fixed belief in anything.” I shook his hand and thanked him. The acuity of his analysis made my path clear. My only hope lay in daily journalism.

Quiet? I yearned to say, "Really, Karen? You know what's worse than quiet? Fluorescent bulbs crackling twenty-four hours a day in the center. Or maybe the sound of my cutter roommate weeping as she attacked her thigh with a spork? How about disconnected laughter with no punch line?" But then, that last one had been me.

From this we might infer that minimizing our pain and suffering when it comes to sorting is all about minimizing the number of things we have to sort. It’s true: one of the best preventives against the computational difficulty of sock sorting is just doing your laundry more often. Doing laundry three times as frequently, say, could reduce your sorting overhead by a factor of nine. Indeed, if Hillis’s roommate stuck with his peculiar procedure but went thirteen days between washes instead of fourteen, that alone would save him twenty-eight pulls from the hamper.

I know we got off to a rocky start, and you might think I'm crazy for saying this, but from the second you walked into the piano room, I knew that was it for me. I don't know how, but I just did. It was like something had always been missing, like a puzzle that had one last piece you couldn't find no matter where you looked. And then you walked in, and I knew I'd found it. I'd found the missing piece. It was you. I see you in the music I play and the things I make. I see you in the future I planned for myself. In my best dreams, you're with me, and in my worst nightmares, you're not there. There's never a moment when I'm not thinking of you. There's nothing I see that doesn't remind me of you in some way or another. You're in everything, Wendy. You're my everything.

Don’t know if you have any hobbies.” She nodded. “I do. I may have to take a break from it for a bit while I’m out here, but normally when I have a light day on campus, I go to a class . . .” I waited. “It’s . . . pole dancing.” I stopped breathing, but at least I didn’t choke. Nodding, I took a sip of my wine to block my face, which I was pretty sure had turned the shade of a beet. “So, like Flashdance? Welder by day, dancer by night?” I barked out, feeling a stirring in my pants that was wholly inappropriate for my roomie, who’d been talking about diode lasers a minute earlier. She’s a goddamn pole dancer. She chuckled and crossed her arms over her chest as though trying to keep me from picturing her dancing. “Excellent movie reference. But no, that’s not even close to what I do.” It hardly mattered. My brain was stuck. Like a white-hot strobe had blinded me to everything except Sarah wearing lingerie and grinding on a pole under hot lights. For me. Stop picturing it. Fuck! “Cool,” I finally managed to say with a straight face. Like it meant nothing. She nodded. Like it meant nothing. Then she spread some brie cheese on a cracker and took a bite. I choked out an excuse and went to the bathroom to get a grip. This will be okay. It will. It has to be. In the bathroom, I splashed some cold water on my face and took a hard look at myself in the mirror. What was happening? I hadn’t been this jacked up over a woman anytime in the past two years. My emotions had been buried in caverns so deep I felt confident they were gone for good. I was fine with that. It made no sense. Or . . . maybe it did. I’ve always been competitive as fuck. If I’m told I can’t have something, I want it all the more and do anything in my power to make it mine. That had to be what was happening here. It was all in my head. I knew she was off limits, so the competitive motherfucker in me started bucking against that. I just needed to get my head together and think of her like any other human who happened to be using my second bedroom. When I got back to the table, Sarah looked up at me with a thin slice of Parma ham twirled around her fork and put the bit into her mouth. I had no defensible reason to focus on her lips or the soft contour of her jaw while she chewed. She swallowed and smiled at me. “I figured I should get a head start on eating while you were gone. In case you had more questions.” “Good plan. Maybe we should focus on the food for a few minutes, or we could be here all night.” I bit into a slider and closed my eyes at how delicious the slow-roasted meat tasted on the brioche bun. Who needed to cook when someone else could make food that tasted like this? It was how I’d become addicted to takeout and why I rarely ate at home anymore. That, and I spent a lot of time at work. Sarah finished the last of the cheesy bread and wiped her lips gingerly on a napkin before looking right at me with those gorgeous eyes. “This is weird, right? It’s not just me?” I tilted my head, trying to read her expression and decipher her meaning. “Could you be specific? She waved her hands between us. “This. Us. We’re in our thirties and we’re roommates. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t had a roommate for about ten years. Does it freak you out a little bit?” Yes, but not for the reasons she meant.

Getting Off the Island of Lost Boys and Girls The first step to getting off this God-forsaken island is to understand ministry is wherever you are as a disciple of Jesus. When I first chose the public-university route, Christian friends would say, “Wow, I’m really surprised you’re not going into ministry.” But they had no idea of the ministry happening all around me, through me, and growing inside of me. They weren’t there when I carried my drunk classmate to her dorm room at 3:00 a.m. and slept on her floor to make sure she was safe. They weren’t hearing the midnight conversations between my Jewish roommate and me. They didn’t know how much ministry was happening as I lit the menorah with her at Hanukkah or how the presence of God filled our room as we read the Easter story together that same year. They didn’t know about the lunches with my atheist professors who wore me down as they challenged my charismatic upbringing and tried to tell me there was no God. They didn’t see me wrestling with my faith and that with each day God was perfecting it. Ministry is all around us, and if we let him, he’ll show us it isn’t confined to a position in a church building that we fear can be stolen. It’s in the everyday hugs and phone calls we make, in teachers grading papers and doctors charting medical information, in stay-at-home moms and dads packing lunches with little notes where Jesus shows up, and the Kingdom advances because we are right where he wants us. When we learn that ministry is right where we are, we go big, we don’t hold back, and we don’t wait for something better. We stop being afraid it can be stolen. We don’t care if we’re overlooked. It might be holding back your roommate’s hair after a long night of partying or rocking a sleeping baby or mowing your neighbor’s lawn. This isn’t selfie material. Setting sail with the Great Commission (go and make disciples) and the Great Commandment (love God and love people) as our North Star keeps us off the Island of Lost Boys and Girls.

A CEMENT WALL A few years ago, two patients found themselves sharing a room in the palliative care unit of a hospital. Luis, in the bed next to the window, would talk to Daniel. Every day he would tell him, in luxuriant detail, what happened in the street. Mostly he narrated the adventures—seen from the window—of a family who lived near the hospital. The mother would often play with her children in the garden. He spoke naturally and with grace, although his voice was slurred from the chemotherapy. For Daniel, the last months of his life were rendered entertaining by his roommate. On those days when they were alone, without family or friends, Luis would say, “Shall I tell you what I see?” Daniel’s eyes would light up. And a recital would begin that might last hours. Months later, Luis passed away, and within a few days his bed was occupied by another patient. Daniel, excited by the thought that he would once again be able to hear the stories his friend had told him, asked his new companion to inform him about the children in their garden. The response stunned him: “There’s no garden here, just a cement wall.” Luis had used his imagination—his one remaining resource—to make up stories that would entertain Daniel. Using empathy, Luis had been capable of putting himself in his comrade’s shoes and successfully got him excited about something, helping him to overcome the suffering caused by his illness.

Because how the hell do I say no to this man? For anything? Ever?

He texts me: My roommate cooked four jumbo hot dogs for breakfast, but then he only ate two. I wish I could tell my eighteen-year-old self: This is it. This is what’s behind the locked doors of the Lampoon Castle. I read the text out loud to Gemma. “He just wants to talk to you,” she says. “That’s the most interesting thing he could think of?” I say.

You start by watching. Just be aware that you are aware of what is going on in there. It’s easy. What you’ll notice is that you’re watching a human being’s personality with all its strengths and weaknesses. It’s as though there’s somebody in there with you. You might actually say you have a “roommate.

This is art, not porn. And as girly as it is, I want to see my body as I’ve never seen it before. As beautiful and free and daring as my roommate—no, even more daring than Sophie, who, after calling me a little girl all morning isn’t saying a word now.

For a moment, he became oddly fascinated with the backs of her knees. The skin seemed impossibly fine, dangerously soft and delicate. He bent his head and kissed one leg, then the other, just because he loved her. He would never say it, but he could kiss the backs of her knees and know exactly what that meant in his own head.

I keep scrolling, finding more pictures of Sadie with the same lass. They seem close. She’s tagged. I hop over to her account, Jory Chambers. “Yeah, I don’t think they were roommates,” says Mitch, leaning over my shoulder.

Demanders say: I’m dying here. I am shut down. My feelings don’t matter. It’s lonelier than living alone. By myself. Dismissed. I get no response. I’m hammering on their door. I yell to get a response — any response. We’re roommates. I don’t matter to them. Withdrawers say: I never get it right — can’t please. I give up, space out. Best to avoid a fight — try to keep things calm. I’m failing here. Paralyzed. No point. Go behind my wall. I try to fix it — but it doesn’t work. I numb out. A.R.E.: ACCESSIBILITY, RESPONSIVENESS, AND ENGAGEMENT The key question in our love relationships is, “Are you there for me?” This translates to, “Do I matter to you? Can I reach you? Are you accessible, emotionally available to me? Can I rely on you to respond when I need you? Will you engage with me, give me your attention?” “Are you there for me?” is the A.R.E. question. This key question is buried, hidden just under the surface in most recurring arguments about pragmatic issues such as chores, personality differences, sex, children, and money. If partners feel safe and loved, they can deal with differences and problems together. If not, then relationship issues and fears get channeled into endless disagreements. QUESTIONNAIRE: How A.R.E.

Demanders say: I’m dying here. I am shut down. My feelings don’t matter. It’s lonelier than living alone. By myself. Dismissed. I get no response. I’m hammering on their door. I yell to get a response — any response. We’re roommates. I don’t matter to them. Withdrawers say: I never get it right — can’t please. I give up, space out. Best to avoid a fight — try to keep things calm. I’m failing here. Paralyzed. No point. Go behind my wall. I try to fix it — but it doesn’t work. I numb out.

You okay?” he asked quietly. “Sure. Why wouldn’t I be?” “Brad. I know you were crushing on him, and now he’s packed it up and moved next door. I wanted to make sure you weren’t having trouble dealing with it.” “I can’t believe Allie told you about my crush.” “Give me a break, Kate. I’ve known since family weekend. When was the last time you wanted to take a picture of me? Document my freshman year? What? Do I have clueless tattooed across my forehead?” Narrowing my eyes, I leaned toward him. “Yeah, I think maybe you do.” Even in the shadows I could see him grin. This was so totally weird. Sitting out here, having an almost normal conversation with my brother. “He’s not your type, Kate.” I scoffed. “How do you know my type? I don’t even know my type.” “Trust me, when you do figure your type out, you’re gonna realize it’s not Brad. I mean, I like him, and he’s a great roommate, but what I want in a friend and what you need in a boyfriend aren’t the same. He’d just end up hurting you. Then I’d have to beat the crap out of him.” I couldn’t stop myself from smiling. “Would you really do that for me, Sam?” “You know I would.” His voice was totally serious. And I realized that he was so not joking. His revelation stunned me almost as much as Joe’s kiss. No, wait, nothing would ever throw me off balance as much as that kiss. “You do know that, don’t you, Kate?” Sam asked. “You’re my sister and I . . .” He waved his hand. “That L-word. You know.” “Love?” I asked. “Don’t make me say it, okay? Just know it’s true. I know I give you a hard time, but hey, that’s what brothers do. It’s part of our genetic makeup, a little chip inside our brains that gets activated when our parents shove a screaming baby sister in our face.” “Like you’d have a memory of that moment. You were only fifteen months old.” “Whatever. Look, I’m out here right now because I’ve been a little worried about you, and I haven’t really been able to get you alone to talk.” “You’ve been able to get Allie alone.” And for a lot more than conversation. He grimaced. “Yeah, she told me you know about us. Are you okay with that?” “What if I’m not?” “Then tough. Get over it.” “Some understanding brother you are.” “I’ve got my limits.” “So you really like her, huh?” “Yeah, I have for a long time, but geez, she’s my sister’s best friend. How weird is that?” “Totally weird. When she described the way you kiss—” “What?” Horror echoed his voice. His eyes were wide, his mouth open. “Payback for the snowball,” I said snidely. “I already paid you back for that.” “So? Maybe there’s a little chip inside a girl’s brain that gets activated when her brother is a jerk and erases paybacks as soon as they happen so we need a steady stream of them.” “You’re definitely not playing nice, Kate.” I heard him heave a sigh. “You know, that’s part of the reason I’ve steered clear of Allie. I don’t want her discussing my . . . moves with my sister.” “Yeah, like you’ve got moves.” He gave me a cocky look. “Hey, I’ve got moves.” I held up a hand. “Definitely don’t want to hear about them.” “Definitely don’t want you to hear about them.