Snap Picture Quotes

I’m never wearing them," Ron was saying stubbornly. "Never." "Fine," snapped Mrs. Weasley. "Go naked. And, Harry, make sure you get a picture of him. Goodness knows I could do with a laugh.

The moment we stepped out into the hall, Cam's apartment door flung open. Ollie appeared, a cellphone in one hand and Raphael wiggling in the other. "Smile!" he shouted as he snapped a picture on his phone. "It's like my two kids are going to prom.

We need to talk,” she said. “All of us. About what we‘re going to do now.” “I was going to watch Project Runway,” said Jace. “Its on next.” “No you‘re not,” said Magnus. He snapped his fingers and the TV went off, releasing a small puff of smoke as the picture died. “You need to deal with this.” “Suddenly you‘re interested in solving my problems?” “I‘m interested in getting my apartment back. I‘m tired of you cleaning all the time.” Magnus snapped his fingers again menacingly. “Get up.” “Or you‘ll be the next one to go up in smoke,” said Simon with relish. “There’s no need to clarify my snap,” said Magnus. “The implication was clear in the snap itself.

I was going to watch Project Runway," said Jace. "It's on next." "No, you're not," said Magnus. He snapped his fingers and the TV went off, releasing a small puff of smoke as the picture died. "You need to deal with this." "Suddenly you're interested in solving my problems?" "I'm interested in getting my apartment back. I'm tired of you cleaning all the time.

We all know the sound a camera makes when it snaps a picture. Even some of the digitals do it for nostalgia’s sake.

Sometimes one waits too long for the perfect moment before snapping the picture. You never realize that you needed was to change perspective.

Each time we use our cell phones, snap pictures with a camera, or use a search engine’s algorithms, we benefit from the legacy of Muhammad’s modern mindset. His mindset is not tied to Mecca or Medina, for as the Golden Age political philosopher Al-Farabi observed, “Medina is not a location but the manner in which a community comes together.” Indeed, people of any culture or race can establish a “place of flowing change.” As Muhammad declared in the final days of his life, “My progeny are those who uphold my legacy!

Hello, Bradley,' said Mom. She'd regained her composure after my outburst, and now raised her camera. 'Stand close.' 'No, Mom,' I said. 'No pictures.' 'But you're friend's here now,' she said, waving us together. 'Smile!' 'I don't need a picture with-' the flash snapped '-another guy. That's great, Mom, thank you. Send that one to Dad and tell him we're going steady.

I was on a walking tour of Oxford colleges once with a group of bored and unimpressable tourists. They yawned at Balliol's quad, T.E. Lawrence's and Churchill's portraits, and the blackboard Einstein wrote his E=mc2 on. Then the tour guide said, 'And this is the Bridge of Sighs, where Lord Peter proposed (in Latin) to Harriet,' and everyone suddenly came to life and began snapping pictures. Such is the power of books.

holyshitit’sKultistandingrightthere. Poop. He poops. He poops. Right. That was all I needed to snap out of it. I pictured an image of him sitting on the porcelain throne to remind me he was just a normal man with needs like everyone. I

One day I want you to look up 'insensitivity' in the dictionary," Matt said, annoyed. "I'm sure it'll do your ego wonders to see your picture printed there beside it.

Her phone lay on the table, so I picked it up, turned on the camera, made a stupid face, and snapped a picture. “What the hell are you doing?” Abby said with a giggle. I searched for my name, and then attached the picture. “So you’ll remember how much you adore me when I call.

He, Teddy and Eliza entered the room just as someone was snapping a picture: they would be forever captured in a photo they didn't belong in, blinking against the flash.

Yes,” she purred. “I really think you can do better. Lots better.” As she spoke, she trailed a red-painted finger down the center of his chest, over his abdomen, heading straight for the button on his jeans. And oh, hell to the no. “Get your hands off him.” Sadi’s head snapped in my direction. “Excuse me?” “I don’t think I stuttered.” I took a step forward. “But it looks like you need me to repeat it. Get your freaking hands off him.” One side of her plump red lips curled up. “You want to make me?” In the back of my head, I was aware that Sadi didn’t move or speak like the other Luxen. Her mannerisms were too human, but then that thought was quickly chased away when Daemon reached down and pulled her hand away. “Stop it,” he murmured, voice dropped low in that teasing way of his. I saw red. The pictures on the wall rattled and the papers on the desk started to lift up. Static charged over my skin. I was about to pull a Beth right here, seconds away from floating to the ceiling and ripping out every strand of red—

Mr. Garrison glanced at Daemon, frowning. "It's the fact that the energy was so strong it disrupted a satellite's signal and they weren't able to snap any pictures of the event. Nothing like that has ever happened before." Daemon kept his expression blank. "I guess I'm just that awesome.

Threads snap. You would lose your way in the labyrinth.

She believed photography to be the greatest of all art forms because it was simultaneously junk food and gourmet cuisine, because you could snap dozens of pictures in a couple of hours, then spend dozens of hours perfecting just a couple of them.

The baron reminds me of someone, but I can't quite put my finger on who it is," Ramsey remarked. "I swear my own father never talked to me the way Gillian's uncle just did." "Your father died before you were old enough to know him." "It was humiliating, damn it. He sure as certain wasn't what I expected. The way Gillian talked about him, I pictured a mild-mannered gentleman. She thinks he's… gentle. Is the woman blind? How in God's name can she love such a crotchety old…" Ramsey's head snapped up, and he suddenly burst into laughter, breaking Brodick's train of thought. "It's you." "What?" "Morgan… he reminds me of you. My God, Gillian married a man just like her uncle. Look at the baron and you'll see yourself in twenty years." "Are you suggesting I'm going to become a belligerent, foul-tempered old man?" "Hell, you're already belligerent and foul-tempered. No wonder she fell in love with you," he drawled

Perseus Jackson, I do expect you to refrain from causing any more trouble. " "Trouble?" I demanded. Dionysus snapped his fingers. A newspaper appeared on the table-the front page of today's New York Post, There was my yearbook picture from Meriwether Prep. It was hard for me to make out the headline, but I had a pretty good guess what it said. Something like: ...Perseus Jackson, I do expect you to refrain from causing any more trouble. " "Trouble?" I demanded. Dionysus snapped his fingers. A newspaper appeared on the table-the front page of today's New York Post, There was my yearbook picture from Meriwether Prep. It was hard for me to make out the headline, but I had a pretty good guess what it said. Something like: Thirteen- Year-Old Lunatic Torches Gymnasium.

What - what - what are you doing?" he demanded. "I am almost six hundred years old," Magnus claimed, and Ragnor snorted, since Magnus changed his age to suit himself every few weeks. Magnus swept on. "It does seem about time to learn a musical instrument." He flourished his new prize, a little stringed instrument that looked like a cousin of the lute that the lute was embarrassed to be related to. "It's called a charango. I am planning to become a charanguista!" "I wouldn't call that an instrument of music," Ragnor observed sourly. "An instrument of torture, perhaps." Magnus cradled the charango in his arms as if it were an easily offended baby. "It's a beautiful and very unique instrument! The sound box is made from an armadillo. Well, a dried armadillo shell." "That explains the sound you're making," said Ragnor. "Like a lost, hungry armadillo." "You are just jealous," Magnus remarked calmly. "Because you do not have the soul of a true artiste like myself." "Oh, I am positively green with envy," Ragnor snapped. "Come now, Ragnor. That's not fair," said Magnus. "You know I love it when you make jokes about your complexion." Magnus refused to be affected by Ragnor's cruel judgments. He regarded his fellow warlock with a lofty stare of superb indifference, raised his charango, and began to play again his defiant, beautiful tune. They both heard the staccato thump of frantically running feet from within the house, the swish of skirts, and then Catarina came rushing out into the courtyard. Her white hair was falling loose about her shoulders, and her face was the picture of alarm. "Magnus, Ragnor, I heard a cat making a most unearthly noise," she exclaimed. "From the sound of it, the poor creature must be direly sick. You have to help me find it!" Ragnor immediately collapsed with hysterical laughter on his windowsill. Magnus stared at Catarina for a moment, until he saw her lips twitch. "You are conspiring against me and my art," he declared. "You are a pack of conspirators." He began to play again. Catarina stopped him by putting a hand on his arm. "No, but seriously, Magnus," she said. "That noise is appalling." Magnus sighed. "Every warlock's a critic." "Why are you doing this?" "I have already explained myself to Ragnor. I wish to become proficient with a musical instrument. I have decided to devote myself to the art of the charanguista, and I wish to hear no more petty objections." "If we are all making lists of things we wish to hear no more . . . ," Ragnor murmured. Catarina, however, was smiling. "I see," she said. "Madam, you do not see." "I do. I see it all most clearly," Catarina assured him. "What is her name?" "I resent your implication," Magnus said. "There is no woman in the case. I am married to my music!" "Oh, all right," Catarina said. "What's his name, then?" His name was Imasu Morales, and he was gorgeous.

Truth be known, I found it right flatterin'. And, it gives me the confidence tah ask ya out for Saturday." My head snapped up and my cheeks burned. "Wha...?!" Picture of eloquence. That's me. "Saturday. A date. You, me, dinner? Yah've heard of this concept, yeah?

Snake pulled out the digital camera and decided to play a joke on Otacon. He snapped a picture of the pinup, muttered, "Good," and closed the door.

He witnessed the love people throughout the industry had for their animals and for the sport itself. Someone once snapped a picture depicting his rictus of wonderment as he listened to a stable mate trace the lineage of a horse in a neighboring stall. Sires and dams, by name, for generations back. Wil could tell the lad wasn’t fabricating those names. We remember what we love.

What was the barn like before it was photographed?' he said. 'What did it look like, how was it different from other barns, how was it similar to other barns? We can't answer these questions because we've read the signs, seen the people snapping the pictures. We can't get outside the aura. We're part of the aura. We're here, we're now.

We’re going to build a big pen out of that chicken wire,” he said. “It’ll have a top on it and a door with a snap latch. We’ll put those coconuts right in the center of the pen and leave the door open. Then we’ll tie the binder twine to the door and run it back through the pen and out into the brush a little way. When those monkeys go into the pen after those coconuts, we’ll pull the binder twine and latch the door. What do you think of that idea?” Before I answered Grandpa, I closed my eyes and drew a picture of the pen in my mind.

Personally, I didn't take a single photograph while I was there, but that's not all that unusual for me. I suppose my aversion to snapping pictures may have something to do with shaky hands and blurry results, but there's another reason: The act of lifting up the camera and positioning it between me and the object of my interest separates me from the experience.

Whenever Ingrid and I got out of the suburbs, into Berkeley or San Francisco, and saw how other people lived, Ingrid would cry at the smallest of things- a little boy walking home by himself, a discarded cardboard sign saying HUNGRY PLEASE HELP. She would snap a picture, and by the time she lowered her camera, tears would already be falling. I always felt kind of guilty that I didn't feel as sad as she did, but now, watching Dylan, I think that's probably a good thing. I mean, you see a million terrible things every day, on the news and in the paper, and in real life. I'm not saying that it's stupid to feel sad, just that it would be impossible to let everything get to you and still get some sleep at night.

It was an irresistible development of modern illustration (so largely photographic) that borders should be abandoned and the "picture" end only with the paper. This method may be suitable for for photographs; but it is altogether inappropriate for the pictures that illustrate or are inspired by fairy-stories. An enchanted forest requires a margin, even an elaborate border. To print it coterminous with the page, like a "shot" of the Rockies in Picture Post, as if it were indeed a "snap" of fairyland or a "sketch by our artist on the spot", is a folly and an abuse.

Next thing they knew, the door burst open, and there stood a group of the three meanest girls in school, who called themselves "The squad." The leader, Victoria, held up a disposable camera, snapping a quick picture, before the three burst into a fit of laughter.

The ladder tilts the opposite way, like it doesn’t want to be involved in anything this ugly, and all of this is in the slowest possible motion for Lewis, his head snapping as many pictures as it can on the way down, like they can stack up under him, break his fall.

Your dad was in a street gang?" My adopted dad was an accountant for a big Fortune 500 corporation. Him, me, and my adopted mom lived in the suburbs in an English Tudor house with a gigantic basement where he fiddled with model trains. The other dads were lawyers and research chemists, but they all ran model trains. Every weekend they could, they'd load into a family van and cruise into the city for research. Snapping pictures of gang members. Gang graffiti. Sex workers walking their tracks. Litter and pollution and homeless heroin addicts. All this, they'd study and bicker about, trying to outdo each other with the most realistic, the grittiest scenes of urban decay they could create in HO train scale in a subdivision basement

And yet out of the thousands of pictures that Navidson took, there not exist a single frame without a person in it. Navidson never snapped scenery. People mattered most to him, whether soldiers, lepers, medics, or newlyweds eating dinner at a trattoria in Rome, or even a family of tailors swimming alone at some sandy cove north of Rio. Navidson religiously studied others. The world around only mattered because people lived there and sometimes, in spite of the pain, tragedy and degradation, even managed to triumph there.

Under the twinkling trees was a table covered with Guatemalan fabric, roses in juice jars, wax rose candles from Tijuana and plates of food — Weetzie's Vegetable Love-Rice, My Secret Agent Lover Man's guacamole, Dirk's homemade pizza, Duck's fig and berry salad and Surfer Surprise Protein Punch, Brandy-Lynn's pink macaroni, Coyote's cornmeal cakes, Ping's mushu plum crepes and Valentine's Jamaican plantain pie. Witch Baby's stomach growled but she didn't leave her hiding place. Instead, she listened to the reggae, surf, soul and salsa, tugged at the snarl balls in her hair and snapped pictures of all the couples.

That's about when people realized that this wasn't some kind of show, an optical illusion or something to stand around and point at. They might not have understood what they were seeing, but whatever instinct humans possessed that triggered that flight response kicked in. It became all about survival- about getting away from the big, bad unknown- while trying to snap pictures of the spectacle at the same time. Got to love the near-innate human response to capture everything on film.

I was in Sarasota, Florida, on a spring-break trip with my friends Bruce and Karen Moore. Bruce and I were waiting on the beach for the rest of our crew when and a man and his grown kids came strolling up the sand. They looked at me for a minute, sort of hesitating, and then asked, "Would you mind taking a picture?" "Sure," I said, and quickly arranged all of us in a line, putting myself in the middle and motioning to Bruce to come snap the photo. Right about that time, the father said, "Actually, we were wondering if you could take a picture just of us." An understandable mistake on my part, but really embarrassing. Bruce has had a field day reminding me of that one ever since. Lesson learned: Never assume anything about your own importance. It's a great big world, and all of us are busy living our lives. None of us knows all the time and effort that another person puts into his or her passion.

Suddenly she saw a man who was snapping her picture. She stared at him and realized that he was short, had black hair, a hard face, and was wearing a gray suit. He looked to be of Italian descent. Could he possibly be Benny the Slippery One Caputti?

She takes out her phone and snaps a picture. “I like to take pictures of my drinks.” “They’re like family,” A.J. says. “They’re better than family.

Threads snap.You would lose your way in the labyrinth.

What's amazing to me now is that I actually recall fixating on the fact that my thighs a-l-m-o-s-t touched at the top....If I could go back in time and slap my eighteen-year-old self, I would. I would tell her to snap out of it, because that's the best you thighs will ever be. You should take pictures of your thighs right now so you can remember how amazing they were!

It’s his first week.” Stella snapped a picture of her drink before tasting it. “Booth has been with you for years. It’s only natural that Rhys would be more overprotective. Give him time.

When I was shooting with collodion, I wasn’t just snapping a picture. I was fashioning, with fetishistic ceremony, an object whose ragged black edges gave it the appearance of having been torn from time itself.

Yes. Can you print these pictures and make sure the others have copies? Particularly Barry. He’s Locator in Chief on this one.” “I’ll do it right now. I’m packing a Fujitsu ScanSnap. Great little on-the-go machine.

She's not my nurse but she comes up to Gran and Gramps just the same. "Don't you doubt for a second that she can hear you," she tells them. "She's aware if everything that's going on." She stands there with her hands on her hip. I can almost picture her snapping gum. Gran and Gramps stare at her, lapping up what she's telling them. "You might think the doctors or nurses or all this equipment is running the show," she says, gesturing to the wall of medical equipment. "Nuh-uh. She's running the show. Maybe she's just biding her time. So you talk to her. You tell her to take all the time she needs, but to come on back. You're waiting for her.

Since then he had taken these photos out too many times to count, but each time he looked into the face of this woman he had felt something growing inside him. It took him a long time to realize what it was. Only recently had his wounded synapses allowed him to name it. He had been falling in love all over again. He didn't understand how two people who were married, who saw each other every day, could forget what each other looked like, but if he had had to name what had happened- this was it. And the last two photos in the roll provided the key. He had come home from work- I remember trying to keep my mother's attention as Holiday barked when he had heard the car pull into the garage. 'He'll come out,' I said. 'Stay still.' And she did. Part of what I loved about photography was the power it gave me over the people on the other side of the camera, even my own parents. Out of the corner of my eye I saw my father walk through the side door into the yard. He carried his slim briefcase, which, years before, Lindsey and I had heatedly investigated only to find very little of interest to us. As he set it down I snapped the last solitary photo of my mother. Already her eyes had begun to seem distracted and anxious, diving under and up into a mask somehow. In the next photo, the mast was almost, but not quite, in place and in the final photo, where my father was leaning slightly down to give her a kiss on the cheek- there it was. 'Did I do that to you?' he asked her image as he stared at the pictures of my mother, lined up in a row. 'How did that happen?' ~pgs 239-240; Mr. Salmon dealing with the three c's (for families of addicts)- Cause (you didn't cause it), Control (you can't control it), and Cure (you can't cure it)

We have to emphasize to the gay community that opposition to same-sex marriages is not about hate, but about debate. Opposition to what some of us see as a devastating move that will further weaken the family and harm children--such opposition is not hateful. Morality is not bigotry. In their book The Homosexual Agenda, authors Alan Sears and Craig Osten give this illustration, which I've summarized: Imagine that you are standing at the bottom of a cliff and you are watching as someone on the ledge above you is walking backwards, and in a few steps he will surely fall over the precipice. You shout, warning him to stop, and before you know it, a crowd gathers around you, snapping your picture and accusing you of "hate speech." You are being warned to keep your prejudices to yourself. After all, who are you to tell someone where they can and can't walk? Who are you to say that someone can't walk backwards? You are dumbfounded, but there you are, the object of everyone's wrath.

Your brother?" St. Clair points above my bed to the only picture I've hung up. Seany is grinning at the camera and pointing at one of my mother's research turtles,which is lifting its neck and threatening to take away his finger. Mom is doing a study on the lifetime reproductive habits of snapping turtles and visits her brood in the Chattahoochie River several times a month. My brother loves to go with her, while I prefer the safety of our home. Snapping turtles are mean. "Yep.That's Sean." "That's a little Irish for a family with tartan bedspreads." I smile. "It's kind of a sore spot. My mom loved the name,but Granddad-my father's father-practically died when he heard it.He was rooting for Malcolm or Ewan or Dougal instead." St. Clair laughs. "How old is he?" "Seven.He's in the second grade." "That's a big age difference." "Well,he was either an accident or a last-ditch effort to save a failing marriage.I've never had the nerve to ask which.

I hope that for my kids, too, success will be its own reward. That they'll do their best because they want to win for themselves and for their team, without even calculating my reaction, much less having it be the driving force. I don't think they'll care that I'm not always ...snapping pictures of everything they do, to be pasted up in the commemorative album of their lives.

I want to tell you a story. I'm going to ask you all to close your eyes while I tell you the story. I want you to listen to me. I want you to listen to yourselves. Go ahead. Close your eyes, please. This is a story about a little girl walking home from the grocery store one sunny afternoon. I want you to picture this little girl. Suddenly a truck races up. Two men jump out and grab her. They drag her into a nearby field and they tie her up and they rip her clothes from her body. Now they climb on. First one, then the other, raping her, shattering everything innocent and pure with a vicious thrust in a fog of drunken breath and sweat. And when they're done, after they've killed her tiny womb, murdered any chance for her to have children, to have life beyond her own, they decide to use her for target practice. They start throwing full beer cans at her. They throw them so hard that it tears the flesh all the way to her bones. Then they urinate on her. Now comes the hanging. They have a rope. They tie a noose. Imagine the noose going tight around her neck and with a sudden blinding jerk she's pulled into the air and her feet and legs go kicking. They don't find the ground. The hanging branch isn't strong enough. It snaps and she falls back to the earth. So they pick her up, throw her in the back of the truck and drive out to Foggy Creek Bridge. Pitch her over the edge. And she drops some thirty feet down to the creek bottom below. Can you see her? Her raped, beaten, broken body soaked in their urine, soaked in their semen, soaked in her blood, left to die. Can you see her? I want you to picture that little girl. Now imagine she's white.

The photo used on the news had been taken by a tourist passing through Sopchoppy—that was the actual name of the town near which their church compound stood—who, alerted by a local, had snapped a picture of “those angel-cult freaks” when they came in for supplies.

We walked through a high hallway into a bright rosy-colored space, fragilely bound into the house by French windows at either end. The windows were ajar and gleaming white against the fresh grass outside that seemed to grow a little way into the house. A breeze blew through the room, blew curtains in at one end and out the other like pale flags, twisting them up toward the frosted wedding-cake of the ceiling, and then rippled over the wine-colored rug, making a shadow on it as wind does on the sea. The only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon. They were both in white, and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house. I must have stood for a few moments listening to the whip and snap of the curtains and the groan of a picture on the wall. ...

I don’t know what to . . . to think.” There was a horrifying burn of tears crawling up my throat. “This is all overwhelming for you, I imagine. The whole world as you know it is on the brink of great change, and you’re here and don’t even know my name.” The man smiled so broadly, I wondered if it hurt. “You can call me Rolland.” Then he extended a hand. My gaze dropped to it and I made no attempt to take it. Rolland chuckled as he turned and strolled back to the desk. “So, you’re a hybrid? Mutated and linked to him on such an intense level that if one of you dies, so does the other?” His question caught me off guard, but I kept quiet. He sat on the edge of the desk. “You’re actually the first hybrid I’ve seen.” “She really isn’t anything special.” The redhead sneered. “Frankly, she’s rather filthy, like an unclean animal.” As stupid as it was, my cheeks heated, because I was filthy, and Daemon had just physically removed me from him. My pride—my everything—was officially wounded. Rolland chuckled. “She’s had a rough day, Sadi.” At her name, every muscle in my body locked up, and my gaze swung back to her. That was Sadi? The one Dee said was trying to molest Daemon—my Daemon? Anger punched through the confusion and hurt. Of course it would have to be a freaking walking and talking model and not a hag. “Rough day or not, I can’t imagine she cleans up well.” Sadi looked at Daemon as she placed a hand on his chest. “I’m kind of disappointed.” “Are you?” Daemon replied.
 Every hair on my body rose as my arms unfolded.
 “Yes,” she purred. “I really think you can do better. Lots better.” As she spoke, she trailed red-painted fingers down the center of his chest, over his abdomen, heading straight for the button on his jeans. And oh, hell to the no. “Get your hands off him.”
 Sadi’s head snapped in my direction. “Excuse me?”
 “I don’t think I stuttered.” I took a step forward. “But it looks like you need me to repeat it. Get your freaking hands off him.” One side of her plump red lips curled up. “You want to make me?”
 In the back of my head, I was aware that Sadi didn’t move or speak like the other Luxen. Her mannerisms were too human, but then that thought was quickly chased away when Daemon reached down and pulled her hand away. “Stop it,” he murmured, voice dropped low in that teasing way of his. I saw red. The pictures on the wall rattled and the papers on the desk started to lift up. Static charged over my skin. I was about to pull a Beth right here, seconds away from floating to the ceiling and ripping out every strand of red— “And you stop it,” Daemon said, but the teasing quality was gone from his words. There was a warning in them that took the wind right out of my pissed-off sails. The pictures settled as I gaped at him. Being slapped in the face would’ve been better.

Angel, I have no idea how you can stand this stench,” he said. “Derrel’s been doing this for long enough that I think he doesn’t have any smell receptors left, but you . . . ?” He grimaced as he snapped pictures of the skull and the injury while I held the body in position for him. “You are one tough chick.” Then his eyes crinkled, and even though he had the mask on, I could tell he was grinning at me. “Or maybe you’re seriously sick and twisted, in which case you are so in the right line of work.” I laughed. “Gotta be the second one,” I said. “I’m not tough!

When she made her way to the big picture window that framed the dining room table she froze. She stopped breathing. The anger was growing again. It grew up into her throat, where she could taste it, coppery like blood, in the back of her mouth. It grew down into her stomach, where it knotted her intestines. It made her arms stiffen and her shoulders lock. It pushed against her ribs until she felt they would snap like sticks.

To my amazement, he turns the camera toward his face and snaps a picture. “What are you doing?” “There,” he says, handing the phone back. “Feel free to text that sexy face to your entire contact list and inform them I’m driving you home. That way if you show up dead tomorrow, everyone will know who did it.

He had a face made for magazine covers. Could someone say GQ model? That razor sharp jaw and those angular features caught the light just right. If she’d had a camera she wouldn’t mind snapping a few pictures. And those lips…she stopped. She didn’t know him, and something told her she shouldn’t get to know him.

hope the camera gods bless you with a steady hand great lighting, the perfect angle, and enough storage space to save the results. May you snap the picture at the right time, eyes open and smiling with your entire face. Months from now, I hope you stumble across the picture and you are ambushed by your own radiance.

Lauren's eyes widened.An entire page had been devoted to the Children's Hospital Benefit Ball.In the center was a color picture of her-with Nick. They were dancing, and he was grinning down at her. Lauren's face was in profile, tilted up to his. The caption read, "Detroit industrialist J. Nicholas Sinclair and companion." "It does look like me, doesn't it?" she hedged, glancing at the excited, avidly curious faces surrounding her desk. "Isn't that an amazing coincidence?" She didn't want her relationship with Nick to be public knowledge until the time was right, and she certainly didn't want her co-workers to treat her any differently. "You mean it isn't you?" one of the women said disappointedly. None of them noticed the sudden lull, the silence sweeping over the office as people stopped talking and typewriters went perfectly still... "Good morning, ladies," Nick's deep voice said behind Lauren. Six stunned women snapped to attention, staring in fascinated awe as Nick leaned over Lauren from behind and braced his hands on her desk. "Hi," he said, his lips so near her ear that Lauren was afraid to turn her head for fear he would kiss her in front of everyone. He glanced at the newspaper spread out on her desk. "You look beautiful, but who's that ugly guy you're dancing with?" Without waiting for an answer, he straightened, affectionately rumpled the hair on the top of her head and strolled into Jim's office, closing the door behind him. Lauren felt like sinking throught the floor in embarrassment. Susan Brook raised her brows. "What an amazing coincidence," she teased.

She shook her head. - “I believe in the race,” she cried. - “It represents the survival of the pushing.” - “It has development.” - “Decay fascinates me more.” - “What of art?” she asked. - “It is a malady.” - “Love?” - “An illusion.” - “Religion?” - “The fashionable substitute for belief.” - “You are a sceptic.” - “Never! Scepticism is the beginning of faith.” - “What are you?” - “To define is to limit.” - “Give me a clue.” - “Threads snap. You would lose your way in the labyrinth.” - “You bewilder me.

Picture it. Nineteenth-century man with his horses, dogs, carts, slow motion. Then, in the twentieth century, speed up your camera. Books cut shorter. Condensations. Digests, Tabloids. Everything boils down to the gag, the snap ending.” “Snap ending.” Mildred nodded. “Classics cut to fit fifteen-minute radio shows, then cut again to fill a two-minute book column, winding up at last as a ten- or twelve-line dictionary resume. I exaggerate, of course. The dictionaries were for reference. But many were those whose sole knowledge of Hamlet (you know the title certainly, Montag; it is probably only a faint rumor of a title to you, Mrs. Montag), whose sole knowledge, as I say, of Hamlet was a one-page digest in a book that claimed: now at last you can read all the classics; keep up with your neighbors. Do you see? Out of the nursery into the college and back to the nursery; there’s your intellectual pattern for the past five centuries or more.” Mildred arose and began to move around the room, picking things up and putting them down. Beatty ignored her and continued: “Speed up the film, Montag, quick. Click, Pic, Look, Eye, Now, Flick, Here, There, Swift, Pace, Up, Down, In, Out, Why, How, Who, What, Where, Eh? Uh! Bang! Smack! Wallop, Bing, Bong, Boom! Digest-digests, digest-digest-digests. Politics? One column, two sentences, a headline! Then, in mid-air, all vanishes! Whirl man’s mind around about so fast under the pumping hands of publishers, exploiters, broadcasters that the centrifuge flings off all unnecessary, time-wasting thought!” Mildred smoothed the bedclothes. Montag felt his heart jump and jump again as she patted his pillow. Right now she was pulling at his shoulder to try to get him to move so she could take the pillow out and fix it nicely and put it back. And perhaps cry out and stare or simply reach down her hand and say, “What’s this?” and hold up the hidden book with touching innocence. “School is shortened, discipline relaxed, philosophies, histories, languages dropped, English and spelling gradually gradually neglected, finally almost completely ignored. Life is immediate, the job counts, pleasure lies all about after work. Why learn anything save pressing buttons, pulling switches, fitting nuts and bolts?

And because they had mass, they became simpler,” said Beatty. “Once, books appealed to a few people, here, there, everywhere. They could afford to be different. The world was roomy. But then the world got full of eyes and elbows and mouths. Double, triple, quadruple population. Films and radios, magazines, books leveled down to a sort of paste pudding norm, do you follow me?” “I think so.” Beatty peered at the smoke pattern he had put out on the air. “Picture it. Nineteenth-century man with his horses, dogs, carts, slow motion. Then, in the twentieth century, speed up your camera. Books cut shorter. Condensations. Digests, Tabloids. Everything boils down to the gag, the snap ending.” “Snap ending.” Mildred nodded. “Classics cut to fit fifteen-minute radio shows, then cut again to fill a two-minute book column, winding up at last as a ten- or twelve-line dictionary resume.

You were playing in the road?” “Road, sidewalk, does it really matter? What’s more important is, if I can’t play inside, and I can’t play outside, where is a girl supposed to play?” Upstairs, eleventh floor, condo unit 1101. His bedroom had plenty of room. Of course the sport he pictured didn’t involve any props. Nor did it include any clothes. But telling her she could play with him naked probably wasn’t the answer she looked for.

I will arrange for you to be snapped by paparazzi eating a bowl of wonton noodles at a dai pai dong.* This will do wonders for your image, and I can already picture the headline: “Social Goddess Unafraid to Dine with the Masses.

Who are they for? Friends. Not necessarily neighbor friends: indeed, the larger share is intended for persons we've met maybe once, perhaps not at all. People who've struck our fancy. Like President Roosevelt. Like the Reverend and Mrs. J. C. Lucey, Baptist missionaries to Borneo who lectured here last winter. Or the little knife grinder who comes through town twice a year. Or Abner Packer, the driver of the six o'clock bus from Mobile, who exchanges waves with us every day as he passes in a dust-cloud whoosh. Or the young Wistons, a California couple whose car one afternoon broke down outside the house and who spent a pleasant hour chatting with us on the porch (young Mr. Wiston snapped our picture, the only one we've ever had taken). Is it because my friend is shy with everyone except strangers that these strangers, and merest acquaintances, seem to us our truest friends? I think yes. Also, the scrapbooks we keep of thank-you's on White House stationery, time-to-time communications from California and Borneo, the knife grinder's penny post cards, make us feel connected to eventful worlds beyond the kitchen with its view of a sky that stops.

It was becoming more and more evident that Salem was a town that celebrated individuality, a real live-and-let-live kind of place. Melody felt a gut punch of regret. Her old nose would have fit in here. "Look!" She pointed at the multicolored car whizzing by. Its black door were from a Mercedes coupe, the white hood from a BMW; the silver trunk was Jaguar, the red convertible top was Lexus, the whitewall tires were Bentley, the sound system was Bose, and the music was classical. A hood ornament from each model dangled from the rear view mirror. Its license plate appropriately read MUTT. "That car looks like a moving Benton ad." "Or a pileup on Rodeo drive." Candace snapped a picture with her iPhone and e-mailed to her friends back home. They responded instantly with a shot of what they were doing. It must have involved the mall because Candace picked up her pace and began asking anyone under the age of fifty where the cool people hung out.

Okay, i admit it," Connor looked away, "I'm a little disappointed." "Excuse me?" snapped Kevin, sure he hadn't heard right. "Well, now that I'm thoroughly and diligently queer, I expected more manly love-talk, you know? Not like Pretty Baby and feeding you graped and stuff," he snorted. "Uh, you mean like, hey you bastard I don't have a beer and nobody's sucking my dick, what's wrong with this picture?" "Oh," Connor climbed Kevin a little, his cock becoming interested again. "That's the spirit." "Like, I've got handcuffs and I'm not afraid to yo use them, that kind of talk?" "Oh, officer, show me your nightstick." "I'm not even a cop anymore." "No but oddly enough, I am." Connor grinned, holding Kevin's hands above his head. "And you there, are looking a little guilty." "Oh man," Kevin bit his lip. "I just can't help myself, Officer Dougal. I've been such a bad, bad boy." "Oh, well then, son, I guess you'll just have to spead 'em." He slid down beneath the covers, "This will require some in depth observation, I think." Kevin's cock was getting hard again as Connor's tongue lapped all the way down on it then back up again, teasing the little slit in the top. "Yep, just as I thought, blunt instrument. I'm afraid you'll have to come with me...

Well, they’re okay!” said Ron angrily, looking at Harry’s robes. “Why couldn’t I have some like that?” “Because … well, I had to get yours secondhand, and there wasn’t a lot of choice!” said Mrs. Weasley, flushing. Harry looked away. He would willingly have split all the money in his Gringotts vault with the Weasleys, but he knew they would never take it. “I’m never wearing them,” Ron was saying stubbornly. “Never.” “Fine,” snapped Mrs. Weasley. “Go naked. And, Harry, make sure you get a picture of him. Goodness knows I could do with a laugh.

Up past the old lime kiln built into the side of a hill we take a hard right at a clearing lined by brittle apple trees still willing to bear fruit. I snap sticks beneath my feet and steal pictures of the view while you reach for something sweet, as much as it bows to you.

Menopause had finally terminated her fantastically involved and complex relationship with her womb: a legendary saga of irregular bleeding, eleven-month pregnancies straight out of the Royal Society proceedings, terrifying primal omens, miscarriages, heartbreaking epochs of barrenness punctuated by phases of such explosive fertility that Uncle Thomas had been afraid to come near her—disturbing asymmetries, prolapses, relapses, and just plain lapses, hellish cramping fits, mysterious interactions with the Moon and other cœlestial phenomena, shocking imbalances of all four of the humours known to Medicine plus a few known only to Mayflower, seismic rumblings audible from adjoining rooms—cancers reabsorbed—(incredibly) three successful pregnancies culminating in four-day labors that snapped stout bedframes like kindling, vibrated pictures off walls, and sent queues of vicars, mid-wives, physicians, and family members down into their own beds, ruined with exhaustion.

They had found out. Before I could panic, I made myself stretch my fingers wide and take a calming breath. You already knew this was bound to happen. At least that’s what I told myself. The more I thought about it, the more I should have been appreciative that the people at the chapel in Las Vegas hadn’t recognized him. Or that people on the street had been oblivious and hadn’t seen us going in and out of there. Or that the receptionist at the acupuncturist hadn’t snapped a picture on her phone and posted it online. Because I might not understand all people, much less most of them, but I understood nosey folks. And nosey folks would do something like that without a second thought. Yet, I reminded myself that there was nothing to be embarrassed about. It would be fine. So, one gossip site posted about us getting married. Whoop-de-do. There was probably a thousand sites just like it. I briefly thought about Diana hearing about it, but I’d deal with that later. There was no use in getting scared now. She was the only one whose reaction I cared about. My mom and sisters’ opinions and feelings weren’t exactly registering at the top of my list now… or ever. I made myself shove them to the back of my thoughts. I was tired of being mad and upset; it affected my work. Plus, they’d made me sad and mad enough times in my life. I wasn’t going to let them ruin another day. Picking my phone up again, I quickly texted Aiden back, swallowing my nausea at the same time. Me: Who told you? Not even two minutes passed before my phone dinged with a response. Miranda: Trevor’s blowing up my phone. Eww. Trevor. Me: We knew it was going to happen eventually, right? Good luck with Trev. I’m glad he doesn’t have my number. And I was even gladder there wasn’t a home phone; otherwise, I’m positive he would have been blowing it up too. I managed to get back to looking at images on the screen for a few more minutes—a bit more distracted than usual—when the phone beeped again. It was Aiden/Miranda. I should really change his contact name. Miranda: Good luck? I’m not answering his calls. What? Me: That psycho will come visit if you don’t. Was that me being selfish? Yes. Did I care? No. Aiden: I know. Uh. Me: You’re always at practice… Aiden: Have fun. This asshole! I almost laughed, but before I could, he sent me another message. Aiden: I’ll get back to him in a couple days. Don’t worry. Snorting, I texted back. Me: I’m not worried. If he drops by, I’ll set him up in your room. Aiden: You genuinely scare me. Me: You don’t know how many times you barely made it through the day alive, for the record. He didn’t text me back after that

I took it with me everywhere, snapping thousands of pictures. I didn’t know why, but capturing moments fascinated me. Maybe it was because sometimes all we get are moments. There are no do-overs; whatever happens in a moment defines life—perhaps it is life. But capturing a moment on film keeps that moment alive, forever. To me, photography was magic.

When the creation was new and all the stars shone in their first splendour, the gods held their assembly in the sky and sang `Oh, the picture of perfection! the joy unalloyed!' But one cried of a sudden---`It seems that somewhere there is a break in the chain of light and one of the stars has been lost.' The golden string of their harp snapped, their song stopped, and they cried in dismay---`Yes, that lost star was the best, she was the glory of all heavens!' From that day the search is unceasing for her, and the cry goes on from one to the other that in her the world has lost its one joy! Only in the deepest silence of night the stars smile and whisper among themselves---`Vain is this seeking! unbroken perfection is over all!

I learned that my new lover was hard, but always good. She did not tease. If you pursued her, she would reveal her sweetest secrets and uncover her hidden places. Yes, she would grant those who came to her by car a measured beauty. There were wonderful things to be seen from the road. Her lesser suitors would jump out of their autos, snapping pictures, trying to save memories before having them, and hurry on. But what can be seen from a road is more enticing than revealing – like a shapely woman whose fleshly mystery cannot be hidden by modest garments but is made more alluring. From the roadside her eyes would invite and challenge: “Will you pursue me?” I did. And though my pursuit cost me a lot – pain, humiliation, hunger and sleepless nights – she was good.

On our way down, we passed a two-story villa, hidden in a thicket of Chinese parasol trees, magnolia, and pines. It looked almost like a random pile of stones against the background of the rocks. It struck me as an unusually lovely place, and I snapped my last shot. Suddenly a man materialized out of nowhere and asked me in a low but commanding voice to hand over my camera. He wore civilian clothes, but I noticed he had a pistol. He opened the camera and exposed my entire roll of film. Then he disappeared, as if into the earth. Some tourists standing next to me whispered that this was one of Mao's summer villas. I felt another pang of revulsion toward Mao, not so much for his privilege, but for the hypocrisy of allowing himself luxury while telling his people that even comfort was bad for them. After we were safely out of earshot of the invisible guard, and I was bemoaning the loss of my thirty-six pictures, Jin-ming gave me a grin: "See where goggling at holy places gets you!" We left Lushan by bus. Like every bus in China, it was packed, and we had to crane our necks desperately trying to breathe. Virtually no new buses had been built since the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, during which time the urban population had increased by several tens of millions. After a few minutes, we suddenly stopped. The front door was forced open, and an authoritative-looking man in plainclothes squeezed in. "Get down! Get down!" he barked. "Some American guests are coming this way. It is harmful to the prestige of our motherland for them to see all these messy heads!" We tried to crouch down, but the bus was too crowded. The man shouted, "It is the duty of everyone to safeguard the honor of our motherland! We must present an orderly and dignified appearance! Get down! Bend your knees!" Suddenly I heard Jin-ming's booming voice: "Doesn'T Chairman Mao instruct us never to bend our knees to American imperialists?" This was asking for trouble. Humor was not appreciated. The man shot a stern glance in our direction, but said nothing. He gave the bus another quick scan, and hurried off. He did not want the "American guests' to witness a scene. Any sign of discord had to be hidden from foreigners. Wherever we went as we traveled down the Yangtze we saw the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution: temples smashed, statues toppled, and old towns wrecked. Litfie evidence remained of China's ancient civilization. But the loss went even deeper than this. Not only had China destroyed most of its beautiful things, it had lost its appreciation of them, and was unable to make new ones. Except for the much-scarred but still stunning landscape, China had become an ugly country.

Everything old people say about time is true. For starters, it flies. As a kid living through semi-eternal summer vacations, this is hard to believe. But as an adult? Get married. Have children. And then sit back, stunned, watching an absolute roar of gorgeous moments and hilarious moments and exhausting moments disappear—quickly and in tragedy or marching off at the traditional pace, but disappear they must. Snap a photo or two. Read verses about futility. Watching one’s small humans age and grow up packs a serious punch. It’s like being stuck in a dream unable to speak, like being a ghost that can see but not touch, like standing on a huge grate while a storm rains oiled diamonds, like collecting feathers in a storm. Parents in love with their kids are all amnesiacs, trying to remember, trying to cherish moments, ghosts trying to hold the world. Being mortals, having a finite mind when surrounded by joy that is perpetually rolling back into the rear view is like always having something important on the tips of our tongues, something on the tips of our fingers, always slipping away, always ducking our embrace. No matter how many pictures we take, no matter how many scrapbooks we make, no matter how many moments we invade with a rolling camera, we will die. We will vanish. We cannot grab and hold.

Cletus Byron Winston, you are being rude.” I might have my own less than glowing thoughts about my father, but he was my father. He opened his mouth to respond, then snapped it shut and did a double take, his eyes narrowing on me. “First of all, how do you know my middle name?” “Your momma used to use it when you were naughty, when you boys would help her shelve books in the library. ‘Cletus Byron! Stop stuffing Astrophysics Monthly down your pants!’” Cletus grinned. Then he chuckled. His eyes lost some of their zealous focus as he pushed away from the tree and strolled closer. “Oh yeah. She did, didn’t she?” “I felt sorry for Billy, though.” I scooched to one side as he sat down. “His name always confused everyone, like your momma was trying to talk to Shakespeare’s ghost. ‘William Shakespeare, would you please stop Beauford from pulling down his pants in front of the girls?’” Cletus laughed harder, leaning backward and holding his stomach. “I remember that. How old was Beau?” “He was ten. He was trying to show us his new Tarzan underwear. I don’t think he meant any harm.” “He sure did love that underwear.” Cletus nodded and he scratched his beard. “I’m going to have to find him some Tarzanunderwear in adult size.” “So you can torture him about it?” He pretended to be shocked by my accusation. “Certainly not. I don’t torture my siblings.” “Yeah, right.” I gave him my side-eye. “You forget, I’m a people watcher. I know you sell embarrassing pictures of them onstock photo sites. Jethro was griping about it after church over the summer. If it’s not torture, what do you call it then?” He lifted his chin proudly. “I offer invaluable character building opportunities. I help them reach their true potential through suffering.” “Oh, please

Victor Noir. He was a journalist shot by Pierre Bonaparte," St. Clair says, as if that explains anything. He pulls The Hat up off his eyes. "The statue on his grave is supposed to help...fertility." "His wang us rubbed shiny," Josh elaborates. "For luck." "Why are we talking about parts again?" Mer asks. "Can't we ever talk about anything else?" "Really?" I ask. "Shiny wang?" "Very," St. Clair says. "Now that's something I've gotta see." I gulp my coffee dregs, wipe the bread crumbs from my mouth, and hop up. "Where's Victor?" "Allow me." St. Clair springs up to his feet and takes off. I chase after him. He cuts through a stand of bare trees, and I crash through the twigs behind him. We're both laughing when we hit the pathway and run smack into a guard. He frowns at us from underneath his military-style cap. St. Clair gives an angelic smile and a small shrug. The guard shakes his head but allows us to pass. St. Clair gets away with everything. We stroll with exaggerated calm, and he points out an area occupied with people snapping pictures.We hang back and wait our turn. A scrawny black cat darts out from behind an altar strewn with roses and wine bottles,and rushes into the bushes. "Well.That was sufficiently creepy. Happy Halloween." "Did you know this place is home to three thousand cats?" St. Clair asks. "Sure.It's filed away in my brain under 'Felines,Paris.

I think you were here. Not in the vault, but close by. Where you could smell tears when the wind was right. Where you could hear the laughter of the men or boys who pushed over Heath Holmes’s stone and then likely urinated on his grave. In spite of the day’s heat, Holly felt cold. Given more time, she might have investigated those empty places. There was no danger; the outsider was long gone from Ohio. Very likely gone from Flint City, too. She snapped four pictures:

There’s our homecoming picture. Last Halloween, when I dressed up as Mulan and Peter wore a dragon costume. There’s a receipt from Tart and Tangy. One of his notes to me, from before. If you make Josh’s dumb white-chocolate cranberry cookies and not my fruitcake ones, it’s over. Pictures of us from Senior Week. Prom. Dried rose petals from my corsage. The Sixteen Candles picture. There are some things I didn’t include, like the ticket stub from our first real date, the note he wrote me that said, I like you in blue. Those things are tucked away in my hatbox. I’ll never let those go. But the really special thing I’ve included is my letter, the one I wrote to him so long ago, the one that brought us together. I wanted to keep it, but something felt right about Peter having it. One day all of this will be proof, proof that we were here, proof that we loved each other. It’s the guarantee that no matter what happens to us in the future, this time was ours. When he gets to that page, Peter stops. “I thought you wanted to keep this,” he said. “I wanted to, but then I felt like you should have it. Just promise you’ll keep it forever.” He turns the page. It’s a picture from when we took my grandma to karaoke. I sang “You’re So Vain” and dedicated it to Peter. Peter got up and sang “Style” by Taylor Swift. Then he dueted “Unchained Melody” with my grandma, and after, she made us both promise to take a Korean language class at UVA. She and Peter took a ton of selfies together that night. She made one her home screen on her phone. Her friends at her apartment complex said he looked like a movie star. I made the mistake of telling Peter, and he crowed about it for days after. He stays on that page for a while. When he doesn’t say anything, I say, helpfully, “It’s something to remember us by.” He snaps the book shut. “Thanks,” he says, flashing me a quick smile. “This is awesome.

For the person who wants to capture everything that passes before his eyes, [...] the only coherent way to act is to snap at least one picture a minute, from the instant he opens his yes in the morning to when he goes to sleep. This is the only way that he rolls of exposed film will represent a faithful diary of our days, with nothing left out. If I were to start taking pictures, I'd see this thing through, even if it meant losing my mind. But the rest of you still insist on making a choice. What sort of choice? A choice in the idyllic sense, apologetic, consolatory, at peace with nature, the fatherland, the family. Your choice isn't only photographic; it is a choice of life, which leads you to exclude dramatic conflicts, the knots of contradiction, the great tensions of will, passion, aversion. So you think you are saving yourselves from madness, but you are falling into mediocrity, into hebetude." - from "The Adventure of a Photographer

Where is everybody?” “Hiding,” she said. “Except for Doolittle. He was excused from the chewing-out due to having been kidnapped. He’s napping now like he doesn’t have a care in the world. I got to hear all sorts of interesting stuff through the door.” “Give.” She shot me a sly smile. “First, I got to listen to Jim’s ‘it’s all my fault; I did it all by myself’ speech. Then I got to listen to Derek’s ‘it’s all my fault and I did it all by myself’ speech. Then Curran promised that the next person who wanted to be a martyr would get to be one. Then Raphael made a very growling speech about how he was here for a blood debt. It was his right to have restitution for the injury caused to the friend of the boudas; it was in the damn clan charter on such and such page. And if Curran wanted to have an issue with it, they could take it outside. It was terribly dramatic and ridiculous. I loved it.” I could actually picture Curran sitting there, his hand on his forehead above his closed eyes, growling quietly in his throat. “Then Dali told him that she was sick and tired of being treated like she was made out of glass and she wanted blood and to kick ass.” That would do him in. “So what did he say?” “He didn’t say anything for about a minute and then he chewed them out. He told Derek that he’d been irresponsible with Livie’s life, and that if he was going to rescue somebody, the least he could do is to have a workable plan, instead of a poorly thought-out mess that backfired and broke just about every Pack law and got his face smashed in. He told Dali that if she wanted to be taken seriously, she had to accept responsibility for her own actions instead of pretending to be weak and helpless every time she got in trouble and that this was definitely not the venue to prove one’s toughness. Apparently he didn’t think her behavior was cute when she was fifteen and he’s not inclined to tolerate it now that she’s twenty-eight.” I was cracking up. “He told Raphael that the blood debt overrode Pack law only in cases of murder or life-threatening injury and quoted the page of the clan charter and the section number where that could be found. He said that frivolous challenges to the alpha also violated Pack law and were punishable by isolation. It was an awesome smackdown. They had no asses left when he was done.” Andrea began snapping the gun parts together. “Then he sentenced the three of them and himself to eight weeks of hard labor, building the north wing addition to the Keep, and dismissed them. They ran out of there like their hair was on fire.” “He sentenced himself?” “He’s broken Pack law by participating in our silliness, apparently.” That’s Beast Lord for you. “And Jim?” “Oh, he got a special chewing-out after everybody else was dismissed. It was a very quiet and angry conversation, and I didn’t hear most of it. I heard the end, though—he got three months of Keep building. Also, when he opened the door to leave, Curran told him very casually that if Jim wanted to pick fights with his future mate, he was welcome to do so, but he should keep in mind that Curran wouldn’t come and rescue him when you beat his ass. You should’ve seen Jim’s face.” “His what?” “His mate. M-A-T-E.” I cursed. Andrea grinned. “I thought that would make your day. And now you’re stuck with him in here for three days and you get to fight together in the Arena. It’s so romantic. Like a honeymoon.” Once again my mental conditioning came in handy. I didn’t strangle her on the spot.

Is it true it takes thirteen months for a female to carry and give birth?” “Minimum.” He said it with such casual dismissal that Bella laughed. “That’s easy for you to say. You don’t have to lug the kid around inside of you all that time. You, just like your human counterparts, have the fun part over with like that.” She snapped her fingers in front of his face. His dark eyes narrowed and he reached to enclose her hand in his, pulling her wrist up to the slow, purposeful brush of his lips even as he maintained a sensual eye contact that was far too full of promises. Isabella caught her breath as an insidious sensation of heated pins and needles stitched its way up her arm. “I promise you, Bella, a male Demon’s part in a mating is never over like this.” He mimicked her snap, making her jump in time to her kick-starting heartbeat. “Well”—she cleared her throat—“I guess I’ll have to take your word on that.” Jacob did not respond in agreement, and that unnerved her even further. Instinctively, she changed tack. “So, what brings you down into the dusty atmosphere of the great Demon library?” she asked, knowing she sounded like a brightly animated cartoon. “You.” Oh, how that singular word was pregnant with meaning, intent, and devastatingly blatant honesty. Isabella was forced to remind herself of the whole Demon-human mating taboo as the forbidden response of heat continued to writhe around beneath her skin, growing exponentially in intensity every moment he hovered close. She tried to picture all kinds of scary things that could happen if she did not quit egging him on like she was. How she was, she didn’t know, but she was always certain she was egging him on. “Why did you want to see me?” she asked, breaking away from him and bending to retrieve the book she had dropped. It was huge and heavy and she grunted softly under the weight of it. It landed with a slam and another puff of dust on the table she had made into her own private study station. “Because I cannot seem to help myself, lovely little Bella.

To my complete and utter surprise, the writing on his door is gone. Vanished. “What happened?” I ask. It takes him a second before he realizes what I’m asking. “I washed it off,” he explains. “You what?” “I wasn’t going to, but I didn’t want the super to give me a hard time. Plus, I thought it might freak out some of my neighbors. You have to admit, death threats on doors can be pretty offensive, generally speaking. Not to mention the sheer fact that it made me look like a total asshole—like some old girlfriend was trying to get even.” “Did you take pictures at least?” “Actually, no.” He cringes. “That probably would’ve been a good idea.” “But Tray saw the writing, right?” “Um . . .” He nibbles his lip, clearly reading my angst. “You told me he was with you last night. You said you called him.” “I tried, but he didn’t pick up, and I didn’t want you to worry.” “So, you lied?” I snap. “I didn’t want you to worry,” he repeats. “Please, don’t be upset.” “How can I not be? We’re talking about your life here. You can’t go erasing evidence off your door. And you can’t be lying to me, either. How am I supposed to help you if you don’t tell me the truth?” “Why are you helping me?” he asks, taking a step closer. “I mean, I’m grateful and all, and you know I love spending time with you, be it death-threat missions or pizza and a movie. It’s just . . . what do you get out of it? What’s this sudden interest in my life?” My mouth drops open, but I manage a shrug, almost forgetting the fact that he knows nothing about my premonitions.

Let’s just run through this again, shall we?” said the Demon King. He leaned back in his throne. “You happened to find the Tezumen one day and decided, I think I recall your words correctly, that they were ‘a bunch of Stone-Age no-hopers sitting around in a swamp being no trouble to anyone,’ am I right? Whereupon you entered the mind of one of their high priests—I believe at that time they worshipped a small stick—drove him insane and inspired the tribes to unite, terrorize their neighbors and bring forth upon the continent a new nation dedicated to the proposition that all men should be taken to the top of ceremonial pyramids and be chopped up with stone knives.” The King pulled his notes toward him. “Oh yes, some of them were also to be flayed alive,” he added. Quezovercoatl shuffled his feet. “Whereupon,” said the King, “they immediately engaged in a prolonged war with just about everyone else, bringing death and destruction to thousands of moderately blameless people, ekcetra, ekcetra. Now, look, this sort of thing has got to stop.” Quezovercoatl swayed back a bit. “It was only, you know, a hobby,” said the imp. “I thought, you know, it was the right thing, sort of thing. Death and destruction and that.” “You did, did you?” said the King. “Thousands of more-or-less innocent people dying? Straight out of our hands,” he snapped his fingers, “just like that. Straight off to their happy hunting ground or whatever. That’s the trouble with you people. You don’t think of the Big Picture. I mean, look at the Tezumen. Gloomy, unimaginative, obsessive…by now they could have invented a whole bureaucracy and taxation system that could have turned the minds of the continent to slag. Instead of which, they’re just a bunch of second-rate axe-murderers. What a waste.

This is textbook Bad Idea. We're driving with a stranger, no one knows where we are, and we have no way of getting in touch with anyone. This is exactly how people become statistics." "Exactly?" I asked, thinking of all the bizarre twists and turns that had led us to this place. Ben ceded the point with a sideways shrug. "Maybe not exactly. But still..." He let it go, and the cab eventually stopped at the edge of a remote, forested area. Sage got out and paid. "Everybody out!" Ben looked at me, one eyebrow raised. He was leaving the choice to me. I gave his knee a quick squeeze before I opened the door and we piled out of the car. Sage waited for the cab to drive away, then ducked onto a forest path, clearly assuming we'd follow. The path through the thick foliage was stunning in the moonlight, and I automatically released my camera from its bag. "I wish you wouldn't," Sage said without turning around. "You know I'm not one for visitors." "I'll refrain from selling the pictures to Travel and Leisure, then," I said, already snapping away. "Besides, I need something to take my mind off my feet." My shoes were still on the beach, where I'd kicked them off to dance. "Hey, I offered to carry you," Sage offered. "No, thank you." I suppose I should have been able to move swiftly and silently without my shoes, but I only managed to stab myself on something with every other footfall, giving me a sideways, hopping gait. Every few minutes Sage would hold out his arms, offering to carry me again. I grimaced and denied him each time. After what felt like about ten miles, even the photos weren't distracting enough. "How much farther?" I asked. "We're here." There was nothing in front of us but more trees. "Wow," Ben said, and I followed his eyes upward to see that several of the tree trunks were actually stilts supporting a beautifully hidden wood-and-glass cabin, set high among the branches. I was immediately charmed. "You live in a tree house," I said. I aimed my camera the façade, answering Sage's objection before he even said it. "For me, not for Architectural Digest." "Thank you," Sage said.

Instead of storing those countless microfilmed pages alphabetically, or according to subject, or by any of the other indexing methods in common use—all of which he found hopelessly rigid and arbitrary—Bush proposed a system based on the structure of thought itself. "The human mind . . . operates by association," he noted. "With one item in its grasp, it snaps instantly to the next that is suggested by the association of thoughts, in accordance with some intricate web of trails carried by the cells of the brain. . . . The speed of action, the intricacy of trails, the detail of mental pictures [are] awe-inspiring beyond all else in nature." By analogy, he continued, the desk library would allow its user to forge a link between any two items that seemed to have an association (the example he used was an article on the English long bow, which would be linked to a separate article on the Turkish short bow; the actual mechanism of the link would be a symbolic code imprinted on the microfilm next to the two items). "Thereafter," wrote Bush, "when one of these items is in view, the other can be instantly recalled merely by tapping a button. . . . It is exactly as though the physical items had been gathered together from widely separated sources and bound together to form a new book. It is more than this, for any item can be joined into numerous trails." Such a device needed a name, added Bush, and the analogy to human memory suggested one: "Memex." This name also appeared for the first time in the 1939 draft. In any case, Bush continued, once a Memex user had created an associative trail, he or she could copy it and exchange it with others. This meant that the construction of trails would quickly become a community endeavor, which would over time produce a vast, ever-expanding, and ever more richly cross-linked web of all human knowledge. Bush never explained where this notion of associative trails had come from (if he even knew; sometimes things just pop into our heads). But there is no doubt that it ranks as the Yankee Inventor's most profoundly original idea. Today we know it as hypertext. And that vast, hyperlinked web of knowledge is called the World Wide Web.

Okay.First things first. Three things you don't want me to know about you." "What?" I gaped at him. "You're the one who says we don't know each other.So let's cut to the chase." Oh,but this was too easy: 1. I am wearing my oldest, ugliest underwear. 2.I think your girlfriend is evil and should be destroyed. 3.I am a lying, larcenous creature who talks to dead people and thinks she should be your girlfriend once the aforementioned one is out of the picture. I figured that was just about everything. "I don't think so-" "Doesn't have to be embarrassing or major," Alex interrupted me, "but it has to be something that costs a little to share." When I opened my mouth to object again, he pointed a long finger at the center of my chest. "You opened the box,Pandora.So sit." There was a funny-shaped velour chair near my knees. I sat. The chair promptly molded itself to my butt. I assumed that meant it was expensive, and not dangerous. Alex flopped onto the bed,settling on his side with his elbow bent and his head propped on his hand. "Can't you go first?" I asked. "You opened the box..." "Okay,okay. I'm thinking." He gave me about thirty seconds. Then, "Time." I took a breath. "I'm on full scholarship to Willing." One thing Truth or Dare has taught me is that you can't be too proud and still expect to get anything valuable out of the process. "Next." "I'm terrified of a lot things, including lightning, driving a stick shift, and swimming in the ocean." His expression didn't change at all. He just took in my answers. "Last one." "I am not telling you about my underwear," I muttered. He laughed. "I am sorry to hear that. Not even the color?" I wanted to scowl. I couldn't. "No.But I will tell you that I like anchovies on my pizza." "That's supposed to be consolation for withholding lingeries info?" "Not my concern.But you tell me-is it something you would broadcast around the lunchroom?" "Probably not," he agreed. "Didn't think so." I settled back more deeply into my chair. It didn't escape my notice that, yet again, I was feeling very relaxed around this boy. Yet again, it didn't make me especially happy. "Your turn." I thought about my promise to Frankie. I quietly hoped Alex would tell me something to make me like him even a little less. He was ready. "I cried so much during my first time at camp that my parents had to come get me four days early." I never went to camp. It always seemed a little bit idyllic to me. "How old were you?" "Six.Why?" "Why?" I imagined a very small Alex in a Spider-Man shirt, cuddling the threadbare bunny now sitting on the shelf over his computer. I sighed. "Oh,no reason. Next." "I hated Titanic, The Notebook, and Twilight." "What did you think of Ten Things I Hate About You?" "Hey," he snapped. "I didn't ask questions during your turn." "No,you didn't," I agreed pleasantly. "Anser,please." "Fine.I liked Ten Things. Satisfied?" No,actually. "Alex," I said sadly, "either you are mind-bogglingly clueless about what I wouldn't want to know, or your next revelation is going to be that you have an unpleasant reaction to kryptonite." He was looking at me like I'd spoken Swahili. "What are you talking about?" Just call me Lois. I shook my head. "Never mind. Carry on." "I have been known to dance in front of the mirror-" he cringed a little- "to 'Thriller.'" And there it was. Alex now knew that I was a penniless coward with a penchant for stinky fish.I knew he was officially adorable. He pushed himself up off his elbow and swung his legs around until he was sitting on the edge of the bed. "And on that humiliating note, I will now make you translate bathroom words into French." He picked up a sheaf of papers from the floor. "I have these worksheets. They're great for the irregular verbs...

On the Dangers of Confusing Saga with History The Four Loves (From Chapter II, “Likings and Loves for the Sub-human”) THE ACTUAL HISTORY OF EVERY COUNTRY IS FULL OF shabby and even shameful doings. The heroic stories, if taken to be typical, give a false impression of it and are often themselves open to serious historical criticism. Hence a patriotism based on our glorious past is fair game for the debunker. As knowledge increases it may snap and be converted into disillusioned cynicism, or may be maintained by a voluntary shutting of the eyes. But who can condemn what clearly makes many people, at many important moments, behave so much better than they could have done without its help? I think it is possible to be strengthened by the image of the past without being either deceived or puffed up. The image becomes dangerous in the precise degree to which it is mistaken, or substituted, for serious and systematic historical study. The stories are best when they are handed on and accepted as stories. I do not mean by this that they should be handed on as mere fictions (some of them are after all true). But the emphasis should be on the tale as such, on the picture which fires the imagination, the example that strengthens the will. The schoolboy who hears them should dimly feel—though of course he cannot put it into words—that he is hearing saga. Let him be thrilled—preferably ‘out of school’—by the ‘Deeds that won the Empire’; but the less we mix this up with his ‘history lessons’ or mistake it for a serious analysis—worse still,

Ew,” said Bean. “But interesting.” “Yeah, and then she turns into a ghost with all these other girls. They’re called the Wilis.” The picture showed a troop of beautiful women dressed in white. They had very long fingernails. “And then,” Ivy read on, “the duke goes to see Giselle’s grave, and she comes out with the Wilis, and they decide to dance him to death.” Ivy stared at the picture. “To death.” Bean leaned over for a closer look. It was pretty amazing. Giselle’s pointed toe had snapped the duke’s head up so that his chin pointed straight up to the sky. It would fall off in a moment. The Wilis stood in a circle, waving their long fingernails admiringly. Bean lifted the page, wishing that she could see more of the picture, but there was no more. There never was. “Wow,” she said,

I despise people who are forever taking pictures and go around with cameras hanging from their necks, always on the lookout for a subject, snapping anything and everything, however silly. All the time they have nothing in their heads but portraying themselves, in the most distasteful manner, though they are quite oblivious of this. What they capture in their photos is a perversely distorted world that has nothing to do with the real world except this perverse distortion, for which they themselves are responsible. Photography is a vulgar addiction that is gradually taking hold of the whole of humanity, which is not only enamored of such distortion and perversion but completely sold on them, and will in due course, given the proliferation of photography, take the distorted and perverted world of the photograph to be the only real one. Practitioners of of photography are guilty of one of the worst crimes it is possible to commit--of turning nature into a grotesque. The people in their photographs are nothing but pathetic dolls, disfigured beyond recognition, staring in alarm into the pitiless lens, brainless and repellent. Photography is a base passion that has taken hold of every continent and every section of the population, a sickness that afflicts the whole of humanity and is no longer curable. The inventor of the photographic art was the inventor of the most inhumane of all arts. To him we owe the ultimate distortion of nature and the human beings who form part of it, the reduction of human beings to perverse caricatures--his and theirs. I have yet to see a photograph that shows a normal person, a true and genuine person, just as I have yet to see one that gives a true and genuine representation of nature. Photography is the greatest disaster of the twentieth century.

Elizabeth snapped awake in a terrified instant as the door to her bed chamber was flung open near dawn, and Ian stalked into the darkened room. “Do you want to go first, or shall I?” he said tightly, coming to stand at the side of her bed. “What do you mean?” she asked in a trembling voice. “I mean,” he said, “that either you go first and tell me why in hell you suddenly find my company repugnant, or I’ll go first and tell you how I feel when I don’t know where you are or why you want to be there!” “I’ve sent word to you both nights.” “You sent a damned note that arrived long after nightfall both times, informing me that you intended to sleep somewhere else. I want to know why!” He has men beaten like animals, she reminded herself. “Stop shouting at me,” Elizabeth said shakily, getting out of bed and dragging the covers with her to hide herself from him. His brows snapped together in an ominous frown. “Elizabeth?” he asked, reaching for her. “Don’t touch me!” she cried. Bentner’s voice came from the doorway. “Is aught amiss, my lady?” he asked, glaring bravely at Ian. “Get out of here and close that damned door behind you!” Ian snapped furiously. “Leave it open,” Elizabeth said nervously, and the brave butler did exactly as she said. In six long strides Ian was at the door, shoving it closed with a force that sent it crashing into its frame, and Elizabeth began to vibrate with terror. When he turned around and started toward her Elizabeth tried to back away, but she tripped on the coverlet and had to stay where she was. Ian saw the fear in her eyes and stopped short only inches in front of her. His hand lifted, and she winced, but it came to rest on her cheek. “Darling, what is it?” he asked. It was his voice that made her want to weep at his feet, that beautiful baritone voice; and his face-that harsh, handsome face she’d adored. She wanted to beg him to tell her what Robert and Wordsworth had said were lies-all lies. “My life depends on this, Elizabeth. So does yours. Don’t fail us,” Robert had pleaded. Yet, in that moment of weakness she actually considered telling Ian everything she knew and letting him kill her if he wanted to; she would have preferred death to the torment of living with the memory of the lie that had been their lives-to the torment of living without him. “Are you ill?” he asked, frowning and minutely studying her face. Snatching at the excuse he’d offered, she nodded hastily. “Yes. I haven’t been feeling well.” “Is that why you went to London? To see a physician?” She nodded a little wildly, and to her bewildered horror he started to smile-that lazy, tender smile that always made her senses leap. “Are you with child, darling? Is that why you’re acting so strangely?” Elizabeth was silent, trying to debate the wisdom of saying yes or no-she should say no, she realized. He’d hunt her to the ends of the earth if he believed she was carrying his babe. “No! He-the doctor said it is just-just-nerves.” “You’ve been working and playing too hard,” Ian said, looking like the picture of a worried, devoted husband. “You need more rest.” Elizabeth couldn’t bear any more of this-not his feigned tenderness or his concern or the memory of Robert’s battered back. “I’m going to sleep now,” she said in a strangled voice. “Alone,” she added, and his face whitened as if she had slapped him. During his entire adult life Ian had relied almost as much on his intuition as on his intellect, and at that moment he didn’t want to believe in the explanation they were both offering. His wife did not want him in her bed; she recoiled from his touch; she had been away for two consecutive nights; and-more alarming than any of that-guilt and fear were written all over her pale face. “Do you know what a man thinks,” he said in a calm voice that belied the pain streaking through him, “when his wife stays away at night and doesn’t want him in her bed when she does return?

 When we understand our lives better, we can see where such strength was at work. Always a gift given by Spirit, it is a surprise to us that we were able to prevail. Is it not often after the fact that we discover we have been given the gift of strength?  A true friend can give us encouragement by knowing our history, our joys and our sorrows, our struggles and our strengths, and in their eyes we can see ourselves better. ~ What one person carries easily another person cannot bear. We join strength with strength. A single stick is easily broken. Two sticks together are harder to snap. Together we bear our own and each other’s burdens better, and we understand when the other must go it alone. Sometimes holding is simply the ability to see a bigger picture. Sometimes holding is support and nurturing help, and sometimes holding is holding back and letting things be. In retrospect the latter is often sensed as profound help though in the present we might feel it as counter intuitive. We are, after all, still present for one another though we are not “doing anything”.

We'd reached the parking lot. Alex stopped. "You drive to school?" I demanded. He gestured me ahead of him through the break in the chain fence. "We don't all live five blocks away," he shot back. "It's eight, actually." "Fine,eight. And sometimes I walk." I pictured the stretch between Willing and Society Hill, where I knew he lived somewhere near Sadie. It was quite a distance, and not a particularly scenic one, especially at seven thirty in the morning. "Yeah? When was the last time?" He didn't answer immediately, leading the way now between the parked cars. He passed a big Jeep that still had its dealer plates, a low-slung-two-door Lexus, and a sick black BMW that all looked like just the sort of cars he would own. "April of last year," he admitted finally. "But it pissed rain on me the whole time, so that's gotta count for something." He stopped by the dented passenger door of an old green Mustang. "Your carriage, my lady." "Really? This is your car?" The door made a very scary sound when he opened it. "It's clean," he snapped, and I realized he'd totally missed my point. "It's amazing.

What if I took the picture books that my grandmother made and snapped open the rings in every binder, let the plastic pages spill out onto the floor, and then attacked them with my scissors? Those books, pasted together by my grandmother, year after year, replaced the cognitive exercise of memory for me. Sitting on a section of wall-to-wall carpeting, drinking the bubbling red birch beer from a tinted brown glass, I reestablished my relationships with the members of my family. This is where I put it all together and perpetuated the lies. Not malicious lies, but lies with so many years to develop that we forgot the truth because nobody rehearsed it. When Mark was sentence to sixty days in a twelve-step rehab program in 1991, he wrote an inventory of his experiences with drugs and alcohol that filled a whole notebook, and then he gave it to us to read, It was in those pages that I learned he had once tapped the powder out of horse tranquilizer capsules, melted it down, and shot it into his veins for a high that lasted fourteen days. My God, I thought, Oh my God. This is Mark's story? Okay, now put the cooked-down shot-up horse tranquilizer against the pictures in the album. What do you get? Collage. Dry made wet and introduced into the body. Cut cut cut. It's not so radical.

They read the names out from sixth place to first. We were standing backstage behind a huge curtain, and Rachael and Evgeni were right next to us. Swell. I thought maybe we stood a chance of coming in fourth. But they didn’t call us. “This is crazy!” I whispered to Aneta. “We’re top three?” Then they called a German couple. We were in the top two! Rachael smiled at me. “Oh, Derek! Great job!” she said. What she really meant was, “We’re going to take first place and you can have our sloppy seconds.” Then we heard, “In second place, from England…” Rachael’s face went white as a ghost. She and Evgeni were second! That left only one place for us… “Derek Hough and Aneta Piotrovska are world champions!” I started screaming, “What? What?” and jumping up and down. So much for my neck pain. This wasn’t real; it couldn’t be! I ran out from behind the curtain, pumping my fists in the air. I caught a glimpse of Rachael’s face. She was beyond pissed. “We did it! We did it!” I yelled. The rest happened in slow motion: I ran out and jumped off the stage and the floor. While I was midair, I remember thinking, “ I’m wearing these Cuban heels. This isn’t gonna be good.” Then I hit the floor and my legs buckled. I fell into a roll, then stood straight up--as if I meant to do it all along. I limped over to Aneta to collect our trophy and we hugged. I didn’t give a crap about anything else. Not my neck or my knees or Rachael fuming as they snapped pictures of all of us. It was an amazing moment, a total high.

The kid in the newspaper was named Stevie, and he was eight. I was thirty-nine and lived by myself in a house that I owned. For a short time our local newspaper featured an orphan every week. Later they would transition to adoptable pets, but for a while it was orphans, children your could foster and possibly adopt of everything worked out, the profiles were short, maybe two or three hundred words. This was what I knew: Stevie liked going to school. He made friends easily. He promised he would make his bed every morning. He hoped that if he were very good we could have his own dog, and if he were very, very good, his younger brother could be adopted with him. Stevie was Black. I knew nothing else. The picture of him was a little bigger than a postage stamp. He smiled. I studied his face at my breakfast table until something in me snapped. I paced around my house, carrying the folded newspaper. I had two bedrooms. I had a dog. I had so much more than plenty. In return he would make his bed, try his best in school. That was all he had to bargain with: himself. By the time Karl came for dinner after work I was nearly out of my mind. “I want to adopt him,” I said. Karl read the profile. He looked at the picture. “You want to be his mother?” “It’s not about being his mother. I mean, sure, if I’m his mother that’s fine, but it’s like seeing a kid waving from the window of a burning house, saying he’ll make his bed if someone will come and get him out. I can’t leave him there.” “We can do this,” Karl said. We can do this. I started to calm myself because Karl was calm. He was good at making things happen. I didn’t have to want children in order to want Stevie. In the morning I called the number in the newspaper. They took down my name and address. They told me they would send the preliminary paperwork. After the paperwork was reviewed, there would be a series of interviews and home visits. “When do I meet Stevie?” I asked. “Stevie?” “The boy in the newspaper.” I had already told her the reason I was calling. “Oh, it’s not like that,” the woman said. “It’s a very long process. We put you together with the child who will be your best match.” “So where’s Stevie?” She said she wasn’t sure. She thought that maybe someone had adopted him. It was a bait and switch, a well-written story: the bed, the dog, the brother. They knew how to bang on the floor to bring people like me out of the woodwork, people who said they would never come. I wrapped up the conversation. I didn’t want a child, I wanted Stevie. It all came down to a single flooding moment of clarity: he wouldn’t live with me, but I could now imagine that he was in a solid house with people who loved him. I put him in the safest chamber of my heart, he and his twin brother in twin beds, the dog asleep in Stevie’s arms. And there they stayed, going with me everywhere until I finally wrote a novel about them called Run. Not because I thought it would find them, but because they had become too much for me to carry. I had to write about them so that I could put them down.

So when the pod people come and steal your body, does it hurt, or are you pretty much unconscious for the whole thing?" "Huh?" I asked. "I just double-skunked you three times in a row. What's going on with you?" He lifted an eyebrow. He was in detective mode now, and there was no escaping it. I imagined spilling to him the way I had to Rayna, and almost choked. I'd rather die than describe my fantasies to Ben. I'd never hear the end of it. Still, I needed to tell him something, and he knew me too well to buy a complete lie. I thought about the pictures. I could tell him about the pictures without telling him about the dreams. Ben was like Dad-he ate up anything that smacked of the inexplicable. He'd probably love the picture of the man at St. Vitus's Cathedral, standing in midair on nothing. "You might think I'm crazy...," I started. "I already think that, so..." I took a deep breath, then started to explain. I told him about every picture, including the ones that were completely impossible and seemed to prove the man wasn't actually in the shots when I snapped them. By the time I finished, Ben's brow was furrowed, and the concern in his eyes had deepened into alarm. He really did think I was crazy. I shouldn't have told him. "Can you stop looking at me like that? I know there's a logical explanation," I assured him. "I just don't know what it is yet, but-" "You need to show me those pictures," Ben said gravely. "Um...okay," I said, though I suddenly wasn't positive I wanted to share them. "After Rio I figured I'd open them up again and try to-" "Now, Clea," he said. "I really need to see them now.

He opened the door after letting me pound on it for almost five minutes. His truck was in the carport. I knew he was here. He pulled the door open and walked back inside without looking at me or saying a word. I followed him in, and he dropped onto a sofa I’d never seen before. His face was scruffy. I’d never seen him anything but clean-shaven. Not even in pictures. He had bags under his eyes. He’d aged ten years in three days. The apartment was a mess. The boxes were gone. It looked like he had finally unpacked. But laundry was piled up in a basket so full it spilled out onto the floor. Empty food containers littered the kitchen countertops. The coffee table was full of empty beer bottles. His bed was unmade. The place smelled stagnant and dank. A vicious urge to take care of him took hold. The velociraptor tapped its talon on the floor. Josh wasn’t okay. Nobody was okay. And that was what made me not okay. “Hey,” I said, standing in front of him. He didn’t look at me. “Oh, so you’re talking to me now,” he said bitterly, taking a long pull on a beer. “Great. What do you want?” The coldness of his tone took me aback, but I kept my face still. “You haven’t been to the hospital.” His bloodshot eyes dragged up to mine. “Why would I? He’s not there. He’s fucking gone.” I stared at him. He shook his head and looked away from me. “So what do you want? You wanted to see if I’m okay? I’m not fucking okay. My best friend is brain-dead. The woman I love won’t even fucking speak to me.” He picked up a beer cap from the coffee table and threw it hard across the room. My OCD winced. “I’m doing this for you,” I whispered. “Well, don’t,” he snapped. “None of this is for me. Not any of it. I need you, and you abandoned me. Just go. Get out.” I wanted to climb into his lap. Tell him how much I missed him and that I wouldn’t leave him again. I wanted to make love to him and never be away from him ever again in my life—and clean his fucking apartment. But instead, I just stood there. “No. I’m not leaving. We need to talk about what’s happening at the hospital.” He glared up at me. “There’s only one thing I want to talk about. I want to talk about how you and I can be in love with each other and you won’t be with me. Or how you can stand not seeing me or speaking to me for weeks. That’s what I want to talk about, Kristen.” My chin quivered. I turned and went to the kitchen and grabbed a trash bag from under the sink. I started tossing take-out containers and beer bottles. I spoke over my shoulder. “Get up. Go take a shower. Shave. Or don’t if that’s the look you’re going for. But I need you to get your shit together.” My hands were shaking. I wasn’t feeling well. I’d been light-headed and slightly overheated since I went to Josh’s fire station looking for him. But I focused on my task, shoving trash into my bag. “If Brandon is going to be able to donate his organs, he needs to come off life support within the next few days. His parents won’t do it, and Sloan doesn’t get a say. You need to go talk to them.” Hands came up under my elbows, and his touch radiated through me. “Kristen, stop.” I spun on him. “Fuck you, Josh! You need help, and I need to help you!” And then as fast as the anger surged, the sorrow took over. The chains on my mood swing snapped, and feelings broke through my walls like water breaching a crevice in a dam. I began to cry. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. The strength that drove me through my days just wasn’t available to me when it came to Josh. I dropped the trash bag at his feet and put my hands over my face and sobbed. He wrapped his arms around me, and I completely lost it.

Let’s just run through this again, shall we?” said the Demon King. He leaned back in his throne. “You happened to find the Tezumen one day and decided, I think I recall your words correctly, that they were ‘a bunch of Stone-Age no-hopers sitting around in a swamp being no trouble to anyone,’ am I right? Whereupon you entered the mind of one of their high priests—I believe at that time they worshipped a small stick—drove him insane and inspired the tribes to unite, terrorize their neighbors and bring forth upon the continent a new nation dedicated to the proposition that all men should be taken to the top of ceremonial pyramids and be chopped up with stone knives.” The King pulled his notes toward him. “Oh yes, some of them were also to be flayed alive,” he added. Quezovercoatl shuffled his feet. “Whereupon,” said the King, “they immediately engaged in a prolonged war with just about everyone else, bringing death and destruction to thousands of moderately blameless people, ekcetra, ekcetra. Now, look, this sort of thing has got to stop.” Quezovercoatl swayed back a bit. “It was only, you know, a hobby,” said the imp. “I thought, you know, it was the right thing, sort of thing. Death and destruction and that.” “You did, did you?” said the King. “Thousands of more-or-less innocent people dying? Straight out of our hands,” he snapped his fingers, “just like that. Straight off to their happy hunting ground or whatever. That’s the trouble with you people. You don’t think of the Big Picture. I mean, look at the Tezumen. Gloomy, unimaginative, obsessive…by now they could have invented a whole bureaucracy and taxation system that could have turned the minds of the continent to slag. Instead of which, they’re just a bunch of second-rate axe-murderers. What a waste. Quezovercoatl squirmed. The King swiveled the throne back and forth a bit. “Now, I want you to go straight back down there and tell them you’re sorry,” he said. “Pardon?” “Tell them you’ve changed your mind. Tell them that what you really wanted them to do was strive day and night to improve the lot of their fellow men. It’ll be a winner.

Mr. Morales sidles up to the bar and says, “May I have this dance, Lara Jean?” “You may,” I say. To John I warn, “Don’t you dare come close to me.” He throws his hands out like he’s warding me off. “Don’t you come close to me!” As Mr. Morales leads me in a slow dance, I press my face against his shoulder to hide my smile. I’m really quite good at this espionage thing. John McClaren is sitting on a love seat now, watching Stormy play and chatting with Alicia. I’ve got him right where I want him. I can’t even believe how lucky I am. I’d been planning on showing up at his next Model UN meeting, but this is so much better. I’m thinking I’ll come up from behind him, take him by surprise, when Stormy stands up and declares she needs a piano break, she wants to dance with her grandson. I go turn on the stereo and cue up the CD we decided on for her break. John is protesting: “Stormy, I told you I don’t dance.” He used to try and fake sick during the square-dancing unit in gym--that’s how much he hates dancing. Stormy doesn’t listen, of course. She pulls him off the love seat and starts trying to teach him how to fox-trot. “Put your hand on my waist,” she orders. “I didn’t wear heels to sit behind a piano all night.” Stormy’s trying to teach him the steps, and he keeps stepping on her feet. “Ouch!” she snaps. I can’t stop giggling. Mr. Morales is too. He dances us over closer. “May I cut in?” he asks. “Please!” John practically pushes Stormy into Mr. Morales’s arms. “Johnny, be a gentleman and ask Lara Jean to dance,” Stormy says as Mr. Morales twirls her. John gives me a searching look, and I have a feeling he’s still suspicious of me and whether or not I have his name. “Ask her to dance,” Mr. Morales urges, grinning at me. “She wants to dance, don’t you, Lara Jean?” I shrug a sad kind of shrug. Wistful. The very picture of a girl who is waiting to be asked to dance. “I want to see the young people dance!” Normal yells. John McClaren looks at me, one eyebrow raised. “If we’re just swaying back and forth, I probably won’t step on your feet.” I feign hesitation and then nod. My pulse is racing. Target acquired.

I was headed into the final fitting of my leg. I’d gone through the test socket phase and my leg was finally ready. I was so excited! I walked into the physical therapy lab and shouted, “Man, I cannot wait to put this leg on and walk!” My physical therapist, Bob, and the prosthetist exchanged nervous glances. My right leg was still pretty weak and by all normal standards, I should not be able to walk right away. But then, of course, I never like to be like everyone else. They had me wheel over to the parallel bars to attach my new leg. “We’re just going to have you stand for now,” said Bob. “Nah, I’m walking.” I offered up my best shit-eating grin. “Let’s just see how it feels,” Bob replied with some firmness. I stood up and said, “I feel good. I feel really good.” Bob relented and they let me try to walk. They put a belt around me so that Bob could hold on to me as I walked the parallel bars. Most guys can use the parallel bars for support. I only have one arm so that only helped me so much. Good thing I didn’t really need them. I started walking without faltering right away. “Yeah, this feels good. I feel good. You can back up,” I told them. They backed up and I started walking by myself, holding on with one hand. Then, feeling bolder, I lifted my hand off the bar. I took a step. And then another step. I was walking without any help. I walked up and down those parallel bars the very first day I put on my leg. I did all this with an audience. Dad and Uncle Johnny were right there with me, watching and cheering me on. They were so excited. Uncle Johnny snapped a picture and sent it to my mom back home in Alabama. And as any proud mom would do, she sent that picture to everyone she knew. That picture went the pre-viral version of viral! It was a triumphant snapshot. I was walking again. And not only that, I was wearing those shiny new New Balance shoes the nice ladies had given me. As the picture made the rounds through my mom’s friends and friends of her friends and friends of friends of friends, somehow it ended up with people at New Balance. They reached out to my mom to ask what sizes of shoe Colston and I wore. She told them and then soon after that, Colston and I had matching sneakers.