Varsity Life Quotes

Puberty flicked a switch inside of them and dreams were replaced by hormones and college prep courses and varsity sports while I continued to look for faeries in the woods behind my house.

Look, no one wants to hear that maybe she’s the reason her mother flew the coop. But my advice to you is to put this behind you. File it away in the drawer that’s saved for all the other crap that isn’t fair, like how the Kardashians are famous and how good-looking people get served faster at restaurants and how a kid who can’t skate to save his life winds up on the varsity hockey team because his dad is the coach.

When I burst into the terminal, my eyes swept around, bouncing from person to person in the crowded, bustling space. My stomach fell a little when I didn’t see him, but I knew he probably couldn’t come this far. He was probably at baggage claim. I looked around for a sign to point me in the right direction and finally saw one labeled Baggage Claim with an arrow pointing off to the left. But I didn’t follow the arrow. My eyes fixed on someone standing beneath the sign. His hands were jammed into the pockets of his well-worn slouchy jeans. The relaxed action pulled the waistband low, highlighting his flat, narrow waist his Henley tee molded to. As usual, he was wearing his varsity jacket and his blond hair was a mess. My gaze locked on his sapphire-blue eyes and didn’t let go. His eyes, ohmigod, his eyes. The blue was so intense it served as an emergency brake on everything in my life. The second I looked at him, everything else came to a screeching halt. I no longer noticed the huge crowd rushing around. The anxiety-causing flight was just a distant memory, and the two weeks I spent longing for his touch became something I would live through ten times over just to be in this moment with him again. His lips pulled into a smile and the charm that oozed from every pore in his body made me almost lightheaded. Romeo pulled his hands out of his pockets and straightened, motioning for me. I rushed across the space separating us, my bag slapping against my side as I, for once, gracefully maneuvered around the people in my path. His chuckle brushed over me when I was just steps away, and I threw myself at him with a little sigh of relief. My legs wrapped around his waist and his arms locked around my back. I burrowed my head into his shoulder and inhaled deep, taking in his distinctive scent. “Rim,” he murmured, his voice low. I pulled back and his lips were on mine instantly. The moment our lips touched, he stilled, his body and mouth pausing against mine. Before I could wonder why, he muttered a garbled curse against my mouth and then his lips began to move. He kissed me softly but fiercely. There was so much possession in the way he kissed me, in the way his arms locked around me that my heart stuttered. I parted my lips so his tongue could sweep inside, and when my tongue met his, desire, hot and heavy, unfurled within me. Someone chuckled as they walked by, and Romeo retreated slightly, still letting his mouth linger on mine before completely pulling away. He rested his forehead against mine and he smiled. “I really fucking missed you.” “Me too,” I whispered. -Romeo & Rimmel

What would be the natural thing? A man goes to college. He works as he wants to work, he plays as he wants to play, he exercises for the fun of the game, he makes friends where he wants to make them, he is held in by no fear of criticism above, for the class ahead of him has nothing to do with his standing in his own class. Everything he does has the one vital quality: it is spontaneous. That is the flame of youth itself. Now, what really exists?" "...I say our colleges to-day are business colleges—Yale more so, perhaps, because it is more sensitively American. Let's take up any side of our life here. Begin with athletics. What has become of the natural, spontaneous joy of contest? Instead you have one of the most perfectly organized business systems for achieving a required result—success. Football is driving, slavish work; there isn't one man in twenty who gets any real pleasure out of it. Professional baseball is not more rigorously disciplined and driven than our 'amateur' teams. Add the crew and the track. Play, the fun of the thing itself, doesn't exist; and why? Because we have made a business out of it all, and the college is scoured for material, just as drummers are sent out to bring in business. "Take another case. A man has a knack at the banjo or guitar, or has a good voice. What is the spontaneous thing? To meet with other kindred spirits in informal gatherings in one another's rooms or at the fence, according to the whim of the moment. Instead what happens? You have our university musical clubs, thoroughly professional organizations. If you are material, you must get out and begin to work for them—coach with a professional coach, make the Apollo clubs, and, working on, some day in junior year reach the varsity organization and go out on a professional tour. Again an organization conceived on business lines. "The same is true with the competition for our papers: the struggle for existence outside in a business world is not one whit more intense than the struggle to win out in the News or Lit competition. We are like a beef trust, with every by-product organized, down to the last possibility. You come to Yale—what is said to you? 'Be natural, be spontaneous, revel in a certain freedom, enjoy a leisure you'll never get again, browse around, give your imagination a chance, see every one, rub wits with every one, get to know yourself.' "Is that what's said? No. What are you told, instead? 'Here are twenty great machines that need new bolts and wheels. Get out and work. Work harder than the next man, who is going to try to outwork you. And, in order to succeed, work at only one thing. You don't count—everything for the college.' Regan says the colleges don't represent the nation; I say they don't even represent the individual.

Justin Taylor, editor of Crossway, cites the example of one writer who wanted to thank “my parents, Jesus and Ayn Rand.” See what happens when you leave out the serial comma? But Andy Le Peau, at InterVarsity, points to a different kind of example. Suppose someone were to dedicate his book to “my mother, Ayn Rand, and God”? Now the serial comma creates the idea that Ayn Rand is in apposition to mother, which it presumably wasn’t.

She said okay. Probably she thought I was growing up to be one more prick in her life, a junior-varsity Stoner. It’s not that I wanted to be mean. But any time I started feeling sorry for her, something in my brain said Don’t go there, it’s a trap.

Anyway, I wanted to tell you this story, since it just rolled into my gourd while I was into that 1950 Lighthouse shot. I never told you about the Legend of the Gigantic Fart, did I?” “Put the beer in a paper bag. Let’s get it on the road.” “No, man, this story became a legend and is still told in the high schools around the county. You see, it was at the junior prom, a very big deal with hoop dresses and everybody drinking sloe gin and R.C. Cola outside in the cars. Now, this is strictly a class occasion if you live in a shitkicker town. Anyway, we’d been slopping down the beer all afternoon and eating pinto-bean salad and these greasy fried fish before we got to the dance. So it was the third number, and I took Betty Hoggenback out on the floor and was doing wonderful, tilting her back like Fred Astaire doing Ginger Rogers. Then I felt this wet fart start to grow inside me. It was like a brown rat trying to get outside. I tried to leak it off one shot at a time and keep dancing away from it, but I must have left a cloud behind that would take the varnish off the gym floor. Then one guy says, ‘Man, I don’t believe it!’ People were walking off the floor, holding their noses and saying, ‘Pew, who cut it?’ Then the saxophone player on the bandstand threw up into the piano. Later, guys were shaking my hand and buying me drinks, and a guy on the varsity came up and said that was the greatest fart he’d ever seen. It destroyed the whole prom. The saxophone player had urp all over his summer tux, and they must have had to burn the smell out of that piano with a blowtorch.” Buddy was laughing so hard at his own story that tears ran down his cheeks. He caught his breath, drank out of the beer glass, then started laughing again. The woman behind the bar was looking at him as though a lunatic had just walked into the normalcy of her life.

I find myself by the tunnel as the guys head for the locker room. I’ve just tucked away my cameras so I can grab some water when Jake and I make eye contact as he trots by. I’m so caught up in the excitement of the game, I run up to him and leap up into his arms to kiss him. “Great game! You’re killing it.” “Thanks, cupcake.” He laughs, kisses me again, before he pats my ass and rejoins the team. I touch my lips, which pull up in a huge smile. Life has never felt so good. Coming to Lone Star was the best decision I ever made. I’m busy thanking my lucky stars for Jake and our new school and all of the blessings we’ve had when I pause. Did someone just call my name? There it is again. It came from the stands. I grab my camera bag and look up, still smiling. Splash. That’s when I’m doused with a huge container of soda. I flinch as the cold liquid and ice hits my face and shoulders, but the debris keeps coming. More soda and some food. A hot dog with mustard and relish smacks my shirt and slowly slides to the ground. I gasp, afraid more crap will rain down on me. Someone must have tripped and accidentally dumped their food over the railing. When I look up, though, there are two girls in the stands, glaring down at me. I have a hard time making out their faces because they’re covered in face paint, but one yells, “Hey, skank! How does it feel to get Dakota’s sloppy seconds?” Horrified, I’m frozen stiff. I don’t see the soda can until it’s too late. 36 JAKE When we make it back onto the field, there’s a weird energy on the sidelines.

Some of my teammates and their girlfriends were hoping to take a group photo. Would you mind shooting that?” “Not at all.” I slide my arms through his jacket as Jake steps away to talk to one of the guys. A minute later, several huge football players hoist their girlfriends onto their shoulders. “Aww, this is so cute.” I direct them to move closer, and then I have to step back and squat to get everyone in one shot. After I take a few, Jake tells the guys to hold up and then turns to me. “Can you ask Roxy to take a pic? Basically the same shot you just took, just with one more couple?” I tilt my head, confused, but he’s already called her over. He makes me hand over the camera to Roxy before he drags me over to the group. “Hang tight.” That’s the only warning he gives me before he lifts me onto his shoulder. Like, I’m literally sitting on his left shoulder. “Jake!” I laugh as I wobble, but then he reaches up a hand, and I cling to him for dear life. He yells, “’Kay, Roxy. Go for it.” He looks up at me and grins. “Smile for the camera, cupcake.” She takes several shots. I’m smiling so hard, my cheeks hurt, and I forget to worry about whether or not I’m blinking. When we’re done and he slides me down to the ground, I’m out of breath. I almost feel like Jake is claiming me somehow, but that’s crazy, right? He wanted to be in the photo, and I’m his good friend, so he had me join him. Roxy returns the camera and leans into me to whisper, “What was that about? Are you two doing the deed?” “No. We’re just friends.” God, I feel like a broken record. Her eyebrow lifts. “Because the looks he’s giving you tonight…” Jake’s giving me looks? I turn to find him talking to Cam, but his eyes are glued on me. Every molecule in my body heats. “Holy hot sexual tension, Batman.” Roxy bumps me with her hip. “I want all the deets tomorrow!” “There won’t be any deets.” Will there be deets?

It should be on leading my new team to a victory. Instead, I see my ex, Dakota, bare ass up, face down on our bed as my best friend Troy railed her from behind. While our baby sat in a dirty diaper and cried in the other room. Mentirosos. Liars. Both of them. I’ll admit I wasn’t excited to have a kid. Not at first. But despite my party reputation in high school, I would never let my responsibilities slide. Unlike my father, who eventually left us, I promised myself I’d be there for Dakota. She and I were a hookup after I’d seen my parents get into another screaming match on my mom’s front porch, one that almost made me come to blows with my father. I was pissed off at the world, drank too much, and banged the bombshell blonde at the party who straddled my lap and told me it was my lucky night. There was nothing lucky about that night. I rub the ache in my chest. No, it feels wrong to think that. I got Asher, and he’ll always be the highlight of my life even though his mother has made my life hell. I changed everything for her.

Her eyes meet mine. “What exactly do you want, Rider?” My throat feels tight. I take a breath. For some crazy reason, I feel like I’m trying to throw for a touchdown. “Just… I need us to be friends again. I miss you, Gabby, and I regret how I treated you. And with everything with Poppy, I’m being reminded of how amazing you are.” I shrug. “I miss our friendship. Don’t you?” My heart feels like it’s gonna beat out of my chest with that confession. “And that’s all you want?” she asks warily. “Friendship?” Yes. No. Fuck, I don’t know. “That’s all I have time for right now.” Do I miss our friendship? Absolutely. Do I want to fuck her until I can’t walk anymore? Definitely. Can I handle anything beyond sex right now while I juggle all the other shit in my life? Probably not. So yeah, I guess I’d better keep my damn hands to myself. “And you’re not going to ghost me again?” she asks. The vulnerability in her voice kills me, and I reach for her hand again. “Because it sucked to open up to you about being in foster care only for you to disappear on me.” I close my eyes. Christ. No wonder she thinks I’m a douchebag. “I promise I won’t disappear again. You’re officially stuck with me now.

Coach will probably flip out when he finds out I’m responsible for another unplanned pregnancy. I groan, feeling conflicted. I love Charlotte. With all my fucking heart. Seeing my ex only solidified how I feel about my cupcake. She’s amazing. So positive and loving. So sweet and thoughtful. Literally everything I want in a girlfriend. Definitely everything I want in a wife. But we’re not there yet. Got to get her to talk to me first. Have to convince her I’ll be there for her if she decides to have this baby. A baby with Charlotte. I close my eyes, and I can see it. My sweet woman cradling a little bundle. She’ll be a fantastic mother. Me conmueve. It chokes me up a little. Because I want that life. And in this moment, all of my anxiety fades away. So what if this baby pisses off Coach? So what if NFL teams think I’m a jackass? All that matters is getting Charlotte to understand I love her to the moon and back and I’ll be by her side come hell or high water.

I hold her to me as it hits me like a fucking bolt of lightning. The realization makes my heart pound. “Charlotte, I need you to know something.” I take a deep breath. “I love you.” At first, she’s quiet. “You do?” I turn my head to look her in the eye and brush her hair out of her beautiful face. “Of course. You’re the most incredible woman I know. Beautiful inside and out. You have the biggest heart of anyone I know.” I graze my lips against hers. “I love you. I think I’ve always loved you in one way or another. But this, where we’re at now, I’ve never felt this way about anyone else. Just you.” Her eyes well again, but the smile on her lips as she says those sweet words back is one I’ll never forget. “I love you, too, Jake.” She trails her fingers through my hair as she kisses me, and for the first time in my life, my future is clear. I love my family. Football. My team. But the woman in my arms gives everything else meaning. If I can wife her up someday, I’ll die a happy man.

I’m okay. I usually try to forget all of that stuff, but with Poppy being in this situation, I felt I had to speak up, you know?” “You did the right thing,” Bree says. “Those dumbasses will thank you someday.” Rider coughs dramatically, and Bree smirks. “Yeah, you heard me right back there.” I glance behind me and see Rider’s lips tugging up. Bree nudges me. “How’d you end up doing so well in school given everything you went through? Going through foster care? Not having parents?” “I kept to myself mostly.” I shrug. “School and studying were always safe. Books don’t level you with a backhand to the face or a kick to the ribs.” When I see the horrified look on her face, I cringe. “Bree, I survived. A lot of other kids have it worse. Which is why I’m really glad we’re protecting Poppy.” She stops to hug me, and I smile. I’ve had so few hugs in my life, I forgot how good they feel. She sniffles and waves her hand at me. “Ignore me. I’m not crying.” Over her shoulder, I catch Rider’s fierce expression, but I don’t want his sympathy. I don’t need anybody’s sympathy.

I just want a bag of ice for my shoulder, three ibuprofen, my bed, and silence for the next eight to ten hours. I’m in my Jeep, halfway home, when I realize I still have to pick up Poppy. Fuck. I smack the steering wheel with my fist. Guilt instantly floods me for resenting my daughter. This is not who I want to be. Another layer of shame settles over me when I realize I have no idea where she is right now. I left the details of who would be taking care of her today with Gabby, and while I trust her, being an absentee parent sounds just as bad as a negligent one. Get your shit together, man. I pull over next to the curb and turn on my phone, which I always shut off before a game. Although with Poppy in my life now, I probably shouldn’t do that anymore

Janelle smiles at me as she bounces Lily on her hip. I can’t deny this situation feels surreal. This right here, a family with Janelle, is everything I thought I wanted in high school. Someone I could devote my heart and soul to, someone who would have my back. Not having my parents and sister in my life fucked me up, and I guess I figured having a family of my own would fill that hole. But when I look at Janelle, that brick wall I erected after she dumped my sorry ass is bigger than ever. I feel... nothing. Not anger or hatred or pain or affection. Just this empty space she used to inhabit when we were kids driving country roads and sharing our hopes for the future. Who says apathy is bad? If it’ll protect me from this woman, I’m down for apathy. My only worry is that I won’t know how to let anyone else in. Like my daughter.

Louisa grabs her purse. “He ate chicken nuggets and some applesauce. Did you already eat dinner, or do you want me to make you a sandwich before I leave?” For a second, I hear another voice asking me if I want a sandwich. It makes something in me ache. I don’t know why I’m not over Charlie ghosting me. It’s fucked up, but I miss her more than Dakota. Once I realized what my ex had been doing behind my back, she was dead to me. Charlotte, though… It’s weird as hell not having her in my life anymore. And as much as I thanked her for taking care of Asher, I’m seeing now that I didn’t appreciate how she took care of me too. Always feeding me. Always helping me if I needed a study buddy. Always knowing how to cheer me up after Dakota reamed me out for something stupid. Just being an amazing friend. Did I run Charlie off? Did I do something to hurt her? Was Dakota lying about why her sister left? When I’m not pissed about her leaving, I’m still tormented. It keeps me

He gives me that sexy smile that makes me melt. “Roxy, you’re the light of my life. You brighten every day, and I never want the sun to set without seeing your beautiful face before I go to sleep. Will you do me the greatest honor and marry me?” He holds out his other hand, and Cam drops a little black box in it. My eyes are saucers as Billy opens it and pulls out a diamond ring that he slides on my finger. “This belonged to my grandmother. She wants you to have it.” I wipe the tear that escapes. “You know this is forever, right?” I whisper. His smile goes soft. “I’m not sure that’s long enough.” I grab his handsome face and kiss him. “Yes, I’ll marry you.” Everyone cheers, and he picks me up in a hug.

Gabs, can we talk a second?” He clears his throat. Nothing good ever follows that statement. I brace myself for what’s sure to be an awkward conversation. “I just want to apologize for our… misunderstanding freshman year.” I’m silent for a moment, but the rush of anger that spikes my pulse has me responding before I think better of it. “You’d call it a misunderstanding, huh?” I roll my eyes. “Funny, I didn’t think I misunderstood anything, but if you want to mansplain it to me now, go for it.” Why make this easy for him? It’s always been difficult for me to make friends, but for some reason, Rider slipped through my defenses. I was assigned to tutor him in English. I remember meeting him in the library, and the shy smile he gave me. He was embarrassed to need help. It was the most endearing thing I’d ever seen, and I swear when he leveled me with those big gray eyes, the ground fell out beneath me. I’m a practical girl, but foster care made me cynical, and ending up with my aunt did nothing to help my outlook on life. But Rider was funny and sweet, not to mention ridiculously good-looking, and I went over faster than a felled log in a forest. This was before he was the golden boy of the football team. When he was just this guy Rider from some speck-of-dust small Texas town like me. Even though he rode the bench, I went to all of his games, and we’d grab pizza afterward and talk until late in the night. Although he didn’t outright say it, I knew he had a rough home life. He mentioned that his father was an ass. I wanted to wrap my arms around him and make it better. And I thought I meant something to him. That what we had was special. Until he became the starting quarterback.

The longer I stand here, the crazier the fans get. I’m about to give up and go meet his mom like we planned, but then someone taps my shoulder. I whirl around. And then have to look down. Because Jake is down on one knee, but he’s motioning to Otto. My bodyguard whips out a black box from his jacket and hands it to my boyfriend. I cover my mouth as my eyes sting. Jake gives me the most breathtaking smile. “Charlotte Anne Darling, we’ve had a long and winding road together, and throughout that time, you’ve become the most important person in my life. You’re the woman I want to grow old with. The one I want to kiss first thing in the morning and come home to every day. I’m a lucky man to call you my girlfriend, but I’d be even luckier to call you my wife. Would you do me this honor?” Pretty sure I scream my answer because I have no chill. I barely notice when he grabs my hand and slips a gold band on my finger. When he stands, I leap into his arms, not caring who sees me kiss him.

Cam motions to me. “You have murder in your eyes, bro.” “Pretty much what I was fantasizing about just now, but I’m trying to avoid jail time before the draft.” Laughing, he nods. “Solid decision.” He lowers his voice. “How did Roxy’s appointment go?” Cam is the only one of our friends besides Charlotte and Jake who knows Rox is pregnant. A smile erupts on my face. “It was crazy. She had the nurse call me into her exam room at the end to see the ultrasound. I got to hear the heartbeat. It was just whirring away.” I hold my hand over my chest because that moment will go down as one of the coolest in my life. “She’s due in August.” “Girl or boy?” “Too early to tell. It looks like a bean, though.” I hold my fingers apart by a centimeter. “Like this big.” “Y’all gonna make it official or keep pretending you’re just friends?” “We’re definitely not ‘just friends,’ and I think she’s starting to figure it out.” He smacks me on the back. “Happy for you.” His eyes travel across the room to Ezra, but his voice lowers to a whisper. “You’re obviously a better candidate than that jackass.

It hits me. I love that woman. So fucking much. And I’m the biggest idiot on the planet for not begging for her forgiveness the other night. Yes, I’ve been freaked out about football and what’s going to happen with my career. Yes, I’ve been sleep-deprived and worried sick, but above all that noise, the truth levels me: if I get the game back, but she walks out of my life, it’ll wreck me. I swallow. Hard. How the hell am I gonna make it right between us again? I’ve been a mess all week. When my dad called to bitch me out yesterday, I lost it. At first, I hoped he’d called to support me, to say something fucking fatherly for once. To offer some advice. But no, he just wanted to rub my face in the scandal and call me a dumbass for getting serious with Gabby. I snapped, yelled shit I knew he wanted to hear just to get him off the phone, but it rattled me. How could someone who supposedly loved me believe the worst about me? Of course, if Gabby really thinks you’re fucking someone else behind her back, maybe you are the dumbass your father claims you are for falling for her when you should have your eyes on the prize and your heart on the game. Not on your neighbor who may want to rip your balls from your body.

When Ezra turns and leaves, Billy immediately wraps me and Marley in a hug. “You okay?” I sniffle. “No, but I will be.” He kisses my forehead, and I melt into him. “Why was that so hard?” “Because Marley is the center of our universe, and he’s a threat to that.” She is the center of our universe. “Thank you.” I look up at him and kiss his chin, since that’s what I can reach. “Thank you for loving her like she’s yours.” He gives me a crooked smile. “In my heart, she belongs to me.” I grasp his face with my palm. “I love you so much. And someday when you put a ring on my finger, you can make Marley officially yours. I mean, if you want to.” I’m not surprised Ezra won’t be around, since he hasn’t bothered to try to see her before now. And I’m good with that. My daughter already has a stand-up man in her life. She doesn’t need someone who’s not committed to her the way she deserves. “I definitely want to.” Laughing, he lifts me and Marley in a hug and spins us around. “I’m gonna hold you to that.” “Don’t squish her.” “I’m not. I’m holding you by your ass.” He sets me down, kisses me, and pats my butt. “How about we go get some matching t-shirts so we can make our friends gag?” “Let’s do it.” I don’t know how Billy does that, how he gets me in a good mood after that interaction with Ezra, but he does.

But when my ex opens the door, her somber expression and baggy sweats do not suggest we’re about to roll around naked. Nor does the toddler asleep on the bed behind her. I’m frozen as Janelle wraps her arms around me in a hug. “I’ve missed you,” she coos in a baby voice. I would not consider myself the paragon of virtue, but there’s no way I’m doing kinky shit with my ex while a kid sleeps a few feet away. I’ve never seen her baby before. When I found out Janelle’s new guy had knocked her up, I did my best to eradicate thoughts of her from my life. It was too painful to see her move on when she’d promised me that future. I only vaguely inquire about her through my cousin Bianca when I plan trips home so I can avoid my ex. As I take a good long look at the sleeping bundle, I stop breathing. Ernest has blond hair. And Janelle has light brown. My eyes are lasered on the kid, who has thick, black hair. Much like mine. Sweat breaks out on my body, and a giant lump forms in my throat. I cough. “What the fuck is going on?” Janelle wrings her hands, tears forming in her eyes. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Why I needed to do this in person. It’s long overdue.” But like all truly messed-up things in my life, I know the answer to my question before the words are out of her mouth. “She’s yours, Ben.” 3 BEN A suffocating, twisting blackness spreads through me as I stare at this woman I once loved.

We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

Attached to the front of his computer screen is a piece of paper bearing a quotation from Michael Jordan: “I failed over and over again in my life, and that is why I succeed.” Gayner likes to remind himself that Jordan didn’t make it onto his varsity basketball team as a sophomore at high school, but then harnessed his “superhuman” work ethic and “sheer willpower” to become one of the greatest players of all time. “You cannot control the outcome,” says Gayner. “You can only control the effort and the dedication and the giving of one hundred percent of yourself to the task at hand. And then whatever happens, happens.

When a person converts to Christianity, he or she not only enters a relationship with Christ and inherits eternal life, but also adopts a worldview—a set of lenses through which to view the world. Other critical worldview questions include What is real? (metaphysics); How do we know that which we know? (epistemology); What happens to a person after death? Where is history going? and What kind of a thing is a person? (anthropology). For more discussion on the subject of one’s worldview, see James W. Sire, The Universe Next Door, 4th ed. (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 2004); J. P. Moreland, Love Your God with All Your Mind (Colorado Springs: Nav-Press, 1998); and Nancy Pearcey and Phillip E. Johnson, Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity (Wheaton: Crossway, 2001).

From then on the disorder became her secret friend. She became not only an anorexic-bulimic, but the absolute best anorexic-bulimic she could be. She was strategic, clean, informed. She knew, for example, that the worst kind of vomit is the kind that isn’t properly chewed up. Lobes of steak that rise up your throat like Lincoln Logs. Ice cream is also a problem. It’s too soft and comes back up like liquid; it doesn’t feel like expelling anything at all and you can’t be sure it didn’t stick to the walls of your stomach. Then of course there is the question of timing. Everything in life is timing and with vomiting it’s no different. Too soon after you eat, and nothing comes up. You wreck your throat trying to regurgitate. Too late, and only the tail end of the meal comes; your finger is slicked in fawn fluid for nothing. You do it too soon or too early and you make too much noise because your body isn’t prepared. With vomiting, you have to work with your body. There is no working against it. You have to respect the process. The hope each morning was that she would barely eat—a pan-cooked chicken breast, an orange, lemon water. But if she failed—peanut M&M’s, a bite of someone’s birthday cake—then she would accept the failure at the same time that she would not accept the failure. She would go to the bathroom. Flush twice. Clean up. And reenter the conversation. It worked, for the most part. Field hockey suffered. In the ninth grade she had been a pretty serious athlete, but by the spring of tenth grade she was so skinny she could barely make varsity. School, in general, suffered. She stopped doing homework and stopped paying attention in class. Her family didn’t question her new body or her new habit. The closest her mother came to Why are you trying to kill yourself? was Why do you flush the toilet so many times?