Wen Quotes

Expectations are a funny thing,” Wen said. “When you’re born with them, you resent them, fight against them. When you’ve never been given any, you feel the lack of them your whole life.

You were right, Sadie Wen. I am completely, helplessly obsessed with you.

She looked so cute wen she was apologizing that Helen couldn't even pick up a grudge, let alone carry one.

I think you're obsessed with me, Sadie Wen.

these random unkind moment that catch you wen you least expect them.

The first words that are read by seekers of enlightenment in the secret, gong-banging, yeti-haunted valleys near the hub of the world, are when they look into The Life of Wen the Eternally Surprised. The first question they ask is: 'Why was he eternally surprised?' And they are told: 'Wen considered the nature of time and understood that the universe is, instant by instant, recreated anew. Therefore, he understood, there is in truth no past, only a memory of the past. Blink your eyes, and the world you see next did not exist when you closed them. Therefore, he said, the only appropriate state of the mind is surprise. The only appropriate state of the heart is joy. The sky you see now, you have never seen before. The perfect moment is now. Be glad of it.' The first words read by the young Lu-Tze when he sought perplexity in the dark, teeming, rain-soaked city of Ankh-Morpork were: 'Rooms For Rent, Very Reasonable.' And he was glad of it.

Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kidergarten. Then wen you hit puberty they take te crayons away and replace them with dry, uninspiring books on agebra, history, ect. Being suddenly hit years later with the 'creative bug' is just a wee voice telling you, 'I'd like my crayons back, please.

The ‘Three Tumors’ is the nickname given to the three heavenly officials who don’t have a good rep but have a good relationship with each other, and they are Ming Guan, Ling Wen, and my brother. ‘I can’t believe it’s not Xie Lian, Xie Lian, and Xie Lian.’ Xie Lian thought.

But perhaps all monsters were heroes in their own eyes.

Wen Yuan held him in one hand and a wooden sword in the other, wearing the grass butterfly on his head, 'Brother Xian, would Brother Rich ever come here again?' Wei WuXian bursted, 'Who’s Brother Rich?' Wen Yuan answered seriously, 'The rich brother is Brother Rich.' Wei WuXian, 'Then what about me?' As expected, Wen Yuan answered, 'You are Brother Xian. Brother Poor.

The place I go when I feel trapped inside myself. When I'm terrified that all my happiest moments belong to the past. Wen my body is humming with too much of something, or aching from too little, and life stretches out ahead of me like a threat.

You can achieve everything in this world, but if it’s for someone else, it’s pointless. Live for yourself.

When people dis fantasy—mainstream readers and SF readers alike—they are almost always talking about one sub-genre of fantastic literature. They are talking about Tolkien, and Tolkien's innumerable heirs. Call it 'epic', or 'high', or 'genre' fantasy, this is what fantasy has come to mean. Which is misleading as well as unfortunate. Tolkien is the wen on the arse of fantasy literature. His oeuvre is massive and contagious—you can't ignore it, so don't even try. The best you can do is consciously try to lance the boil. And there's a lot to dislike—his cod-Wagnerian pomposity, his boys-own-adventure glorying in war, his small-minded and reactionary love for hierarchical status-quos, his belief in absolute morality that blurs moral and political complexity. Tolkien's clichés—elves 'n' dwarfs 'n' magic rings—have spread like viruses. He wrote that the function of fantasy was 'consolation', thereby making it an article of policy that a fantasy writer should mollycoddle the reader. That is a revolting idea, and one, thankfully, that plenty of fantasists have ignored. From the Surrealists through the pulps—via Mervyn Peake and Mikhael Bulgakov and Stefan Grabiński and Bruno Schulz and Michael Moorcock and M. John Harrison and I could go on—the best writers have used the fantastic aesthetic precisely to challenge, to alienate, to subvert and undermine expectations. Of course I'm not saying that any fan of Tolkien is no friend of mine—that would cut my social circle considerably. Nor would I claim that it's impossible to write a good fantasy book with elves and dwarfs in it—Michael Swanwick's superb Iron Dragon's Daughter gives the lie to that. But given that the pleasure of fantasy is supposed to be in its limitless creativity, why not try to come up with some different themes, as well as unconventional monsters? Why not use fantasy to challenge social and aesthetic lies? Thankfully, the alternative tradition of fantasy has never died. And it's getting stronger. Chris Wooding, Michael Swanwick, Mary Gentle, Paul di Filippo, Jeff VanderMeer, and many others, are all producing works based on fantasy's radicalism. Where traditional fantasy has been rural and bucolic, this is often urban, and frequently brutal. Characters are more than cardboard cutouts, and they're not defined by race or sex. Things are gritty and tricky, just as in real life. This is fantasy not as comfort-food, but as challenge. The critic Gabe Chouinard has said that we're entering a new period, a renaissance in the creative radicalism of fantasy that hasn't been seen since the New Wave of the sixties and seventies, and in echo of which he has christened the Next Wave. I don't know if he's right, but I'm excited. This is a radical literature. It's the literature we most deserve.

Maybe part of fighting the unhappiness in this world is to seize happiness when we can.

I was surrounded by heaven. The sun, the moon, the earth, and all those living stars. They wen't static like in pictures taken from impossibly far away- they breathed, they glowed. They were future and past, possibility and memory. They were beautiful. "I never knew there were so many," I whispered. We are merely pieces of a grander design, even more insignificant than I imagined. When the earth ceases to be, all those stars will shine on. Out deaths will mean nothing to them. "I feel so small." No one replied. I wondered as I watched the stars, really seeing them for the fist time, whether they could see me, too.

In the face of fear, one could choose to run, or to rise.

Wen considered the nature of time and understood that the universe is, instant by instant, re-created anew. Therefore, he understood, there is, in truth, no Past, only a memory of the Past. Blink your eyes, and the world you see next did not exist when you closed them. Therefore, he said, the only appropriate state of the mind is surprise. The only appropriate state of the heart is joy. The sky you see now, you have never seen before. The perfect moment is now. Be glad of it.

It was the books I started reading. It was the music I started listening to. It was the television I started watching. I found myself thinking again. I tried to stop because it was only causing pain. I couldn't. Wen all this is in your head it has to come out into your life. If it doesn't, you get crushed. I'm not going to get crushed.

Then the other door opened. I wen't rigid. If I had thought Reth's was beautiful, it was nothing to this soul. It filled the night with light, dancing and rippling like the reflection on a pond. I hadn't seen many souls, but I knew this one was special. I wanted it. I needed it.

I never meant to hurt anyone. Perhaps monsters never meant to hurt others, either. Perhaps monsters didn't even know they were monsters.

With Wei WuXian dragging him and Wen Yuan clinging to his leg, Lan WangJi was finally shoved into a restaurant.

I suppose we are all heroes in our own eyes, and monsters in the eyes of those who are different.

I can build a hyperphase jump gate, I'm sure I could have figured sex out. Insert Tab M into Slot F. Repeat until done.

Bast crouched down and began making weird chittering noises. Uh-oh. She was imitating birds. I'd seen enough cats do this when they were stalking. Suddenly my own obituary flashed in my head: Carter Kane, 14, tragically died in Paris wen he was eaten by his sister's cat, Muffin.

If I could do girlhood again, I’d ask to be scarier. Less whimpering—more pyromaniac urges, more flirting with kerosene.

Choices were for those with privilege and power. When you had none, all you could do was survive.

What is China but a people and their stories?

If you asked me how I felt when they told me I would marry Wen Fu, I can say only this: It was like being told I had won a big prize. And it was also like being told my head was going to be chopped off. Something between those two feelings.

What could he say? That, back then, I wasn't caught by the Wen Sect because I wanted to go back to Lotus Pier to retrieve my parents' corpses. That, at the town we passed on our way, when you were buying food, a group of Wen Sect cultivators caught up. That, I discovered them early and left where I sat, hiding at the corner of the street and didn't get caught, but they were patrolling the streets and would soon run into you outside. That this was why I ran out and distracted them. But just like how the past Wei Wuxian couldn't tell him the truth of giving him his golden core, the current Jiang Cheng wasn't able to say anything either.

This world was neither just nor kind nor good, and you chose to keep fighting or to surrender.

Grief is for the survivors, and I think that, rather than living my life in pain, I would live it in laughter and love. To the fullest.

When Jesus was born, he was already the son of God. I was the daughter of someone who ran away, a big disgrace. And when Jesus suffered, everyone worshipped him. Nobody worshipped me for living with Wen Fu. I was like that wife of Kitchen God. Nobody worshipped me either. He got all the excuses. He got all the credit. She was forgotten.

He wrote her name in wine. So she showered his soul in stardust.

But, in this world, life is a masquerade. Everyone wears masks.

And news flash- not speaking your language- in their own country- doesn't make anyone less intelligent than you

Wen das Wort nicht schlägt, den schlägt auch der Stock nicht.

Lord Chi Wen thought three times before taking any action. When the Master heard this, he said: Twice is plenty enough.

All love stories have much in common. I wen through the same thing at one point in my life. But that's not what I remember. What I remember is that love returned in the form of another man, new hopes, and new dreams.

Fear is dangerous, not the tarot. The tarot represents the spectrum of the human condition, the good, the evil, the light, and the dark. Do not fear the darker aspects of the human condition. Understand them. The tarot is a storybook about life, about the greatness of human accomplishment, and also the ugliness we are each capable of.

I couldn’t be Pillar without you, and I still can’t. We’ve both hurt each other because we were too stubborn about what we expected, and we paid badly for that. But what’s the point of life if we give up on the people we love?” He enfolded her into his arms and stroked her smooth hair. He kissed her on the forehead and cheeks and mouth. “Wen, will you be my Pillarman?

That is because you don't yet know how to deal with time," said Wen. "But I will teach you to deal with time as you would deal with a coat, to be worn when necessary and discarded when not." "Will I have to wash it?" said Clodpool. Wen gave him a long, slow look. "That was either a very complex piece of thinking on your part, Clodpool, or you were just trying to overextend a metaphor in a rather stupid way. Which, do you think, it was?" Clodpool looked at his feet. Then he looked at the sky. Then he looked at Wen. "I think I am stupid, master." "Good," said Wen. "It is fortuitous that you are my apprentice at this time, because if I can teach you, Clodpool, I can teach anyone.

Well it's like eating at my mom's you get what's being served and if you don't like it they still make you eat it

We cannot own each other, Bo. We can only offer what is ours to give.

Hy gododin catann hue Hud a lledrith mal wyddan Gaunce ae bellawn wen cabri Varigal don Fincayra Dravia, dravia Fincayra (Talking trees and walking stones, Giants are the island's bones. While this land our dance still knows, Varigal crowns Fincayra. Live long, live long Fincayra.

understand now that rejecting their wishes is not the same as rejecting them.

Gazing at Wen’s lovely, trusting face, he was struck with remorse that he couldn’t, even with the consuming love he felt for her, promise not to break her heart.

I love you, Lily. Everything you are. I love you." I know those words get thrown around a lot, especially by teenagers. A lot of times prematurely and without much merit. But when he said them to me, I knew he wasn't saying it like he was in love with me. It wasn't that kind of "I love you." Imagine the people you meet in your life. There are so many. They come in like waves, trickling in and out with the tide. Some waves are much bigger and make more of an impact than others. Sometimes the waves bring with them things from deep in the bottom of the sea and they leave those things tossed on the shore. Imprints against the grains of sand that prove the waves had once been there, long after the tide recedes. That was what Atlas was telling me wen he said "I love you." He was letting me know that I was the biggest wave he'd ever come across. And I brought so much with me that my impression would always be there, even when the tide rolled out.

Only loss can teach us the true worth of things.” Linn’s clothes rustled as she knelt before Ana and grasped her hands. “There is nothing we can do but go on, one day at a time. We live in their memory, taking the breaths they cannot draw again, catching the warmth of the sunlight that they were meant to feel.

Tarot is a practice rich with history and cultural knowledge. It is a science of the mind.

When you walk into a room, you have the grace and gravitas of an empress, and I swear, even the Deities must pause to look at you.

You focused on the battle and lost sight of the war.

Master, what is the difference between a humanistic, monastic system of belief in which wisdom is sought by means of an apparently nonsensical system of questions and answers, and a lot of mystic gibberish made up on the spur of the moment?" Wen considered this for some time, and at last said: "A fish!" And Clodpool went away, satisfied.

Never be ashamed of being a learner: Jesus was one at twelve years of age; wen He was found in the temple, He was "sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them, and asking them questions" (Luke 2:46).

Sometimes, Linn thought, bravery was not loud, or grand, or brilliant as the blaze of a thousand fires. Sometimes it was quite. Unremarkable. Unknown. The resilient wend of water through rocks, year after year after year.

Tarot helps us look within ourselves to understand our emotions, the reasoning behind our words and conduct, and the source of our conflicts.

Why give me honey when you knew my future was diabetic?

And the old King said - Wen You want Something, all the Universe conspires in helping You to achieve it !!!- The Alchemist

Just because you have a scar doesn’t mean you have something wrong with you, Wen.

I wish I wen' spend less time being haunted and mo' time facing my pain, so dat way--me an' her--we could have been living wit' his memories instead of hiding from dem.

This isn’t one of the fairy-tale stories you read in your childhood, where the hero always wins in the end. You’ll have many battles to fight, and you won’t win them all. And at the end of every single day, you’ll always face the same choice: keep fighting, or give up.

If I am not the hunter, then I become the hunted.

Was there a word to describe grief so deep that it cleaved you apart, carved a hole inside of you and left you hollow?

We are but dust and stars.

Is that hood always part of your outfit?” “Is ignorance always part of your outfit?

In a conquered land, the only way to win was to survive.

Speaking of which, I also met a teenager that could command silver butterflies around on Mount Yu Jun. Does anyone know who that was?” The lively, bustling chaotic spirit communication array suddenly fell silent the moment those words were out. This kind of reaction, Xie Lian had seen it coming and so he just waited patiently. After a while, Ling Wen finally asked, “Your Highness Crown Prince, what did you just say?” Mu Qing coldly answered for him, “He just said, he met Hua Cheng.” Finally obtaining the name of that red-clothed young man, Xie Lian was ineffably in a good mood. He smiled and said, “So his name is Hua Cheng? Hm, this name suits him quite well.

Power is always borrowed, never created.

And in every iteration of my imagination, Sòng Lián, I am with you.

Don’t go where I can’t follow.

You want me to be the monster? I'll be the monster.

I don't care what baggage they dragged over the ocean. They have no right to make me carry it the rest of my life.

There is good and bad in everything, Ana. And it is the good of this world that makes it worth saving.

It is the duty of those with power to protect those without.

In summers heate and mid-time of the day To rest my limbes upon a bed I lay, One window shut, the other open stood, Which gave such light as twinkles in a wood, Like twilight glimpse at setting of the Sunne, Or night being past, and yet not day begunne. Such light to shamefast maidens must be showne, Where they may sport, and seeme to be unknowne. Then came Corinna in a long loose gowne, Her white neck hid with tresses hanging downe, Resembling fayre Semiramis going to bed, Or Layis of a thousand lovers sped. I snatcht her gowne: being thin, the harme was small, Yet strived she to be covered therewithall. And striving thus as one that would be cast, Betrayde her selfe, and yeelded at the last. Starke naked as she stood before mine eye, Not one wen in her body could I spie. What armes and shoulders did I touch and see, How apt her breasts were to be prest by me. How smooth a belly under her wast saw I, How large a legge, and what a lustie thigh? To leave the rest, all liked me passing well, I clinged her naked body, downe she fell, Judge you the rest, being tirde she bad me kisse; Jove send me more such after-noones as this.

Wir gehen allein durch diese Welt, doch wen wir großes Glück haben, dürfen wir einen Augeblick lenag jemandem gehören, jemandem der uns durch die Einsamkeit trägt, die ein Legen lang andauert! Und für eine Minute habe ich ihn noch einmal berührt, in der Abenddämerung, und mir sind rote Flügel gewachsen, ich war wieder jung im Sommergarten. Ich hatte wieder Hoffnung und das ewige Leben.

I forget what the weather was like that day, probably cloudy with a chance of emotion. All I remember is that it was windy; it was the type of wind that would blow your words in the opposite direction so they would never be heard.

Wen grinned and I felt a warm glow and an odd dizzy sensation. And then I remembered something my dad once wrote me about falling in love. He said the phrase was apt because falling is exactly what it can feel like, as if you've finally allowed yourself to let go of some safety bar you didn't even know you were clinging to, and suddenly you find yourself tumbling towards the exciting unknown.

Im Geiste rückte Helen noch näher an das Liebespaar heran, obwohl sie längst wusste, wen die andere Helen gerade küsste. Lucas. Er hatte ein Schwert am Gürtel und war seltsam gekleidet. Er trug Sandalen und seien Hände waren mit abgewetzten Lederstreifen, über denen er Bronzehandschuhe trug. Doch es war eindeutig Lucas. Das bewies auch sein Lachen, als die andere Helen ihn mit Küssen überschüttete.

Not gonna lie, Your Highness. Every time I see you now, I feel anxious and my body tenses, like whoever walks next to you will have something happen to them. So when I see you walking with Ling Wen, my heartbeat quickened. Ling Wen, you best be careful for the next little while.

And from that time on the boys were no longer called Elder and Younger, but they were given school names by the old teacher, and this old man, after inquiring into the occupation of their father, erected two names for the sons; for the elder, Nung En, and for the second Nung Wen, and the first word of each name signified one whose wealth is from the earth.

Over. Done. Gone.

Just because we haven’t seen a dragon, doesn’t mean dragons don’t exist.” Louise stated the logic of why the scientists were reluctant to commit to a theory.

Every day I try to fight my own brokenness. But once you are forgotten, it's not so bad: a heart broken joins another chorus.

I know how it feels, to be trapped. But if there is anything I have learned, it is that you can always make a choice.

We will pick our way through the shards of broken objects folly leaves behind. And some of what breaks will be very beautiful.

Choices are for those with privilege.

...I've been ripped off, lied to, slandered, gossiped about slapped, falsely accused, and had my truths not believed. I've had my heart broken, had my pride stomped on, witnessed unforgivable acts, and heard words that hurt so much I withed that they would not replay in my head, but they did. In all these moments--some tear-soaked, some life-defining, but all character-building moments--I have felt vulnerable. And I believe these feelings of vulnerability--when a person feels scared and alone and overwhelmed and pissed off, wen the sting of unfairness bites deep--while miserable to live through, are the basis for writing compelling fiction.

I’ve been lucky enough to cross paths with these angels who seem to brush the dust off my wings so effortlessly. These wonderful people I don’t and will never know. I want to be one of them. I want to be many of them. Radiating, resonating, finding lost souls and then exhaling magic.

It was all horribly ironic that she felt like she would need to be insane to believe the proof that she had never been crazy.

Wen considered the nature of time and understood that the universe is, instant by instant, recreated anew. Therefore, he understood, there is, in truth, no past, only a memory of the Past. Blink your eyes, and the world you see next did not exist when you closed them. Therefore, he said, the only appropriate state of the mind is surprise. The only appropriate state of the heart is joy. The sky you see now, you have never seen before. The perfect moment is now. Be glad of it.

Odd, the words: ‘while away the time’. How to hold it fast the harder thing. Who is not fearful: where is there a staying, where in all this is there any being? Look, as the day slows towards the space that draws it into dusk: rising became upstanding, standing a laying down, and then that which accepts its lying blurs to darkness. Mountains rest, outgloried be the stars - but even there, time’s transition glimmers. Ah, nightly refuged in my wild heart, roofless, the imperishable lingers. --- Wunderliches Wort: die Zeit vertreiben! Sie zu halten, wäre das Problem. Denn, wen ängstigts nicht: wo ist ein Bleiben, wo ein endlich Sein in alledem? - Sieh, der Tag verlangsamt sich, entgegen jenem Raum, der ihn nach Abend nimmt: Aufstehn wurde Stehn, und Stehn wird Legen, und das willig Liegende verschwimmt - Berge ruhn, von Sternen überprächtigt; - aber auch in ihnen flimmert Zeit. Ach, in meinem wilden Herzen nächtigt obdachlos die Unvergänglichkeit.

What use are tears? Ying had murmured to her once, back when they had just crossed their twelfth cycle of life and the wounds of Lan’s losses still cut deep every night. The dead will neither feel them nor be called by them. Grief is for the survivors, and I think that, rather than living my life in pain, I would live it in laughter and love. To the fullest.

There was an old Taoist who lived in a village in ancient China, named Master Hu. Hu loved God and God loved Hu, and whatever God did was fine with Hu, and whatever Hu did was fine with God. They were friends. They were such good friends that they kidded around. Hu would do stuff to God like call him "The Great Clod." That's how he kidded. That was fine with God. God would turn around and do stuff to Hu like give him warts on his face, wens on his head, arthritis in his hands, a hunch in his back, canker sores in his mouth and gout in his feet. That's how He kidded. That God. What a kidder! But it was fine with Hu. Master Hu grew lumpy as a toad; he grew crooked as cherry wood; he became a human pretzel. "You Clod!" he'd shout at God, laughing. That was fine with God. He'd send Hu a right leg ten inches shorter than the left to show He was listening. And Hu would laugh some more and walk around in little circles, showing off his short leg, saying to the villagers, "Haha! See how the Great Clod listens! How lumpy and crookedy and ugly He is making me! He makes me laugh and laugh! That's what a Friend is for!" And the people of the village would look at him and wag their heads: sure enough, old Hu looked like an owl's nest; he looked like a swamp; he looked like something the dog rolled in. And he winked at his people and looked up at God and shouted, "Hey Clod! What next?" And splot! Out popped a fresh wart. The people wagged their heads till their tongues wagged too. They said, "Poor Master Hu has gone crazy." And maybe he had. Maybe God sent down craziness along with the warts and wens and hunch and gout. What did Hu care? It was fine with him. He loved God and God loved Hu, and Hu was the crookedest, ugliest, happiest old man in all the empire till the day he whispered, Hey Clod! What now? and God took his line in hand and drew him right into Himself. That was fine with Hu. That's what a Friend is for.

Papa had once told her, after Mama’s death, that there were two types of grief. One was the type that crushed you, that broke your soul and shattered your heart, and left you an empty shell. The other was a grief that made you stronger. You rose from it, you sharpened it, and you carried it with you as a piece of your armor. And you made yourself better. In that way, you never truly lost that person. You carried them with you.

There was a time when wen we did not form all our words as we do now, in writing on a page. There was a time when the word "&" was written with several distinct & separate letters. It seems madness now. But there it is, & there is nothing we can do about it. Humanity learned to ride the rails, & that motion made us what we are, a ferromaritime people. The lines of the railsea go everywhere but from one place straight to another. It is always switchback, junction, coils around & over our own train-trails. What word better could there be to symbolize the railsea that connects & separates all lands, than “&” itself? Where else does the railsea take us, but to one place & that one & that one & that one, & so on? & what better embodies, in the sweep of the pen, the recurved motion of trains, than “&”? An efficient route from where we start to where we end would make the word the tiniest line. But it takes a veering route, up & backwards, overshooting & correcting, back down again south & west, crossing its own earlier path, changing direction, another overlap, to stop, finally, a few hairs’ width from where we began. & tacks & yaws, switches on its way to where it’s going, as we all must do.

I’m so sick of these wussy princesses and evil women. We’ve done the evil witches of Sleeping Beauty and Rapunzel, the evil queen of Snow White and the evil stepmother of Cinderella. Is this some kind of campaign against femininity? Our choices are the evil and usually ugly powerful female or the helpless princess, desired just for her beauty? And what the heck is this shit about evil stepmothers anyway?

But you must remember that, should you choose to live, you do not live only for yourself.” He made a gesture as though to touch his heart. “You live for those you have lost. You carry their legacies inside you. You see, the Elantians destroyed everything that made the roots of our kingdom: our culture, our education, our families and principles. They wish to take us out on our knees, to subdue us so that we will never lift our heads again. “But what they do not know is that, so long as we live on, we carry inside us all that they have destroyed. And that is our triumph; that is our rebellion.” Rain clung to his lashes as neither of them broke their gaze. “Do not let them win today.

Seele im Raum Hier bin ich, hier bin ich, Entrungene, taumelnd. Wag ichs denn? Werf ich mich? Fähige waren schon viel dort, wo ich drängte. Nun wo auch noch die Mindesten restlos Macht vollziehn, schweigend vor Meisterschaft —: Wag ichs denn ? Werf ich mich? Zwar ich ertrug, vom befangenen Körper aus, Nächte; ja, ich befreundete ihn, den irdenen, mit der Unendlichkeit; schluchzend überfloß, das ich hob, sein schmuckloses Herz. Aber nun, wem zeig ichs, daß ich die Seele bin? Wen wunderts? Plötzlich soll ich die Ewige sein, nicht mehr am Gegensatz haftend, nicht mehr Trösterin; fühlend mit nichts als Himmeln. Kaum noch geheim; denn unter den offenen allen Geheimnissen eines, ein ängstliches. O wie durchgehn sich die großen Umarmungen. Welche wird mich umfangen, welche mich weiter geben, mich, linkisch Umarmende? Oder vergaß ich und kanns? Vergaß den erschöpflichen Aufruhr jener Schwerliebenden? Staun', stürze aufwärts und kanns?

As a matter of fact, I fucked someone else last night." I physically flinched at his words, my body jerking back, my knees almost giving out, my eyes wide, and my mouth open in horror. And then the worst happened. I began to cry. Through my tears I saw Braden's lips pinch together and he took two steps towards me, his whole body bristling. "I fucking knew it," he hissed, still coming toward me. "Don't touch me?" I yelled, not able to bear the thought of him near me now. "Don't touch you?" He snarled, his eyes sparking violently. "I'm going to kill you!" ... "Babe," his voice rumbled, the tenderness back, although I could still see the annoyance in his eyes. "I was so pissed off last night when you broke up with me, so I just walked away. I went to Elodie's because I knew she'd be awake worrying about Ellie and I wanted to see if she was okay. She knew something was wrong with me as soon as she let me in. I told her what had happened and she told me what she said to you at the wedding, and she also told me that wen she said that to you, you looked like you'd been slapped. And after, when we were dancing, she realized she was wrong about you." He let go of my wrists to slide his hands into my hair, tilting my head back so I couldn't look away. "I spent last night govern over and over the last six months in my head and I know you're lying to me. I know you love me, Jocelyn, because there's no fucking way I can be this in love with you, and not have you feel the same way.

I was wondering where the real party was." I jumped, sending my pencil in a sharp line across the page. Alex was standing two feet away, one booted foot on my step, hands thrust into the pockets of what looked too much like Emo pants: black and tight. "Sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to surprise you." "You didn't surprise me," I gasped, left hand plastered to my chest. "You scared the crap out of me. Who raised you? Wolves?" He actually grinned. "You've met my parents. What do you think?" I wasn't going to touch that one. I just shrugged. "Why aren't you inside?" he asked after a few seconds. "It was too hot," I lied, closing my sketchbook as casually as I could. "Oppressive.Why aren't you?" "It was too...God, I don't know. Oppressive's a good word. Some fresh air seemed like a good idea." I looked past him, relieved not to see anyone else there. "All by yourself? That's...bold." His brows wen up. For a second, I thought he was going to turn around and leave. Instead,he took his hands out of his pockets and pointed at my step. "Big words for a small person. Can I sit down?" I swallowed. "Sure." He did, ending up with his elbows resting on his thighs and his right knee not quite touching mine. The silence went on just long enough to make in uncomfortable. But I wasn't going to help him with his small talk. I'm not very good at it in the best of circumstances. Sitting almost thigh to thigh with a guy who turned me into a mental pretzel was nowhere near a good circumstance.