Wrapped Up In Yourself Quotes

You think because he doesn't love you that you are worthless. You think that because he doesn't want you anymore that he is right -- that his judgement and opinion of you are correct. If he throws you out, then you are garbage. You think he belongs to you because you want to belong to him. Don't. It's a bad word, 'belong.' Especially when you put it with somebody you love. Love shouldn't be like that. Did you ever see the way the clouds love a mountain? They circle all around it; sometimes you can't even see the mountain for the clouds. But you know what? You go up top and what do you see? His head. The clouds never cover the head. His head pokes through, beacuse the clouds let him; they don't wrap him up. They let him keep his head up high, free, with nothing to hide him or bind him. You can't own a human being. You can't lose what you don't own. Suppose you did own him. Could you really love somebody who was absolutely nobody without you? You really want somebody like that? Somebody who falls apart when you walk out the door? You don't, do you? And neither does he. You're turning over your whole life to him. Your whole life, girl. And if it means so little to you that you can just give it away, hand it to him, then why should it mean any more to him? He can't value you more than you value yourself.

Loneliness is a strange sort of thing. It creeps on you, quiet and still, sits by your side in the dark, strokes by your hair as you sleep. It wraps itself around your bones, squeezing so tight you almost can't breathe. It leaves lies in your heart, lies next to you at night, leaches the light out of every corner. It's a constant companion, clasping your hand only to yank you down when you're struggling to stand up. You wake up in the morning and wonder who you are. You fail to fall asleep at night and tremble in your skin. You doubt you doubt you doubt. do I don't I should I why won't I And even when you're ready to let go. When you're ready to break free. When you're ready to be brand-new. Loneliness is an old friend stand beside you in the mirror, looking you in the eye, challenging you to live your life without it. You can't find the words to fight yourself, to fight the words screaming that you're not enough never enough never ever enough. Loneliness is a bitter, wretched companion. Sometimes it just won't let go.

I don't know you. The only thing I know about you is, you're reading this. I don't know if your happy or not; I don't know whether you're young or not. I sort of hope you're young and sad. If you're old and happy, I can imagine that you'll smile to yourself when you hear me going, he broke my heart. You'll remember someone who broke your heart, and you'll think to yourself, Oh yes, i remember how that feels. But you can't, you smug old git. Oh you'll remember feeling sort of plesantly sad. You might remember listening to music and eating chocolates in your room, or walking along the embankment on your own, wrapped up in a winter coat and feeling lonely and brave. But can you remember how with every mouthful of food it felt like you were biting into your own stomach? Can you remember the taste of red wine as it came back up and into the toilet bowl? Can you remember dreaming every night that you were still together, that he was talking to you gently and touching you, so that every morning when you woke up you had to go through it all over again?

Well—I have to say I personally have never drawn such a sharp line between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ as you. For me: that line is often false. The two are never disconnected. One can’t exist without the other. As long as I am acting out of love, I feel I am doing best I know how. But you—wrapped up in judgment, always regretting the past, cursing yourself, blaming yourself, asking ‘what if,’ ‘what if.’ ‘Life is cruel.’ ‘I wish I had died instead of.’ Well—think about this. What if all your actions and choices, good or bad, make no difference to God? What if the pattern is pre-set? No no—hang on—this is a question worth struggling with. What if our badness and mistakes are the very thing that set our fate and bring us round to good? What if, for some of us, we can’t get there any other way?

Each moment embrace or more so cherish. As gentle the wind blows,” “wrap yourself within its flow.

You are not an option, a choice or a soft place to land after a long battle. You were meant to be the one. If you can wrap yourself around the idea that you are something incredible, then you will stop excusing behavior that rapes your very soul. You were never meant to teach someone to love you. You were meant to be loved.

Some people think they can find satisfaction in good food, fine clothes, lively music, and sexual pleasure. However, when they have all these things, they are not satisfied. They realize happiness is not simply having their material needs met. Thus, society has set up a system of rewards that go beyond material goods. These include titles, social recognition, status, and political power, all wrapped up in a package called self-fulfillment. Attracted by these prizes and goaded on by social pressure, people spend their short lives tiring body and mind to chase after these goals. Perhaps this gives them the feeling that they have achieved something in their lives, but in reality they have sacrificed a lot in life. They can no longer see, hear, act, feel, or think from their hearts. Everything they do is dictated by whether it can get them social gains. In the end, they've spent their lives following other people's demands and never lived a life of their own. How different is this from the life of a slave or a prisoner?

The hole in my heart, I can’t even begin to describe. It’s hard when you open your heart and let someone in and then suddenly they’re not in it anymore. It doesn’t matter whose fault it is; that empty spot stings so bad that you want to find any kind of relief, or wrap yourself up so tight you can’t feel it anymore. I knew it might be there a little while. Or maybe even a long while. For both of us.

Congratulations," he said, his voice dry. "You finally managed to find a woman as tragically noble as yourself. I didn't think one existed." "I'm not tragic." Kaldar held up his hand. "Spare me. Some children are born wearing a silk shirt; you were born wrapped in melancholy. When they slapped you to make you cry, you just sighed heavily and a single tear rolled from your eye." He dragged his finger from the corner of his left eye to his cheek. " Your first words were probably 'woe is me.'" "My first words were 'Kaldar, shut up!' because you talked too much. Still do.

I'll tell you how the sun rose A ribbon at a time... It's a living book, this life; it folds out in a million settings, cast with a billion beautiful characters, and it is almost over for you. It doesn't matter how old you are; it is coming to a close quickly, and soon the credits will roll and all your friends will fold out of your funeral and drive back to their homes in cold and still and silence. And they will make a fire and pour some wine and think about how you once were . . . and feel a kind of sickness at the idea you never again will be. So soon you will be in that part of the book where you are holding the bulk of the pages in your left hand, and only a thin wisp of the story in your right. You will know by the page count, not by the narrative, that the Author is wrapping things up. You begin to mourn its ending, and want to pace yourself slowly toward its closure, knowing the last lines will speak of something beautiful, of the end of something long and earned, and you hope the thing closes out like last breaths, like whispers about how much and who the characters have come to love, and how authentic the sentiments feel when they have earned a hundred pages of qualification. And so my prayer is that your story will have involved some leaving and some coming home, some summer and some winter, some roses blooming out like children in a play. My hope is your story will be about changing, about getting something beautiful born inside of you, about learning to love a woman or a man, about learning to love a child, about moving yourself around water, around mountains, around friends, about learning to love others more than we love ourselves, about learning oneness as a way of understanding God. We get one story, you and I, and one story alone. God has established the elements, the setting and the climax and the resolution. It would be a crime not to venture out, wouldn't it?

So much emotion wrapped up in weakness, leading you to attempt the impossible, lying to yourself, time and time again. Hope, I think you call it.

And yet, you're still alone. All that trying and still you stand apart, watching from the other side of the glass. Afraid to have what you truly want because what if it's not enough after all? So much better to wrap yourself up in the longing. The yearning. The restlessness. Poor Gemma. She doesn't quite fit, does she? Poor Gemma--all alone.

Yes, you make yourself useful, angel boy. Meanwhile, I’ll be in the bathroom.” William’s jet-black hair was dripping wet and plastered to his face. There was a fluffy white towel wrapped around his waist, displaying muscles that rivaled Paris’s own, and a tattooed treasure map that led to his man junk. Looking at his, you could see the makings of a temper so savage anyone who miraculously survived an encounter with him would end up needing therapy. And diapers. “I’ve got to finish deep conditioning my hair.” Or maybe not so savage.

What was she thinking?” muttered Alexander, closing his eyes and imagining his Tania. “She was determined. It was like some kind of a personal crusade with her,” Ina said. “She gave the doctor a liter of blood for you—” “Where did she get it from?” “Herself, of course.” Ina smiled. “Lucky for you, Major, our Nurse Metanova is a universal donor.” Of course she is, thought Alexander, keeping his eyes tightly shut. Ina continued. “The doctor told her she couldn’t give any more, and she said a liter wasn’t enough, and he said, ‘Yes, but you don’t have more to give,’ and she said, ‘I’ll make more,’ and he said, ‘No,’ and she said, ‘Yes,’ and in four hours, she gave him another half-liter of blood.” Alexander lay on his stomach and listened intently while Ina wrapped fresh gauze on his wound. He was barely breathing. “The doctor told her, ‘Tania, you’re wasting your time. Look at his burn. It’s going to get infected.’ There wasn’t enough penicillin to give to you, especially since your blood count was so low.” Alexander heard Ina chuckle in disbelief. “So I’m making my rounds late that night, and who do I find next to your bed? Tatiana. She’s sitting with a syringe in her arm, hooked up to a catheter, and I watch her, and I swear to God, you won’t believe it when I tell you, Major, but I see that the catheter is attached to the entry drip in your IV.” Ina’s eyes bulged. “I watch her draining blood from the radial artery in her arm into your IV. I ran in and said, ‘Are you crazy? Are you out of your mind? You’re siphoning blood from yourself into him?’ She said to me in her calm, I-won’t-stand-for-any-argument voice, ‘Ina, if I don’t, he will die.’ I yelled at her. I said, ‘There are thirty soldiers in the critical wing who need sutures and bandages and their wounds cleaned. Why don’t you take care of them and let God take care of the dead?’ And she said, ‘He’s not dead. He is still alive, and while he is alive, he is mine.’ Can you believe it, Major? But that’s what she said. ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ I said to her. ‘Fine, die yourself. I don’t care.’ But the next morning I went to complain to Dr. Sayers that she wasn’t following procedure, told him what she had done, and he ran to yell at her.” Ina lowered her voice to a sibilant, incredulous whisper. “We found her unconscious on the floor by your bed. She was in a dead faint, but you had taken a turn for the better. All your vital signs were up. And Tatiana got up from the floor, white as death itself, and said to the doctor coldly, ‘Maybe now you can give him the penicillin he needs?’ I could see the doctor was stunned. But he did. Gave you penicillin and more plasma and extra morphine. Then he operated on you, to get bits of the shell fragment out of you, and saved your kidney. And stitched you. And all that time she never left his side, or yours. He told her your bandages needed to be changed every three hours to help with drainage, to prevent infection. We had only two nurses in the terminal wing, me and her. I had to take care of all the other patients, while all she did was take care of you. For fifteen days and nights she unwrapped you and cleaned you and changed your dressings. Every three hours. She was a ghost by the end. But you made it. That’s when we moved you to critical care. I said to her, ‘Tania, this man ought to marry you for what you did for him,’ and she said, ‘You think so?’ ” Ina tutted again. Paused. “Are you all right, Major? Why are you crying?

Novels are forged in passion, demand fidelity and commitment, often drive you to boredom or rage, sleep with you at night. They are the long haul. They are marriage. Stories, on the other hand, you can lose yourself in for a few weeks and then wrap up, or grow tired of and abandon and (maybe) return to later. They can cuddle you sweetly, or make you get on your knees and beg.

When you get older, you notice your sheets are dirty. Sometimes, you do something about it. And sometimes, you read the front page of the newspaper and sometimes you floss and sometimes you stop biting your nails and sometimes you meet a friend for lunch. You still crave lemonade, but the taste doesn’t satisfy you as much as it used to. You still crave summer, but sometimes you mean summer, five years ago. You remember your umbrella, you check up on people to see if they got home, you leave places early to go home and make toast. You stand by the toaster in your underwear and a big t-shirt, wondering if you should just turn in or watch one more hour of television. You laugh at different things. You stop laughing at other things. You think about old loves almost like they are in a museum. The socks, you notice, aren’t organized into pairs and you mentally make a note of it. You cover your mouth when you sneeze, reaching for the box of tissues you bought, contains aloe. When you get older, you try different shampoos. You find one you like. You try sleeping early and spin class and jogging again. You try a book you almost read but couldn’t finish. You wrap yourself in the blankets of: familiar t-shirts, caffe au lait, dim tv light, texts with old friends or new people you really want to like and love you. You lose contact with friends from college, and only sometimes you think about it. When you do, it feels bad and almost bitter. You lose people, and when other people bring them up, you almost pretend like you know what they are doing. You try to stop touching your face and become invested in things like expensive salads and trying parsnips and saving up for a vacation you really want. You keep a spare pen in a drawer. You look at old pictures of yourself and they feel foreign and misleading. You forget things like: purchasing stamps, buying more butter, putting lotion on your elbows, calling your mother back. You learn things like balance: checkbooks, social life, work life, time to work out and time to enjoy yourself. When you get older, you find yourself more in control. You find your convictions appealing, you find you like your body more, you learn to take things in stride. You begin to crave respect and comfort and adventure, all at the same time. You lay in your bed, fearing death, just like you did. You pull lint off your shirt. You smile less and feel content more. You think about changing and then often, you do.

—Dedalus, you're an antisocial being, wrapped up in yourself. I'm not. I'm a democrat and I'll work and act for social liberty and equality among all classes and sexes in the United States of the Europe of the future.

I thought of telling him I didn't know about reasons, only about chains—how they form themselves, link by link, out of nothing; how they knit themselves into the world. Sometimes you can grab a chain and use it to pull yourself out of a dark place. Mostly, though, I think you get wrapped up in them. Just caught, if you're lucky. Fucking strangled, if you're not.

What did you wrap around your heart to protect yourself, beautiful girl? I see you unwrap it, whatever it is you have around your heart, so I know it’s there. You change when you are with your friends, with Aiden, but as soon as you can, you wrap it back up. I hope it’s not a steel cage, Lucy. I hope you’re being gentle with your heart, taking care of it for me.

Anger was beautiful, because its core was the absence of all doubt. When anger wrapped you up in yourself and you knew that you were right and righteous—that the very universe was in agreement with you—at that moment you were a god, and anyone who crossed you or disagreed with you was worse than wrong, they were heretics, apostates, twisted in the very womb.

Love is anxiety's greatest killer. Love is an outward force. It is our road out of our own terrors, because anxiety is an illness that wraps us up in our own nightmares. [...] Forcing yourself to see the world through love's gaze can be healthy. Love is an attitude to life. It can save us.

It was a nice kind of quiet. The kind you could wrap yourself up in like a blanket.

Picture each worry like a gift. Put them in order, from the mildest to the most intense. Imagine yourself picking up each one and wrapping it with care. Picture yourself placing the gift under a tree, and then walking away.

Then the person I least expected to take my side strolled into the kitchen, wearing nothing but a bed sheet wrapped around his hips. "Why do you bother, Crispin? You married a fighter, so stop trying to convince her that the sidelines suit her better." "The day you love anyone but yourself is the day I'll take your marital advice, Ian," Bones bit back in an icy tone. "Then today is that day," Ian replied sharply, "for I love you, you wretched, pig-headed guttersnipe. I also love that arrogant, overprivileged dandy smirking at us"—a wave indicted Spade, whose aforementioned smirk vanished—"as well as the emotionally fractured, malfunctioning psychic who sired me. And you, Crispin, love a bloodthirsty hellion who's probably killed more people in her thirty years than I have in over two centuries of living, so again I say, don't bother trying to convince her that she isn't who she is.

I had no idea kissing felt like this. Sensory overload. At some point, Ren reluctantly let me down. He still supported my weight, which was good because I was ready to fall over. He cupped my cheek and ran a thumb slowly across my bottom lip. He stood close to me, keeping one arm wrapped around my waist. His other hand moved to my hair, and his fingers began to slowly twist the loose strands. I had to blink my eyes a few times to clear my vision. He laughed quietly. “Breathe, Kelsey.” He had a very self-satisfied, smug grin on his face, which, for some reason, got my ire up. “You seem very happy with yourself.” He raised an eyebrow. “I am.” I smirked back to him and said, “Well, you didn’t ask for permission.” “Hmm, perhaps we should rectify that.” He trailed his fingers up my arm, swirling little circles as he went. “Kelsey?” I watched his progress and mumbled, distracted, “Yes?” He stepped closer. “Do I-“ “Hmm?” I wiggled slightly. “Have your-“ He started nuzzling my neck then moved up to my ear. His lips ticked me as he whispered, and I felt him smile, “Permission-“ Goose bumps broke out on my arms and I trembled. “To kiss you?” I nodded weakly. Standing on my tiptoes, I slipped my arms around his neck showing him that I was definitely giving permission. He trailed kisses from my ear across to my cheek in achingly slow motion, grazing along a path of his choosing. He stopped, hovering just over my lips, and waited. I knew what he was waiting for. I paused only a brief second before whispering faintly, “Yes.” Smiling victoriously, he crushed me against his chest and kissed me again. This time, the kiss was bolder and playful. I ran my hands from his powerful shoulders, up to his neck, and pressed him close to me.

I thought to myself how we were so wrapped up in this animal act, that he couldn’t care less about his tea shop business, and I couldn’t care less about my job. That’s real sex that is, real passion: where you abandon all your boringly sensible thoughts, and all that tediously responsible side of yourself, as you give yourself to what you know really matters more, deep in the core of you: frantic sex.

only moment you have for certain. I hope you aren’t so wrapped up in nonessential stuff that you forget to really enjoy yourself—because this moment is about to be over.

There is much in life that is beyond our control, events that sweep us up and along, actions that wrap us tight in their consequences. Stop raging about the things you cannot change. Just be true to yourself and do what you can do. Love those worth loving, and to the Otherworld with the rest of it. That is all any of us can do.

I’m always proud of you.” She wraps her hand around mine. “I trust you. The only person whose expectations you have to live up to is yourself.” . . . “I want you to find what makes you happy.

If you stumble, find the root cause and move on. Don’t let yourself get wrapped up in guilt, anger, or frustration, because these emotions will only drag you further down and impede future progress. Learn from your missteps and forgive yourself. Then get your head back in the game and violently execute.

In my restless dreams, I see that town. Silent Hill. You promised me you'd take me there again someday. But because of me, you were never able to. Well, I'm alone there now… In our ”“special place.” Waiting for you… Waiting for you to come to see me. But you never do. And so I wait, wrapped in my cocoon of pain and loneliness. I know I've done a terrible thing to you. Something you'll never forgive me for. I wish I could change that, but I can't. I feel so pathetic and ugly lying here, waiting for you... Every day I stare up at the cracks in the ceiling, and all I can think about is how unfair it all is... The doctor came today. He told me I could go home for a short stay. It's not that I'm getting better. It's just that this may be my last chance... I think you know what I mean... Even so, I'm glad to be coming home. I've missed you terribly. But I'm afraid James. I'm    afraid you don't really want me to come home. Whenever you come see me, I can tell how hard it is on you... I don't know if you hate me or pity me... Or maybe I just disgust you.... I'm sorry about that. When I first learned that I was going to die, I just didn't want to accept it. I was so angry all the time, and I struck out at everyone I loved most. Especially you, James. That's why I understand if you do hate me. But I want you to know this, James. I'll always love you. Even though our life together had to end like this, I still wouldn't trade it for the world. We had some wonderful years together. Well, this letter has gone on too long, so I'll say goodbye. I told the nurse to give this to you after I'm gone. That means that when you read this, I'll already be dead. I can't tell you to remember me, but I can't bear for you to forget me. These last few years since I became ill...I'm so sorry for what I did to you, did to us... You've given me so much and I haven't been able to return a single thing. That's why I want you to live for yourself now. Do what's best for you, James. James... You made me happy. “I love you, Mary.”  As the car began to slowly sink to the bottom of the lake, James pulled his wife close and gently held her. Their wish had finally come true. They would be together. And now they had an eternity to enjoy their happiness.

Breakfast! My favorite meal- and you can be so creative. I think of bowls of sparkling berries and fresh cream, baskets of Popovers and freshly squeezed orange juice, thick country bacon, hot maple syrup, panckes and French toast - even the nutty flavor of Irish oatmeal with brown sugar and cream. Breaksfast is the place I splurge with calories, then I spend the rest of the day getting them off! I love to use my prettiest table settings - crocheted placemats with lace-edged napkins and old hammered silver. And whether you are inside in front of a fire, candles burning brightly on a wintery day - or outside on a patio enjoying the morning sun - whether you are having a group of friends and family, a quiet little brunch for two, or an even quieter little brunch just for yourself, breakfast can set the mood and pace of the whole day. And Sunday is my day. Sometimes I think we get caught up in the hectic happenings of the weeks and months and we forget to take time out to relax. So one Sunday morning I decided to do things differently - now it's gotten to be a sort of ritual! This is what I do: at around 8:30 am I pull myself from my warm cocoon, fluff up the pillows and blankets and put some classical music on the stereo. Then I'm off to the kitchen, where I very calmly (so as not to wake myself up too much!) prepare my breakfast, seomthing extra nice - last week I had fresh pineapple slices wrapped in bacon and broiled, a warm croissant, hot chocolate with marshmallows and orange juice. I put it all on a tray with a cloth napkin, my book-of-the-moment and the "Travel" section of the Boston Globe and take it back to bed with me. There I spend the next two hours reading, eating and dreaming while the snowflakes swirl through the treetops outside my bedroom window. The inspiring music of Back or Vivaldi adds an exquisite elegance to the otherwise unruly scene, and I am in heaven. I found time to get in touch with myself and my life and i think this just might be a necessity! Please try it for yourself, and someone you love.

When I open the door, Baz is wheeling an old-fashioned chalkboard in front of our beds. “Where did that come from?” I ask. “A classroom.” “Yeah, but how did it get up here?” “It flew.” “No,” I say, “seriously.” He rolls his eyes. “I Up, up and away-ed it. It wasn’t much work.” “Why?” “Because we’re solving a mystery, Snow. I like to organize my thoughts.” “Is this how you normally plot my downfall?” “Yes. With multicoloured pieces of chalk. Stop complaining.” He opens up his book bag and takes out a few apples and things wrapped in greaseproof paper. “Eat,” he says, throwing one at me. It’s a bacon roll. He’s also got a pot of tea. “What’s all this?” I say. “Tea, obviously. I know you can’t function unless you’re stuffing yourself.” I unwrap the roll and decide to take a bite. “Thanks.” “Don’t thank me,” he says. “It sounds wrong.” “Not as wrong as you bringing me bacon butties.” “Fine, you’re welcome—when’s Bunce getting here?” “Why would she?” “Because you do everything together, don’t you? When you said you’d help, I was counting on you bringing your smarter half.

My god, I hope you find love. And I don’t just mean that in regards to someone you wrap your tired bones around at night. I mean that I hope you find love in every aspect of your life. I hope you find it tucked into early morning sunrises and the smell of your favorite places. I hope you find it strung between the laughter you share with friends I hope it bounces off of you when you hug the people you care for I hope it swells within your rib cage whenever you hear your favorite song or discover something that moves you. I hope you fall in love with growth, and change, and the messiness, and the beauty of fucking up, and making mistakes, and becoming exactly who you want to be. I hope you find love in places that were once devoid of it, in places within yourself that you could have been softer to, kinder to, in the past. Because if there is one thing I have learned, it is that love is so much more than a boy or a girl who holds your heart. Love is everything around you. It is everything.

I'll be your blanket, baby. Wrap yourself up in me. Let me give you shelter, in the winter of this world.

Yes, I thought. That is how life feels too often. Like you're doing everything you can to survive only to be sabotaged by something beyond your control, maybe even some darker part of yourself. Sometimes, it was your body. Your cells turning into poison and fighting against you. Or chronic pain sprouting up your neck and wrapping around the outsides of your scalp until it felt like fingernails sinking into your brain. Sometimes, it was lust or heartbreak or loneliness or fear driving you off the road toward something you'd spent months of years avoiding. Actively fighting against. At least the last thing they'd seen, the meteor streaming toward Earth, had distracted them because of its beauty. They hadn't been afraid. They'd been mesmerised. Maybe that was all you could hope for in life.

There is only one invitation it would kill me to refuse, yet I'm tempted to turn it down all the time. I get the invitation every morning when I wake up to actually live a life of complete engagement, a life of whimsy, a life where love does. It doesn't come in an envelope. It's ushered in by a sunrise, the sound of a bird, or the smell of coffee drifting lazily from the kitchen. It's the invitation to actually live, to fully participate in this amazing life for one more day. Nobody turns down an invitation to the White House, but I've seen plenty of people turn down an invitation to fully live. Turning down this invitation comes in lots of flavors. It looks like numbing yourself or distracting yourself or seeing something really beautiful as normal. It can also look like refusing to forgive or not being grateful or getting wrapped around the axle with fear or envy. I think every day God sends us an invitation to live and sometimes we forget to show up or get head-faked into thinking we haven't really been invited. But you see, we have been invited -- every day, all over again

Life is so fragile and unpredictable, especially when you are in a gang or in a life of crime. It’s like playing poker; you think to yourself that you have a good hand. However, it is only when you reveal your hand do you sometimes discover to your horror that someone else’s hand is better.

Have a father who lived up to his own promise and then found thing after thing to meet and surpass the expectations of his promise in, and didn't seem just a whole hell of a lot happier or tighter wrapped than his own failed father, leaving you yourself in a kind of feral and flux-ridden state with respect to talent.

He felt her shift her weight, felt them both teeter, and then they were tumbling into the pool beneath them. Locked together, they went to the bottom, their mouths clinging to one another, their shared laughter in their minds. He kicked his legs strongly as she wrapped hers around his waist. Their heads broke the surface, sending rings of ripples skipping over the water. She was laughing, catching his face in her hands. “You are so incredibly romantic, Jacques, I can barely catch my breath here.” His hands moved up to catch her buttocks, to massage suggestively. He raised one eyebrow. “Are you saying this was my fault? Woman, I never lose my balance. I needed to follow you into the water to keep you from embarrassing yourself.

Turning down this invitation comes in lots of flavors. It looks like numbing yourself or distracting yourself or seeing something really beautiful as just normal. It can also look like refusing to forgive or not being grateful or getting wrapped around the axle with fear or envy. I think every day God sends us an invitation to live and sometimes we forget to show up or get head-fakes into thinking we haven't really been invited. But you see, we have been invited - every day, all over again.

There is something about yourself that you don't know. Something that you will deny even exists until it's too late to do anything about it. It's the only reason you get up in the morning, the only reason you suffer the shitty boss, the blood, the sweat and the tears. This is because you want people to know how good, attractive, generous, funny, wild and clever you really are. "Fear or revere me, but please think I'm special." We share an addiction. We're approval junkies. We're all in it for the slap on the back and the gold watch. The "hip, hip, hoo-fucking-rah." Look at the clever boy with the badge, polishing his trophy. Shine on, you crazy diamond. Cos we're just monkeys wrapped in suits, begging for the approval of others.

Even after your heart breaks into a million pieces and your baby is gone, l am here to tell you all around you the world will still go on spinning. People might even say kind words to you and think you are listening but mostly you won't hear anything because your too busy collecting each of those tiny pieces of your heart. Wrapping them up into a safe corner of yourself, so you can find them again later.

I loved every bit of this season—when the air turned crisp and you could pull all the warm sweaters out of the back of your closet. It felt like the equivalent of wrapping yourself up in a warm, cozy blanket with a cup of hot apple cider in your hands.

That's one of the problems with doing anything for a long time. Staying home, for instance. The longer you stay, the more you believe your identity is wrapped up in the people and things around you. You become trapped. It seems as if you fear change because you can't let go of this illusion of yourself as being what? The good granddaughter? The girlfriend who can't choose between her boyfriend and her family? Seems as if your fear of change is really just the same fear of death you mention in your first class.

Stop resisting Him. Stop resenting Him. Stop complaining. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Stop demanding what you want. Stop focusing on the outer wrappings of yourself and your circumstances. Adjust your attitude. Change your mind about things — about yourself— about others — about Him. Relax in total trust. He knows what He’s doing. Unwrap the package! Let go, and look up! Let Him open the eyes of your heart. OPEN YOUR EYES!

How can one who has been abandoned—truly, no one left in sight—be less alone? Before, his answer would have been 'books,' but now he can’t bring himself to believe it. It was a taradiddle wrapped up in weltschmerz, just some defense mechanism to feel better about being an unpopular youth, about being as lonely as he was.

What you think of as yourself is actually many things. At the core is your true self, of which you may not even be fully aware. Wrapped around this are several false selves that are used at different times in different situations, social selves that serve the function of translating your true self to the world. We swap between these effortlessly as we grow up, but they are elaborate fictions. Or they are real but alternative selves. It depends on where you stand epistemologically.

I want to undress you, touch you, kiss you, taste you. And then I want you to taste yourself on my mouth." He kissed her again, hot and strong and long. One hand crept to her clothed breast, kneading it. "I want you hard and hot and deep and fast. And then I want you slow and sweet. I want you to wrap those beautiful long legs around me. I want you under me and on top of me and sitting and standing. I want to see your eyes when pleasure makes you light up. I want to hold you when you come down and try to find your breath. I want everything with you, Ellie. I care about you more than I've cared about a woman in so long. I hardly recognized the feelings. I'm dying for you." (Noah Kincaid)

If you are a self-possessed man with a healthy sense of detachment from your bank account and someone writes you a cheque for tens of millions of dollars you probably behave as if you have won a sweepstake, kicking your feet in the air and laughing yourself to sleep at night at the miracle of your good fortune. But if your sense of self-worth is morbidly wrapped up in your financial success you probably believe you deserve everything you get. You take it as a reflection of something grand inside you. You acquire gravitas,

Sometimes we get so wrapped up in things that we find fascinating or become so consumed by mundane responsibilities that we lose sight of God’s objectives. As you consistently focus your life on the most basic principles, you will gain an understanding of what you are to do, and you will produce more fruit for the Lord and more happiness for yourself.

You Hathaways would find it impossible to understand what it’s like to be brought up in isolation, by people who don’t give a damn about you. You have no choice but to assume it’s your fault, that you’re unlovable. And that feeling wraps around you until it becomes a prison, and you find yourself barricading the doors against anyone who wants to come in.

Your country wasn’t under attack by the Vietnamese. You can’t wrap the holy flag around yourself now, Mister, or use it to cover up what you people did over there.

There was the other thing, the far worse thing. During the same time she began to write, she left him. He was wrapped up in his work. She came back and he never knew she was gone.

I’m not used to sugar-coating my words, Delia. I call ‘em like I see ‘em and sometimes I can be a dick.” This wasn’t news to me, not after the way he’d ended our conversation this morning. “Is that supposed to be an apology?” His chest shook as he laughed, the sound wrapping around me as I felt the reverberations on my cheek. “More like a heads up. You wanna do this thing with me, you better be prepared to brace and take me as I am—in bed and out.” “This thing?” “Baby, you just gave yourself to me. When you got on your knees and crawled over my body so I could eat your pussy while you sucked my dick? That was the start of something between us. I’m not sure what to call it. Words are your thing, not mine. Feel free to put a name to it.

There will always be someone whose identity is wrapped up in being offended. They're constantly searching for it. These people are the woke mob devotees. Let them be. It's all perfect. Just don't let their tears stop the important discussions from happening. [...] Good people don't go out of their way to cause suffering, but they also don't avoid upsetting people at all costs. They speak their truth unapologetically. Discussing topics that might get you cancelled is incredibly important. Let them be offended. Do not let them silence you through fear of the repercussions.

Why have you done all this for me?" She turned her head to look at him. "Tell me the truth." He shook his head slowly. "I don't think I could have been more terrified of the devil than I was of you," she said, "when it was happening and in my thoughts and nightmares afterward. And when you came home to Willoughby and I realized that the Duke of Ridgeway was you, I thought I would die from the horror of it." His face was expressionless. "I know," he said. "I was afraid of your hands more than anything," she said. "They are beautiful hands." He said nothing. "When did it all change?" she asked. She turned completely toward him and closed the distance between them. "You will not say the words yourself. But they are the same words as the ones on my lips, aren't they?" She watched him swallow. "For the rest of my life I will regret saying them," she said. "But I believe I would regret far more not saying them." "Fleur," he said, and reached out a staying hand. "I love you," she said. "No." "I love you." "It is just that we have spent a few days together," he said, "and talked a great deal and got to know each other. It is just that I have been able to help you a little and you are feeling grateful to me." "I love you," she said. "Fleur." She reached up to touch his scar. "I am glad I did not know you before this happened," she said. "I do not believe I would have been able to stand the pain." "Fleur," he said, taking her wrist in his hand. "Are you crying?" she said. She lifted both arms and wrapped them about his neck and laid her cheek against his shoulder. "Don't, my love. I did not mean to lay a burden on you. I don't mean to do so. I only want you to know that you are loved and always will be." "Fleur," he said, his voice husky from his tears, "I have nothing to offer you, my love. I have nothing to give you. My loyalty is given elsewhere. I didn't want this to happen. I don't want it to happen. You will meet someone else. When I am gone you will forget and you will be happy." She lifted her head and looked into his face. She wiped away one of his tears with one finger. "I am not asking anything in return," she said. "I just want to give you something, Adam. A free gift. My love. Not a burden, but a gift. To take with you when you go, even though we will never see each other again." He framed her face with his hands and gazed down into it. "I so very nearly did not recognize you," he said. "You were so wretchedly thin, Fleur, and pale. Your lips were dry and cracked, your hair dull and lifeless. But I did know you for all that. I think I would still be in London searching for you if you had not gone to that agency. But it's too late, love. Six years too late.

It’s about passion, about allowing yourself to be overwhelmed, allowing a love to be feral without needing to domesticate it. Loving something or someone for what or who it is, not what you want it to be. That takes an enormous amount of strength and integrity. Which ties back in with the calling: allowing something to be scary, to be overwhelming; to devote yourself to it even if it requires great changes from you. It’s something we have to live up to; it does not arrive neatly wrapped up in an understandable package. That would be easy. And the Lovers is always hard. RECOMMENDED

Tradition? Kadash, did I ever tell you about my first sword trainer? Back when I was young, our branch of the Kholin family didn't have grand monasteries and beautiful practice grounds. My father found a teacher for me from two towns over. His name was Harth. Young fellow, not a true swordmaster -- but good enough. He was very focused on proper procedure, and wouldn't let me train until I'd learned how to put on a takama the right way. He wouldn't have stood for me fighting like this. You put on the skirt, then the overshirt, then you wrap your cloth belt around yourself three times and tie it. I always found that annoying. The belt was too tight, wrapped three times -- you had to pull it hard to get enough slack to tie the knot. The first time I went to duels at a neighboring town, I felt like an idiot. Everyone else had long drooping belt ends at the front of their takamas. I asked Harth why we did it differently. He said it was the right way, the true way. So, when my travels took me to Harth's hometown, I searched out his master, a man who had trained with the ardents in Kholinar. He insisted that this was the right way to tie a takama, as he'd learned from his master. I found my master's master's master in Kholinar after we captured it. The ancient, wizened ardent was eating curry and flatbread, completely uncaring of who ruled the city. I asked him. Why tie your belt three times, when everyone else thinks you should do it twice? The old man laughed and stood up. I was shocked to see that he was terribly short. 'If I only tie it twice,' he exclaimed, 'the ends hang down so low, I trip!' I love tradition, I've fought for tradition. I make my men follow the codes. I uphold Vorin virtues. But merely being tradition does not make something worthy, Kadash. We can't just assume that because something is old it is right.

What did you wrap around your heart to protect yourself, beautiful girl?” I asked, letting my fingertip trail down from her cheek to her chin. Her eyes cut to mine, and I knew I had her attention. “I see you unwrap it, whatever it is you have around your heart, so I know it’s there. You change when you are with your friends, with Aiden, but as soon as you can, you wrap it back up. I hope it’s not a steel cage, Lucy. I hope you’re being gentle with your heart, taking care of it for me.

I’ve been in your skin,” he taunted. “I know you inside and out. There’s nothing there. Do us all a favor and die so we can start working on another plan and quit thinking maybe you’ll grow the fuck up and be capable of something.” Okay, enough! “You don’t know me inside and out,” I snarled. “You may have gotten in my skin, but you have never gotten inside my heart. Go ahead, Barrons, make me slice and dice myself. Go ahead, play games with me. Push me around. Lie to me. Bully me. Be your usual constant jackass self. Stalk around all broody and pissy and secretive, but you’re wrong about me. There’s something inside me you’d better be afraid of. And you can’t touch my soul. You will never touch my soul!” I raised my hand, drew back the knife, and let it fly. It sliced through the air, straight for his head. He avoided it with preternatural grace, a mere whisper of a movement, precisely and only as much as was required to not get hit. The hilt vibrated in the wood of the ornate mantel next to his head. “So, fuck you, Jericho Barrons, and not the way you like it. Fuck you—as in, you can’t touch me. Nobody can.” I kicked the table at him. It crashed into his shins. I picked up a lamp from the end table. Flung it straight at his head. He ducked again. I grabbed a book. It thumped off his chest. He laughed, dark eyes glittering with exhilaration. I launched myself at him, slammed a fist into his face. I heard a satisfying crunch and felt something in his nose give. He didn’t try to hit me back or push me away. Merely wrapped his arms around me and crushed me tight to his body, trapping my arms against his chest. Then, when I thought he might just squeeze me to death, he dropped his head forward, into the hollow where my shoulder met my neck. “Do you miss fucking me, Ms. Lane?” he purred against my ear. Voice resonated in my skull, pressuring a reply. I was tall and strong and proud inside myself. Nobody owned me. I didn’t have to answer any questions I didn’t want to, ever again. “Wouldn’t you just love to know?” I purred back. “You want more of me, don’t you, Barrons? I got under your skin deep. I hope you got addicted to me. I was a wild one, wasn’t I? I bet you never had sex like that in your entire existence, huh, O Ancient One? I bet I rocked your perfectly disciplined little world. I hope wanting me hurts like hell!” His hands were suddenly cruelly tight on my waist. “There’s only one question that matters, Ms. Lane, and it’s the one you never get around to asking. People are capable of varying degrees of truth. The majority spend their entire lives fabricating an elaborate skein of lies, immersing themselves in the faith of bad faith, doing whatever it takes to feel safe. The person who truly lives has precious few moments of safety, learns to thrive in any kind of storm. It’s the truth you can stare down stone-cold that makes you what you are. Weak or strong. Live or die. Prove yourself. How much truth can you take, Ms. Lane?” Dreamfever

Lacey said softly, "Tristan, you need to rest now. There's nothing you can do until you rest." But he could not leave Ivy. He put his arms around her. She slipped through him and moved toward the bureau, taking the picture in her hands. He wrapped her in his arms again, but she only cried harder. Then Ella was set lightly on the bureau top. Lacey's hands had done it. The cat rubbed up against Ivy's head. "Oh, Ella, I don't know how to let go of him." "Don't let go," Tristan begged. "In the end, she must," Lacey warned. "I've lost him, Ella, I know it. Tristan is dead. He can't hold me ever again. He can't think of me. He can't want me now. Love ends with death." "It doesn't!" Tristan said. "I'll hold you again, I swear it, and you'll see that my love will never end." "You're exhausted, Tristan," Lacey told him. "I'll hold you, I'll love you forever!" "If you don't rest now," Lacey said, "you'll become even more confused. It'll be hard to tell real from unreal, or to rouse yourself out of the darkness. Tristan, listen to me..." But before she finished speaking, the darkness overtook him.

The end of this short story could be a rather disturbing thing, if it came true. I hope you like it, and if you do, be sure to COMMENT and SHARE. Paradoxes of Destiny? Dani! My boy! Are you all right? Where are you? Have you hurt yourself? Are you all right? Daniiii! Why won’t you answer? It’s so cold and dark here. I can’t see a thing… It’s so silent. Dani? Can you hear me? I shouldn’t have looked at that text message while I was driving… I shouldn’t have done it! I'm so stupid sometimes! Son, are you all right?... We really wrecked the car when we rolled it! I can’t see or hear a thing… Am I in hospital? Am I dead…? Dani? Your silence is killing me… Are you all right?! I can see a glimmer of light. I feel trapped. Dani, are you there? I can’t move. It’s like I’m wrapped in this mossy green translucent plastic. I have to get out of here. The light is getting more and more intense. I think I can tear the wrapping that’s holding me in. I'm almost out. The light is blinding me. What a strange place. I've never seen anything like it. It doesn’t look like Earth. Am I dead? On another planet? Oh God, look at those hideous monsters! They’re so creepy and disgusting! They look like extraterrestrials. They’re aliens! I'm on another planet! I can’t believe it. I need to get the hell out here. Those monsters are going to devour me. I have to get away. I’m so scared. Am I floating? Am I flying? I’m going to go higher to try to escape. I can’t see the aliens anymore and the landscape looks less terrifying. I think I've made it. It’s very windy. Is that a highway? I think I can see some vehicles down there. Could they be the extraterrestrials’ transport? I’m going to go down a bit. I see people! Am I on Earth? Could this be a parallel universe? Where could Dani be? I shouldn’t have looked at that text message while I was driving. I shouldn’t… That tower down there looks a lot like the water tank in my town… It’s identical. But the water tank in my town doesn’t have that huge tower block next to it. It all looks very similar to my neighborhood, but it isn’t exactly the same: there are a lot of tower blocks here. There’s the river… and the factory. It’s definitely my neighborhood, but it looks kind of different. I must be in a parallel universe… It’s amazing that I can float. People don’t seem to notice my presence. Am I a ghost? I have to get back home and see if Dani’s there. God, I hope he’s safe and sound. Gabriela must be out of her mind with the crash. There’s my house! Home sweet home. And whose are those cars? The front of the house has been painted a different color… This is all so strange! There’s someone in the garden… Those trees I planted in the spring have really grown. Is… is that… Dani? Yes, yes! It’s Dani. But he looks so different… He looks older, he looks… like a big boy! What’s important is that he’s OK. I need to hug him tight and tell him how much I love him. Can he see me if I’m a ghost? I'll go up to him slowly so I don’t scare him. I need to hold him tight. He can’t see me, I won’t get any closer. He moved his head, I think he’s started to realize I’m here… Wow I’m so hungry all of a sudden! I can’t stop! How are you doing, son?! It’s me! Your dad! My dear boy? I can’t stop! I'm too hungry! Ahhhh, so delicious! What a pleasure! Nooo Daniii! Nooooo!.... I’m your daaaad!... Splat!... “Mum, bring the insect repellent, the garden’s full of mosquitoes,” grunted Daniel as he wiped the blood from the palm of his hand on his trousers. Gabriela was just coming out. She did an about turn and went back into her house, and shouted “Darling, bring the insect repellent, it’s on the fireplace…” Absolute cold and silence… THE END (1) This note is for those who have read EQUINOX—WHISPERS OF DESTINY. This story is a spin-off of the novel EQUINOX—WHISPERS OF DESTINY and revolves around Letus’s curious theories about the possibility of animal reincarnation.

You were protecting yourself. You wrapped yourself in armor and pretended to be invulnerable. Growing up inside that armor twisted you a bit out of true, but it doesn’t matter. The essentials are all there.” She searched my face. “The armor’s getting too small, Aud. You have to choose.

As we were wrapping up the book, I sat down and thought about all the lessons I’d learned over the past two years. I couldn’t list them all, but here are a few: Never complain about the price of a gift from your spouse--accept it with love and gratitude. You can’t put a price on romance. Take lots of videos, even of the mundane. You will forget the sound of your children’s voices and you will miss your youth as much as theirs. Celebrate every wedding anniversary. Make time for dates. Hug your spouse every single morning. And always, ALWAYS, say “I love you.” Believe in your partner. When you hit hard times as a couple, take a weekend away or at least a night out. The times that you least feel like doing it are likely the times that you need it the most. Write love notes to your spouse, your children, and keep the ones they give you. Don’t expect a miniature pig to be an “easy” pet. Live life looking forward with a goal of no regrets, so you can look back without them. Be the friend you will need some day. Often the most important thing you can do for another person is just showing up. Question less and listen more. Don’t get too tied up in your plans for the future. No one really knows their future anyway. Laugh at yourself, and with life. People don’t change their core character. Be humble, genuine, and gracious. Before you get into business with someone, look at their history. Expect them to be with you for the long haul, even if you don’t think they will be. If they aren’t someone you could take a road trip across the country with, don’t do business with them in the first place. Real families and real sacrifices live in the fabric of the Red, White, and Blue; stand for the national anthem.

That's the big picture, your self-worth. And your inner peace. Wrap yourself around the idea that you are simply beautiful. You should never look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness. Walk tall and be proud. People will walk all over you if you do not stand up for yourself.

spend so much time concerned with what other people think of us when other people are generally not thinking about us at all. They are wrapped up in their own stories, and when they do think of us, it’s probably about something good. At least that’s what I’ve taught myself to always assume.

A rain of pebbles from overhead makes me glance up in time to see Ruthann step onto the lip of the cliff, another fifteen feet above me. Her body is wrapped tight in a pure white robe. "Ruthann!" I shout, my voice caroming off the rock walls, an obscenity. She looks down at me. Across the distance our eyes meet. "Ruthann, don't," I whisper, but she shakes her head. I'm sorry. In that half-second, I think about Wilma and Derek and me, all the people who do not want to beleft behind, who think we know what is best for her. I think about the doctors and the medicines Ruthann lied about taking. I think about how I could talk her down from that ledge like I have talked down a dozen potential suicide victims. Yet the right thing to do, here, is subjective. Ruthann's family, who wants her alive, will not be the one to lose hair from drugs, to have surgery to remove her breast, to die by degrees. It is easy to say that Ruthann should come down from that cliff, unless you are Ruthann. I know better than anyone what it feels like to have someone else make choices for you, when you deserve to be making them yourself. I look at Ruthann, and very slowly, I not. She smiles at me, and so I am her witness -- as she unwraps the wedding robe from her narrow shoulders and holds is across her back like the wide wings of a hawk. As she steps off the edge of the cliff and rises to the Spirit World. As the owls bear her body to the broken ground.

Conventional, Cecil, you’re that, for you may understand beautiful things, but you don’t know how to use them; and you wrap yourself up in art and books and music, and would try to wrap up me. I won’t be stifled, not by the most glorious music, for people are more glorious, and you hide them from me.

When we were acquaintances, you let me be myself, but now you're always protecting me. I won't be protected. I will choose for myself what is ladylike and right. To shield me is an insult. Can't I be trusted to face the truth but I must get it second-hand through you? A woman's place...Cecil you're that, for you may understand beautiful things, but you don't know how to use them; and you wrap yourself up in art and books and music, and would try to wrap me up. I won't be stifled, not by the most glorious music, for people are more glorious, and you hide them from me. That's why I break off my engagement.

You can ask why all day long if you want to. You can ask God why and your friends why and yourself why until you're buried in nothing but that single question, but you'll never get an answer. This side of heaven, time is the only thing that helps a little bit. So don't give in. Don't let the whys have it. Don't let them take advantage of you. They'll crush your heart and steal your peace and mess with your mind and wrap around you so tight you won't be able to breathe. Don't let the whys ruin your life, child. Every time they try to sneak up, push them aside and move forward. Trust me, it's the only way you can get on with living." I turn toward the window and think about her words. "What if I can't? Let it go, I mean?" I don't see her smile, but I can hear it. "You can. I know you can. Because no matter how hard life gets, there's always goodness right around the corner. All you have to do is look for it.

Remember me. I will be with you in the grave on the night you leave behind your shop and your family. When you hear my soft voice echoing in your tomb, you will realize that you were never hidden from my eyes. I am the pure awareness within your heart, with you during joy and celebration, suffering and despair. On that strange and fateful night you will hear a familar voice -- you'll be rescued from the fangs of snakes and the searing sting of scorpions. The euphoria of love will sweep over your grave; it will bring wine and friends, candles and food. When the light of realization dawns, shouting and upheaval will rise up from the graves! The dust of ages will be stirred by the cities of ecstasy, by the banging of drums, by the clamor of revolt! Dead bodies will tear off their shrouds and stuff their ears in fright-- What use are the senses and the ears before the blast of that Trumpet? Look and you will see my form whether you are looking at yourself or toward that noise and confusion. Don't be blurry-eyed, See me clearly- See my beauty without the old eyes of delusion. Beware! Beware! Don't mistake me for this human form. The soul is not obscured by forms. Even if it were wrapped in a hundred folds of felt the rays of the soul's light would still shine through. Beat the drum, Follow the minstrels of the city. It's a day of renewal when every young man walks boldly on the path of love. Had everyone sought God Instead of crumbs and copper coins T'hey would not be sitting on the edge of the moat in darkness and regret. What kind of gossip-house have you opened in our city? Close your lips and shine on the world like loving sunlight. Shine like the Sun of Tabriz rising in the East. Shine like the star of victory. Shine like the whole universe is yours!

You give yourself too little credit.” I rose and circled the desk until I stood close enough to see the pulse fluttering in her neck. How much faster would it beat if I wrapped her hair around my fist and pulled her head back? If I kissed her until her mouth bruised and hiked up her skirt until she begged me to fuck her?

I decided to take a hot bath. There must be quite a few things a hot bath won’t cure, but I don’t know many of them. Whenever I’m sad I’m going to die, or so nervous I can’t sleep, or in love with somebody I won’t be seeing for a week, I slump down just so far and then I say: “I’ll go take a hot bath.” I meditate in the bath. The water needs to be very hot, so hot you can barely stand putting your foot in it. Then you lower yourself, inch by inch, till the water’s up to your neck. (...) I never feel so much myself as when I'm in a hot bath. I lay in that tub (...) and I felt myself growing pure again. I don’t believe in baptism or the waters of Jordan or anything like that, but I guess I feel about a hot bath the way those religious people feel about holy water. (...) The longer I lay there in the clear hot water the purer I felt, and when I stepped out at last and wrapped myself in one of the big, soft white hotel bath towels I felt pure and sweet as a new baby.

It’s hard when you open your heart and let someone in and then suddenly they’re not in it anymore. It doesn’t matter whose fault it is; that empty spot stings so bad that you want to find any kind of relief, or wrap yourself up so tight you can’t feel it anymore. I knew it might be there a little while. Or maybe even a long while.

And now because you are converged, you rise. Through the eye of the narrowest tangle of root, shoot, and branch, past the tallest emerald treetops, up and up, gathering strength. A curlicue of mystery, a calligram of power, you wrap yourself around yourself and tornado to the Saigol mansion, quaking that mausoleum of a hatchery in your wake.

You not only do it, but you want nothing more than to do it, you embrace self-demolition over all else. Does that mean, perhaps, that was the point of it all along, the self-destruction, but you can’t be honest enough with yourself to admit it, so you wrap it up in something superficially and temporarily pleasurable like the high from a pill?

There is much in life that is beyond our control, events that sweep us up and along, actions that wrap us tight in their consequences.’ She paused, a faraway look in her eyes. ‘Stop raging about the things you cannot change. Just be true to yourself and do what you can do. Love those worth loving, and to the Otherworld with the rest of it. That is all any of us can do.

As long as I am acting out of love, I feel I am doing best I know how. But you - wrapped up in judgement, always regretting the past, cursing yourself, blaming yourself, asking 'what if,' 'what if.' 'Life is cruel.' 'I wish I had died instead of.' Well think about this. What if all your actions and choices, good or bad, make no difference to God? What if the pattern is pre-set?

From Desire to Reality in Six Easy Steps Six definite practical steps to transform a burning desire into reality. Fix in your mind an exact picture of what you desire. It's not sufficient merely to say, for example, "I want plenty of money." Be definite as to the amount. Determine exactly what you intend to give in return for the thing you desire. There's no such reality as something for nothing. Establish a definite date by which you intend to possess the desired thing. Create a definite plan for carrying out your desire and begin at once, whether you feel entirely ready or not to put this plan into action. Write out a clear, concise statement of your responses to the preceding four steps. Read your written statement aloud twice daily. Once after arising in the morning and once just before retiring at night. As you read, see and feel and believe yourself already in possession of whatever your goal happens to be. "Through some strange and powerful principle of mental chemistry, nature wraps up in the impulse [of a] strong desire that something which recognizes no such word as impossible and accepts no such reality as failure." - Napoleon Hill

But the older I get the more I become aware that I was raised thinking that my real value was based on the role I would play for other people. After all, being deemed a good wife or a good mother or daughter is rarely based on how true you are to yourself. Where I was raised, women are taught that to be a good woman you need to be good for other people. If your kids are happy, then you're a good mom. If your husband is happy, then you're a good wife. All of your value is essentially wrapped up in other people's happiness. How can anyone successfully navigate that for a lifetime? It's no wonder so many mothers send me notes telling me they've lost themselves. Of course they have! If you live your life to please everyone else, you forget what used to make you YOU.

How pathetic you humans are. So much emotion wrapped up in weakness, leading you to attempt the impossible, lying to yourself, time and time again. Hope, I think you call it. And yet always you fail. Your whole experience has been death and misery, failure and yet more death, and still you refuse to face the truth. A breed with such a talent for blind delusion and denial deserves to be exterminated.

Even after your heart breaks into a million pieces and your baby is gone, I am here to tell you- all around you the world will still go on spinning. People might even say kind words to you and think you are listening, but mostly you won't hear anything because you're too busy collecting each of those tiny pieces of your heart- wrapping them up into a safe corner of yourself, so you can find them again later.

What if—is more complicated than that? What if maybe opposite is true as well? Because, if bad can sometimes come from good actions—? where does it ever say, anywhere, that only bad can come from bad actions? Maybe sometimes—the wrong way is the right way? You can take the wrong path and it still comes out where you want to be? Or, spin it another way, sometimes you can do everything wrong and it still turns out to be right?” “I’m not sure I see your point.” “Well—I have to say I personally have never drawn such a sharp line between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ as you. For me: that line is often false. The two are never disconnected. One can’t exist without the other. As long as I am acting out of love, I feel I am doing best I know how. But you—wrapped up in judgment, always regretting the past, cursing yourself, blaming yourself, asking ‘what if,’ ‘what if.’ ‘Life is cruel.’ ‘I wish I had died instead of.’ Well—think about this. What if all your actions and choices, good or bad, make no difference to God? What if the pattern is pre-set? No no—hang on—this is a question worth struggling with. What if our badness and mistakes are the very thing that set our fate and bring us round to good? What if, for some of us, we can’t get there any other way?

Jamie cringes. “I gotta…” He chokes on the word. “Gotta just try something, okay?” When he raises his eyes again, they’re wet. Now I’m more panicked than ever. I stumble toward him and wrap my arms around him. He hugs me back, at least. My throat locks up completely. No no no no I chant inside. I’d yell it if I knew it was the right thing to do. But how do I deny him a trip to his parents? Tomorrow I’m leaving for Minnesota. It makes no sense for me to beg him to stay and then hop on the team jet for five days. Fuck. So I man up and do what is right. “Take care of yourself,” I whisper. “You’re really fucking important to me.” He hugs me a little tighter and takes a shaky breath. “You too.” Okay. I can do this. “I love you,” I say, taking half a step back. “Love you, too,” he mutters. He doesn’t look me in the eye. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Well I have to say I personally have never drawn such a sharp line between 'good' and 'bad' as you. For me: that line is often false. The two are never disconnected. One can't exist without the other. As long as I am acting out of love, I feel I am doing best I know how. But you-wrapped up in judgment, always regretting the past, cursing yourself, blaming yourself, asking 'what if', 'what if'. 'Life is cruel.' 'I wish I had died instead of.

I swear to fuck, Alex. If you keep playing with your asshole I’m going to play with it for you.” “You were touching yourself.” “I creamed my jeans like a schoolgirl, Alex. You came with no touching. You looked like... You’re a natural.” “A natural,” Alex repeats, trying to wrap his mind around that. Natural porn performer? Natural bottom? Neither really sounds that prestigious, but Peter’s talking about it like he just won the World Series of Taking Big Cocks Up the Butt.

She sat and watched the dockhand when it was sunny and she sat and watched him when it rained. Or when it was foggy, which is what it was nearly every morning at eight o’clock. This morning was none of the above. This morning was cold. The pier smelled of fresh water and of fish. The seagulls screeched overhead, a man’s voice shouted. Where is my brother to help me, my sister, my mother? Pasha, help me, hide in the woods where I know I can find you. Dasha, look what’s happened. Do you even see? Mama, Mama. I want my mother. Where is my family to ask things of me, to weigh on me, to intrude on me, to never let me be silent or alone, where are they to help me through this? Deda, what do I do? I don’t know what to do. This morning the dockhand did not go over to see his friend at the next pier for a smoke and a coffee. Instead, he walked across the road and sat next to her on the bench. This surprised her. But she said nothing, she just wrapped her white nurse’s coat tighter around herself, and fixed the kerchief covering her hair. In Swedish he said to her, “My name is Sven. What’s your name?” After a longish pause, she replied. “Tatiana. I don’t speak Swedish.” In English he said to her, “Do you want a cigarette?” “No,” she replied, also in English. She thought of telling him she spoke little English. She was sure he didn’t speak Russian. He asked her if he could get her a coffee, or something warm to throw over her shoulders. No and no. She did not look at him. Sven was silent a moment. “You want to get on my barge, don’t you?” he asked. “Come. I will take you.” He took her by her arm. Tatiana didn’t move. “I can see you have left something behind,” he said, pulling on her gently. “Go and retrieve it.” Tatiana did not move. “Take my cigarette, take my coffee, or get on my barge. I won’t even turn away. You don’t have to sneak past me. I would have let you on the first time you came. All you had to do was ask. You want to go to Helsinki? Fine. I know you’re not Finnish.” Sven paused. “But you are very pregnant. Two months ago it would have been easier for you. But you need to go back or go forward. How long do you plan to sit here and watch my back?” Tatiana stared into the Baltic Sea. “If I knew, would I be sitting here?” “Don’t sit here anymore. Come,” said the longshoreman. She shook her head. “Where is your husband? Where is the father of your baby?” “Dead in the Soviet Union,” Tatiana breathed out. “Ah, you’re from the Soviet Union.” He nodded. “You’ve escaped somehow? Well, you’re here, so stay. Stay in Sweden. Go to the consulate, get yourself refugee protection. We have hundreds of people getting through from Denmark. Go to the consulate.” Tatiana shook her head. “You’re going to have that baby soon,” Sven said. “Go back, or move forward.” Tatiana’s hands went around her belly. Her eyes glazed over. The dockhand patted her gently and stood up. “What will it be? You want to go back to the Soviet Union? Why?” Tatiana did not reply. How to tell him her soul had been left there? “If you go back, what happens to you?” “I die most likely,” she barely whispered. “If you go forward, what happens to you?” “I live most likely.” He clapped his hands. “What kind of a choice is that? You must go forward.” “Yes,” said Tatiana, “but how do I live like this? Look at me. You think, if I could, I wouldn’t?” “So you’re here in the Stockholm purgatory, watching me move my paper day in and day out, watching me smoke, watching me. What are you going to do? Sit with your baby on the bench? Is that what you want?” Tatiana was silent. The first time she laid eyes on him she was sitting on a bench, eating ice cream. “Go forward.” “I don’t have it in me.” He nodded. “You have it. It’s just covered up. For you it’s winter.” He smiled. “Don’t worry. Summer’s here. The ice will melt.” Tatiana struggled up from the bench. Walking away, she said in Russian, “It’s not the ice anymore, my seagoing philosopher. It’s the pyre.

Christy dug her hand deeper into her shoulder bag. Scanning the papers she finally located there, she found no phone numbers or addresses listed. All the plans had been made in such haste. All she knew was that someone was supposed to meet her here. She was here, and he or she wasn't. Never in her life had she felt so completely alone. Stranded with nowhere to turn. A prayer came quickly to her lips. "Father God, I'm at Your mercy here. I know You're in control. Please show me what to do." Suddenly she heard a voice calling to her. "Kilikina!" Christy's heart stopped. Only one person in the entire world had ever called her by her Hawaiian name. She spun around. "Kilikina," called out the tall, blond surfer who was running toward her. Christy looked up into the screaming silver-blue eyes that could only belong to one person. "Todd?" she whispered, convinced she was hallucinating. "Kilikina," Todd wrapped his arms around her so tightly that for an instant she couldn't breathe. He held her a long time. Crying. She could feel his warm tears on her neck. She knew this had to be real. But how could it be? "Todd?" she whispered again. "How? I mean, what...? I don't..." Todd pulled away, and for the first time she noticed the big gouquet of white carnations in his hand. They were now a bit squashed. "For you," he said, his eyes clearing and his rich voice sounding calm and steady. Then, seeing her shocked expression, he asked, "You really didn't know I was here, did you?" Christy shook her head, unable to find any words. "Didn't Dr. Benson tell you?" She shook her head again. "You mean you came all this way by yourself, and you didn't even know I was here?" Now it was Todd's turn to look surprised. "No, I thought you were in Papua New Guinea or something. I had no idea you were here!" "They needed me here more," Todd said with a chin-up gesture toward the beach. "It's the perfect place for me." With a wide smile spreading above his square jaw, he said, "Ever since I received the fax yesterday saying they were sending you, I've been out of my mind with joy! Kilikina, you can't imagine how I've been feeling." Christy had never heard him talk like this before. Todd took the bouquet from her and placed it on top of her luggage. Then, grasping both her quivering hands in his and looking into her eyes, he said, "Don't you see? There is no way you or I could ever have planned this. It's from God." The shocked tears finally caught up to Christy's eyes, and she blinked to keep Todd in focus. "It is," she agreed. "God brought us back together, didn't He?" A giggle of joy and delight danced from her lips. "Do you remember what I said when you gave me back your bracelet?" Todd asked. "I said that if God ever brought us back together, I would put that bracelet back on your wrist, and that time, it would stay on forever." Christy nodded. She had replayed the memory of that day a thousand times in her mind. It had seemed impossible that God would bring them back together. Christy's heart pounded as she realized that God, in His weird way, had done the impossible. Todd reached into his pocket and pulled out the "Forever" ID bracelet. He tenderly held Christy's wrist, and circling it with the gold chain, he secured the clasp. Above their heads a fresh ocean wind blew through the palm trees. It almost sounded as if the trees were applauding. Christy looked up from her wrist and met Todd's expectant gaze. Deep inside, Christy knew that with the blessing of the Lord, Todd had just stepped into the garden of her heart. In the holiness of that moment, his silver-blue eyes embraced hers and he whispered, "I promise, Kilikina. Forever." "Forever," Christy whispered back. Then gently, reverently, Todd and Christy sealed their forever promise with a kiss.

As long as I am acting out of love, I feel I am doing best I know how. But you—wrapped up in judgment, always regretting the past, cursing yourself, blaming yourself, asking ‘what if,’ ‘what if.’ ‘Life is cruel.’ ‘I wish I had died instead of.’ Well—think about this. What if all your actions and choices, good or bad, make no difference to God? What if the pattern is pre-set? No no—hang on—this is a question worth struggling with. What if our badness and mistakes are the very thing that set our fate and bring us round to good? What if, for some of us, we can’t get there any other way?” “Get where?” “Understand, by saying ‘God,’ I am merely using ‘God’ as reference to long-term pattern we can’t decipher. Huge, slow-moving weather system rolling in on us from afar, blowing us randomly like—” eloquently, he batted at the air as if at a blown leaf. “But—maybe not so random and impersonal as all that, if you get me.” “Sorry but I’m not really appreciating your point here.” “You don’t need a point. The point is maybe that the point is too big to see or work round to on our own

He reached out and took her hand, wrapping it tightly in both of his. “Look, Vi, I don’t know exactly how to say this, but I don’t want anything bad to happen to you. I don’t think I could handle it if something, or someone, hurt you.” The tone of his voice was still immovable and stubborn, despite the sweet sentiment lurking behind it. He squeezed her hand, though . . . firmly, as if emphasizing his point. “I know it’s selfish, and I don’t really care if it is, but I’m not gonna stand by and let you put yourself in danger, even if it is to catch a killer.” He eased up on her throbbing fingers, and his voice got all husky and rough again. “I can’t lose you,” he explained, shrugging as if those weren’t the most wonderful words she’d ever heard before. “Not now that I finally have you.” She felt years pricking in her eyes, and she blinked hard to try to stop them from coming. She was completely overwhelmed by what she’d just figured out . . . she’d realized it even before he finished talked. She knew what it was that he wasn’t saying while he lectured her about safety. He loved her. Jay Heaton, her best friend since childhood, was in love with her. He didn’t say it, but she knew that it was true. And the part that really freaked her out, the part of it that caught her completely off guard, was that he wasn’t in it alone. Because even though she’d been denying it for a long, long time, it had always been there . . . waiting just beneath the surface of their friendship. And now that it was out, there was no going back. And it was so weird to even be thinking it, but . . . . . . she was in love with him too.

When I was reaching out to those young men through Strachan’s Corner, nobody told me what to do, I was doing it from my heart. I did what I thought was best rather than giving those youngsters a police record, I tried to prevent it by letting them know if you commit crime you are going to get yourself in trouble. Then you will be confined to the Bahamas for the rest of your life, and will not see that great big world out there. Supt. Allerdyce Strachan, the first female officer to rise to the rank of superintendent on the Royal Bahamas Police Force.

Sometimes, it’s easy to get wrapped up in taking care of the people around us. You’re always giving, taking care of the children, working overtime at the office, or helping that friend who is struggling. That’s all good, but if you’re not careful, you can end up feeling rundown. Take time every day to get filled back up. Your first priority should be taking care of yourself; making time to get into the presence of Jesus. When you live with your heart connected to His, you’ll be refreshed, restored, re-energized, and filled up for the journey of life!

Well—I have to say I personally have never drawn such a sharp line between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ as you. For me: that line is often false. The two are never disconnected. One can’t exist without the other. As long as I am acting out of love, I feel I am doing best I know how. But you—wrapped up in judgment, always regretting the past, cursing yourself, blaming yourself, asking ‘what if,’ ‘what if.’ ‘Life is cruel.’ ‘I wish I had died instead of.’ Well—think about this. What if all your actions and choices, good or bad, make no difference to God? What if the pattern is pre-set?

Take it from me, dude – don’t get wrapped up in the labels yet. Sexuality is…” She looked around for a metaphor, then lifted what was left of her cinnamon roll. “Like this cinnamon roll. You see it, you think, ‘Damn, that looks good,’ so you eat it. If you like it, you do it again. Everything else – whether you’re pi or pan or sapiosexual or whatever the hell – that’s about labels, and politics, and creating shorthands for other people. That can be useful, and important for society, but you don’t have to pick a flag right out the gate. Just let yourself like who you like.

Now,' cried the fiend, 'follow me! You must understand that I cannot get out by the great gate - the porter will not suffer that. Once here, there is no retreat. Follow me, therefore: we will just go to your house, where you shall dress yourself; for you can hardly go to a ball in your present costume - especially as it is not a bal masque. Mind and wrap yourself well up in your winding-sheet, for the nights are cold, and you may feel unpleasantly touched by it.' As he said this, Satan laughed malignantly; and I continued silently to walk after him. 'I am sure,' continued he, 'that, in spite of the service I am doing you, you do not yet like me. You are always thus, you men - ungrateful to your friends. Not that I blame ingratitude; it is a vice upon which I pride myself, since I invented it myself; and I must say, that it is one most in vogue. But I do wish to see you a little more merry - it is the only thing I ask of you.' I answered not, but still followed my guide, white as a statue, and as cold. I was silent; but, at the pauses in the fiend's voice, I could hear my teeth chatter against each other, and my bones rattle in my body. ("The Dead Man's Story")

We take happiness when and where we can get it. One has nothing to do with the other. you know that. Intellectually, you know that is the truth. One can still be grieving and yet have a moment of shared laughter or passion. There is no guilt in living when you have lost so much. You live for them. You make your life count. You live to keep their memory alive. You live for yourself. It's all wrapped up together. We are part of the universe and it is vast. We are small, insignificant in the tapestry, yet we are there. A part of something larger. One false pull of that thread and everything could unravel.

You said not to fall for you. Did you change your mind?' 'Absolutely not.' His jaw tenses. 'Right.' I don't expect that to hurt as much as it does, which is part of the problem. I'm already too emotionally involved to separate out the sex, no matter how phenomenal it is. 'Here's the thing. I don't think I can separate sex from emotion when it comes to you.' Well, shit, now I've said it. 'We're already too close for that, and if we hook up again, I'm going to eventually fall for you.' My heart pounds at the rushed confession, waiting for his response. 'You won't.' Something akin to panic flares in his eyes, and he crosses his arms. I swear I can actually see the man building his defenses against his own feelings. 'You don't really know me. Not at my core.' And whose fault is that? 'I know enough,' I argue softly. 'And we'd have all the time in the world to figure it out if you'd stop acting like such an emotional chickenshit and just admit that you're going to fall for me, too, if we keep this up.' There's no way he would have designed that saddle, spent all that time training me to fight and fly, if he didn't feel something. He's going to have to fight for this, too, or it will never work. 'I have absolutely no intention of falling for you, Sorrengail.' His eyes narrow and he enunciates every word, like I could possibly take that any other way. Fuck. That. He let me in. He told me about his scars. He had an arsenal crafted for me. He cares. He's just as wrapped up in this as I am, even if he's shitty at showing it. 'Ouch,' I wince. 'Well, it's apparent that you're not ready to admit where this is going. So yeah, I think it's best we agree that this was just a onetime thing.' I force my shoulders to shrug. 'We both needed to blow off some steam, and we did, right?' 'Right,' he agrees, apprehension lining his forehead.

She was suddenly self-conscious of the fact that she and Jay were on the bed together, even though they'd been there, together like that, hundreds, maybe even thousands, of times before. And it had never bothered her then, when they were still just friends; but somehow with her father just a few feet away, especially right after they'd been making out, she felt like they were doing something wrong. "We're fine, Dad!" she called back, trying to sound cool and composed. And then she glared at Jay for his part in making her shout to begin with. They listened to the sound of her father walking away, and Violet noticed that even his footsteps were soft and unobtrusive. There was a long silence once they were alone again. Words that needed to be said, and maybe some that didn't, were like invisible fireworks exploding in the empty space between them. Jay was the first to give in. He reached out and took her hand, wrapping it tightly in both of his. "Look, Vi, I don't know exactly how to say this, but I don't want anything bad to happen to you. I don't think I could handle it if something, or someone, hurt you." The tone of his voice was still immovable and stubborn, despite the sweet sentiment lurking behind it. He squeezed her hand, though...firmly, as if emphasizing his point. "I know it's selfish, and I don't really care if it is, but I'm not gonna stand by and let you put yourself in danger, even if it is to catch a killer." He eased up on her throbbing fingers, and his voice got all husky and rough again. "I can't lose you," he explained, shrugging as if those weren't the most wonderful words she'd ever heard before. "Not now that I finally have you." She felt tears prickling in her eyes, and she blinked hard to try to stop them from coming. She was completely overwhelmed by what she'd just figured out...she'd realized it even before he'd finished talking. She knew what it was that he wasn't saying while he lectured her about safety. He loved her. Jay Heaton, her best friend since childhood, was in love with her. He didn't say it, but she knew that it was true. And the part that really freaked her out, the part of it that caught her completely off guard, was that he wasn't in it alone. Because even though she'd been denying it for a long long time, it had always been there...waiting just beneath the surface of their friendship. And now that it was out, there was no going back. And it was so weird to even be thinking it, but... ...she was in love with him too.

I Won’t Write Your Obituary You asked if you could call to say goodbye if you were ever really gonna kill yourself. Sure, but I won’t write your obituary. I’ll commission it from some dead-end journalist who will say things like: “At peace… Better place… Fought the good fight…” Maybe reference the loving embrace of Capital-G-God at least 4 times. Maybe quote Charles fucking Bukowski. And I won’t stop them because I won’t write your obituary. But if you call me, I will write you a new sky, one you can taste. I will write you a D-I-Y cloud maker so on days when you can’t do anything you can still make clouds in whatever shape you want them. I will write you letters, messages in bottles, in cages, in orange peels, in the distance between here and the moon, in forests and rivers and bird songs. I will write you songs. I can’t write music, but I’ll find Rihanna, and I’ll get her to write you music if it will make you want to dance a little longer. I will write you a body whose veins are electricity because outlets are easier to find than good shrinks, but we will find you a good shrink. I will write you 1-800-273-8255, that’s the suicide hotline; we can call it together. And yeah, you can call me, but I won’t tell you it’s okay, that I forgive you. I won’t say “goodbye” or “I love you” one last time. You won’t leave on good terms with me, Because I will not forgive you. I won’t read you your last rights, absolve you of sin, watch you sail away on a flaming viking ship, my hand glued to my forehead. I will not hold your hand steady around a gun. And after, I won’t come by to pick up the package of body parts you will have left specifically for me. I’ll get a call like “Ma’am, what would you have us do with them?” And I’ll say, “Burn them. Feed them to stray cats. Throw them at school children. Hurl them at the sea. I don’t care. I don’t want them.” I don’t want your heart. It’s not yours anymore, it’s just a heart now and I already have one. I don’t want your lungs, just deflated birthday party balloons that can’t breathe anymore. I don’t want a jar of your teeth as a memento. I don’t want your ripped off skin, a blanket to wrap myself in when I need to feel like your still here. You won’t be there. There’s no blood there, there’s no life there, there’s no you there. I want you. And I will write you so many fucking dead friend poems, that people will confuse my tongue with your tombstone and try to plant daisies in my throat before I ever write you an obituary while you’re still fucking here. So the answer to your question is “yes”. If you’re ever really gonna kill yourself, yes, please, call me.

Wild horses wouldn't have made Daniel admit that his wife, Anna, would have lectured him for an hour if she'd known what he was up to.Daniel considered it basic strategy not to tell her until it was done. "Since she's been moping and sighing around here," he lied without qualm, "I thought I'd bury my pride and call you myself.It's time you took a weekend and came to see your mother." Alan lifted a wry brow, knowing his father all too well. "I'd think she'd be all wrapped up in her first prospective granchild. How is Rena?" "You can see for yourself this weekend," Daniel informed him. "I-that is, Rena and Justin have decided they want to spend a weekend with the family. Caine and Diana are coming too." "You've been busy," Alan murmured. "What was that? Don't mumble, boy." "I said you'll be busy," Alan amended prudently. "For your mother's sake, I can sacrifice my peace and quiet.She worries about all of you-you especially since you're still without wife and family.The firstborn," he added, working himself up, "and both your brother and sister settled before you. The eldest son,my own father's namesake, and too busy flitting around to do his duty to the MacGregor line." Alan thought about his grueling morning and nearly smiled. "The MacGregor line seems to be moving along nicely. Maybe Rena'll have twins.

I wonder if all these bad things will change when I’m a high schooler…” “At the very least, they most certainly won’t change if you intend to remain the way you are.” Way to go, Yukinoshita-san! Not going easy on the young'un just after you finished apologizing to her! “But it’s enough if the people around you change,” I remarked. “There’s no need to force yourself to hang out with others.” “But things are hard on Rumi­-chan right now and if we don’t do something about it…” Yuigahama looked at Rumi with eyes full of concern. In response, Rumi winced slightly. “Hard, you say… I don’t like that. It makes me sound pathetic. It makes me feel inferior for being left out.” “Oh,” said Yuigahama. “I don’t like it, you know. But there’s nothing you can do about it.” “Why?” Yukinoshita questioned her. Rumi seemed to have some trouble speaking, but she still managed to form the right words. “I… got abandoned. I can’t get along with them anymore. Even if I did, I don’t know when it’ll start again. If the same thing were to happen, I guess I’m better off this way. I just­” She swallowed. “­don’t wanna be pathetic…” Oh. I get it. This girl was fed up. Of herself and of her surroundings. If you change yourself, your world will change, they say, but that’s a load of crap. When people already have an impression of you, it’s not easy to change your pre­existing relationships by adding something to the mix. When people evaluate each other, it’s not an addition or subtraction formula. They only perceive you through their preconceived notions. The truth is that people don’t see you as who you truly are. They only see what they want to see, the reality that they yearn for. If some disgusting guy on the low end of the caste works his arse off on something, the higher ones just snicker and say, “What’s he trying so hard for?” and that would be the end of it. If you stand out for the wrong reasons, you would just be fodder for criticism. That wouldn’t be the case in a perfect world, but for better or worse, that’s how things work with middle schoolers. Riajuu are sought for their actions as riajuu, loners are obligated to be loners, and otaku are forced to act like otaku. When the elites show their understanding of those beneath them, they are acknowledged for their open-mindedness and the depth of their benevolence, but the reverse is not tolerated. Those are the fetid rules of the Kingdom of Children. It truly is a sad state of affairs. "You can’t change the world, but you can change yourself". The hell was up with that? Adapting and conforming to a cruel and indifferent world you know you’ve already lost to – ultimately, that’s what a slave does. Wrapping it up in pretty words and deceiving even yourself is the highest form of falsehood.

Fuck yourself!’ she screamed at him. A monk gawped at her from the carriage, with a bloody mouth and that look of sweaty panic tourists get in the Holy City, so she shrieked, ‘And you can fuck yourself, too! Fuck each other,’ she added, half-hearted, as she hobbled away. Swearing’s free, after all. She whipped a prayer-cloth from a stall while the merchant wasn’t looking – which wasn’t so much theft in her book as just good reflexes – wrapped it over her head scarf-like, and slipped among the penitents, doing her best pitiful moan. Not difficult given the pain throbbing up her leg and the prickle of danger tickling her neck. She raised her hands towards the jagged strip of blue between the mismatched roofs and mouthed a smoking prayer for deliverance. For once, she almost meant it.

Well—I have to say I personally have never drawn such a sharp line between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ as you. For me: that line is often false. The two are never disconnected. One can’t exist without the other. As long as I am acting out of love, I feel I am doing best I know how. But you—wrapped up in judgment, always regretting the past, cursing yourself, blaming yourself, asking ‘what if,’ ‘what if.’ ‘Life is cruel.’ ‘I wish I had died instead of.’ Well—think about this. What if all your actions and choices, good or bad, make no difference to God? What if the pattern is pre-set? No no—hang on—this is a question worth struggling with. What if our badness and mistakes are the very thing that set our fate and bring us round to good? What if, for some of us, we can’t get there any other way?” “Get where?

Living in survival is the reason why we humans are so dominated by the Big Three. The stress response and the hormones that it triggers force us to focus on (and obsess about) the body, the environment, and time. As a result, we begin to define our “self” within the confines of the physical realm; we become less spiritual, less conscious, less aware, and less mindful. Put another way, we grow to be “materialists”—that is, habitually consumed by thoughts of things in the external environment. Our identity becomes wrapped up in our bodies. We are absorbed by the outer world because that is what those chemicals force us to pay attention to—things we own, people we know, places we have to go, problems we face, hairstyles we dislike, our body parts, our weight, our looks in comparison to others, how much time we have or don’t have … you get

I’m not sure I see your point.” “Well—I have to say I personally have never drawn such a sharp line between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ as you. For me: that line is often false. The two are never disconnected. One can’t exist without the other. As long as I am acting out of love, I feel I am doing best I know how. But you—wrapped up in judgment, always regretting the past, cursing yourself, blaming yourself, asking ‘what if,’ ‘what if.’ ‘Life is cruel.’ ‘I wish I had died instead of.’ Well—think about this. What if all your actions and choices, good or bad, make no difference to God? What if the pattern is pre-set? No no—hang on—this is a question worth struggling with. What if our badness and mistakes are the very thing that set our fate and bring us round to good? What if, for some of us, we can’t get there any other way?” “Get where?” “Understand, by saying ‘God,’ I am merely using ‘God’ as reference to long-term pattern we can’t decipher. Huge, slow-moving weather system rolling in on us from afar, blowing us randomly like—” eloquently, he batted at the air as if at a blown leaf. “But—maybe not so random and impersonal as all that, if you get me.” “Sorry but I’m not really appreciating your point here.” “You don’t need a point. The point is maybe that the point is too big to see or work round to on our own. Because—” up went the batwing eyebrow—“well, if you didn’t take picture from museum, and Sascha didn’t steal it back, and I didn’t think of claiming reward—well, wouldn’t all those dozens of other paintings remain missing too? Forever maybe? Wrapped in brown paper? Still shut in that apartment? No one to look at them? Lonely and lost to the world? Maybe the one had to be lost for the others to be found?” “I think this goes more to the idea of ‘relentless irony’ than ‘divine providence.’ ” “Yes—but why give it a name? Can’t they both be the same thing?

Have Himself hunch down to put a long pale arm around your shoulders and tell you that his own father had told him that talent is sort of a dark gift, that talent is its own expectation: it is there from the start and either lived up to or lost. Have a father whose own father lost what was there. Have a father who lived up to his own promise and then found thing after thing to meet and surpass the expectations of his promise in, and didn’t seem just a whole hell of a lot happier or tighter wrapped than his own failed father, leaving you yourself in a kind of feral and flux-ridden state with respect to talent. Here is how to avoid thinking about any of this by practicing and playing until everything runs on autopilot and talent’s unconscious exercise becomes a way to escape yourself, a long waking dream of pure play. The irony is that this makes you very good, and you start to become regarded as having a prodigious talent to live up to.

So before you pass judgment on this cake, maybe take a look at yourself and what's going on in your own screwed-up life that's given you a warped perspective on an innocent, beautiful, phenomenal in every way----" I lay a hand on Benny's shoulder and when he turns toward me, his mouth falls open in a perfect circle, dark eyebrows wrinkling his forehead under his cap. He is flushed and startled and so, so handsome. It's the first time I've looked at his face since we were on a city sidewalk and I was walking away from him and goodness, I've missed it. "Sounds like a pretty good cake," I manage with a soft smile. "The best," he breathes. I step closer still, just a few inches from him now. "I'm a little sweeter on the baker, to be honest." His eyes close and his chin tips down for just a moment, and he exhales on a laugh before looking at me with so much warmth and intensity. "You have no idea how it is to hear that," he murmurs, and then he's kissing me hard, one hand in my hair and the other wrapping around my waist to pull me to him. I bring my arms up around his shoulders, barely registering the cheers and applause in the packed kitchen before I pull the cap off Benny's head. I hold it up to cover our faces from the camera, as our kiss goes on much longer than I'd ever want my mama to see. When we break apart, Benny whispers, "I love you, Reese. And I'm sorry for not making that totally clear before now. I want to be with you, and support you, and fight for you----" "I love you, Benny." I hadn't said it out loud before, for fear that this would end and I'd be heartbroken. But it appears that will not be the case. And I'm so, so certain that I love him. "Woo!" he shouts, lifting me by the waist and twirling me around. Then, since the camera is still rolling---perhaps a sense of "what do we really have to lose at this point?" on Charlie's part---he yells, "I LOVE REESE CAMDEN! Who wants cake?

You really are sort of a basic person, aren’t you, except for that blue stratospheric veneer of crust you wrap yourself around. I was going to ask you, with your usual never-ending broadside complaints of lack and wearisome bushwa ‘nonsensical’ humdrum excuses, just exactly what kind of person are you? You must have had it easy growing up. Now, as per your habit, tonight when you hit the hay, percle on this: There are 7even basic types of people—: 1. People who make things happen. 2. People who talk about making things happen. 3. People who start to make things happen but never finish. 4. People who watch things happen. 5. People who wonder what just happened. 6. People who don’t have the faintest idea that anything happened. 7. People who need a stout “clue-by-four” of hickory smacked up alongside their head to make them happen. — As for an eighth— —Which one are you? Puzȥle it out. . . . -- Thomas Kannon, Instructor to Brickley. The Lady and the Samurai

So there’s this annual dance in a couple of weeks.” “The Winter Ball,” I interrupt. “There have been signs up everywhere.” “You want to go?” I think about it for a half second. “Will you dress up?” He nods. I move forward so my hands are flat on the towel and my face is much closer to his face. Something inside my chest warms up like a nice kind of heartburn and I say, “And will we slow dance?” He nods again. His bottom lip turns in toward his mouth for a second, just disappears and then comes back. Stretching out my spine so my lips are nearly touching his I say, “And will you press yourself against me and we’ll move really close together and then your hand will stretch out across the back of my head and your fingers will wrap into my hair and then . . .” He doesn’t nod. He just tilts his head down, moves his fingers into my hair, and his lips touch mine in a forever kiss. His lips are soft and hard all at once. His breath mixes with my breath. Everything inside of me whooshes out.

Amy tossed in her bed, then froze as she heard Northcliff’s voice in her head. Do you know that when you rise in the morning, I hear your footsteps over my head? I imagine you slipping out of a worn nightgown, your body gleaming pale and sweet, and donning one of your ghastly gowns. At night, the floorboards creak as you ready yourself for bed, and I imagine you undressing. And all night long, every time you turn over in your virgin bed, I hear you. You have me imprisoned, but I am watching you. A shiver ran up her spine at the memory of Northcliff’s words, but it wasn’t fear. It was desire. She wanted to rise from her bed and go to him. She wanted to see him. Not just his face or the expanse of his chest, but all of him. Because while he said he had been imagining her, she had also been imagining him. In a motion so slow and cautious her ancient straw-stuffed mattress made no noise, Amy sat up and wrapped her arms around her knees. Northcliff was awake below. She knew it; she could feel his unswerving attention, the waves of his will beckoning her to him.

Let the center be your home: To be centered is considered desirable; when they feel distracted or scattered, people often say, “I lost my center.” But if there is no person inside your head, if the ego’s sense of I, me, mine is illusory, where’s the center? Paradoxically, the center is everywhere. It is the open space that has no boundaries. Instead of thinking of your center as a defined spot—the way people point to their hearts as the seat of the soul—be at the center of experience. Experience isn’t a place; it’s a focus of attention. You can live there, at the still point around which everything revolves. To be off center is to lose focus, to look away from experience or block it out. To be centered is like saying “I want to find my home in creation.” You relax into the rhythm of your own life, which sets the stage for meeting yourself at a deeper level. You can’t summon the silent witness, but you can place yourself close to it by refusing to get lost in your own creation. When I find myself being overshadowed by anything, I can fall back on a few simple steps: • I say to myself, “This situation may be shaking me, but I am more than any situation.” • I take a deep breath and focus my attention on whatever my body is feeling. • I step back and see myself as another person would see me (preferably the person whom I am resisting or reacting to). • I realize that my emotions are not reliable guides to what is permanent and real. They are momentary reactions, and most likely they are born of habit. • If I am about to burst out with uncontrollable reactions, I walk away. As you can see, I don’t try to feel better, to be more positive, to come from love, or to change the state I’m in. We are all framed by personalities and driven by egos. Ego personalities are trained by habit and by the past; they run along like self-propelled engines. If you can observe the mechanism at work without getting wrapped up in it, you will find that you possess a second perspective, one that is always calm, alert, detached, tuned in but not overshadowed. That second place is your center. It isn’t a place at all but a close encounter with the silent witness.

Well—I have to say I personally have never drawn such a sharp line between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ as you. For me: that line is often false. The two are never disconnected. One can’t exist without the other. As long as I am acting out of love, I feel I am doing best I know how. But you—wrapped up in judgment, always regretting the past, cursing yourself, blaming yourself, asking ‘what if,’ ‘what if.’ ‘Life is cruel.’ ‘I wish I had died instead of.’ Well—think about this. What if all your actions and choices, good or bad, make no difference to God? What if the pattern is pre-set? No no—hang on—this is a question worth struggling with. What if our badness and mistakes are the very thing that set our fate and bring us round to good? What if, for some of us, we can’t get there any other way?” “Get where?” “Understand, by saying ‘God,’ I am merely using ‘God’ as reference to long-term pattern we can’t decipher. Huge, slow-moving weather system rolling in on us from afar, blowing us randomly like—” eloquently, he batted at the air as if at a blown leaf. “But—maybe not so random and impersonal as all that, if you get me.

Jesus… is this about him? Hastings?” “No, this is about you.” She points at me. “You and your innocent act… and your money, and your things. The words you say—the jokes, the laughs, the smiles you give her that she eats right up, and ugh, your face.” “My face?” “Your stupid fucking face,” she says, running her hands through her hair as she groans, those words startling me. Kennedy doesn’t curse. “Your face is everywhere. I’m sick of it!” “You’re sick of my face.” “Yes!” “There’s not much I can do about that.” “You can get out of my head,” she says. “Stop being there all the time!” I laugh at that, because it’s so damn absurd, but that’s the wrong thing to do. Her eyes narrow as she stares me down, looking like she wants to hit me right now. “I hate you,” she says, her voice shaking. “I’ve never hated someone as much as I hate you, Jonathan.” Those words, they wake me right up. I’m no longer laughing. There’s nothing funny about it. I got under her skin, and with the two of us already on shaky ground, I know that’s dangerous. She turns to leave, like she’s going to walk away, but I grab her arm to stop her. “Come on, don’t be like that…” “Don’t touch me,” she says, ripping from my grasp. I let go as I stand up, stepping toward her. “Just… wait a minute… talk to me.” “There’s nothing left to say.” “I’ll be goddamned.” I grab her arm again before she can walk out. “You can’t tell me you hate me and then leave. That’s bullshit. You bust up in here while I’m asleep to yell at me…” “You deserve it!” “Maybe so, but still…” “Still nothing,” she says, turning to me again, getting right in my face. “I hate you. That’s it. There’s nothing else to say. I hate everything about you. Your voice, your face… I hate it. Why aren’t you going away?” “Because I can’t,” I tell her, “and I’m pretty sure you don’t really want me to.” She scoffs. “You’re upset,” I say, “but you’re lying to yourself if you think you want me gone.” “I do.” “You don’t.” “Leave.” “No.” “Go away.” “I’m not.” As soon as that last word leaves my lips, she’s on me, slamming into me, her lips pressing against mine. She’s kissing me, and I’m so fucking stunned that it takes me a moment to react, a moment to consider kissing her back. She moans and wraps her arms around my neck, clinging to me damn near aggressively as she kicks the door closed.

Laughter greeted Clint’s ears at the open doorway—rich, soft laughter, like the creamy center of a melted caramel. The kind of laughter that made you want to wrap yourself up in it and stay a while. Clint stopped in the doorway, spellbound. The boys sat on different sides of an antique four-poster bed, sunk knee-deep in patchwork quilts, sheets and what he would swear was an old fashioned feather-tick mattress. But it was the vision between the little boys that held Clint’s attention. Emma Lewis had the same rich, dark, burnt-copper hair as her sons, and the burns-if-she’s-out-in-the-sun-longer-than-one-hour skin of most redheads. Beneath the wrinkled T-shirt and jeans she’d fallen asleep in, he could tell she was neither too thin nor too heavy, just the luscious type of figure Clint decided long ago he liked on women. She also possessed that wonderful laughter that had stirred more than his heart to life. But when she raised the deepest cornflower-blue eyes to him, Clint nearly moaned. If he let himself, he could get lost in that open, clear gaze forever. “Can I help you?” The remnants of sleep in her voice brought on visions of hearing her voice after a night of endless passion.

Have you ever noticed how when someone you admire goes out and does something phenomenal, you’re happy for her or him, but you’re not surprised—of course they did something phenomenal, they’re a phenomenal person! But to get yourself to see how amazing you are is like pushing a giant marshmallow up a hill. Yes, there we go, we are up, we are awesome! Ooop! We’re sagging—we are sagging on the left! Push it up. There we go. We are all good! Wait, now we’re sagging on the right . . . We run around, taking one step forward and fourteen steps back when it’s so unnecessary. Instead, try seeing yourself through the eyes of someone who admires you. They get it. They believe in you leaps and bounds. They aren’t connected to your insecurities and negative beliefs about yourself. All they see is your true glory and potential. Become one of your own die-hard fans, look at yourself from the outside, where all your self doubts can’t crawl all over you, and behold what shines through. You get to choose how you perceive your reality. So why, when it comes to perceiving yourself, would you choose to see anything other than a super huge rock star of a creature? You are a badass. You were one when you came screaming onto this planet and you are one now. The Universe wouldn’t have bothered with you otherwise. You can’t screw up so majorly that your badassery disappears. It is who you are. It’s who you always will be. It’s not up for negotiation. You are loved. Massively. Ferociously. Unconditionally. The Universe is totally freaking out about how awesome you are. It’s got you wrapped in a warm gorilla hug of adoration. It wants to give you everything you desire. It wants you to be happy. It wants you to see what it sees in you. You are perfect. To think anything less is as pointless as a river thinking that it’s got too many curves or that it moves too slowly or that its rapids are too rapid. Says who? You’re on a journey with no defined beginning, middle or end. There are no wrong twists and turns. There is just being. And your job is to be as you as you can be. This is why you’re here. To shy away from who you truly are would leave the world you-less. You are the only you there is and ever will be. I repeat, you are the only you there is and ever will be. Do not deny the world its one and only chance to bask in your brilliance. We are all perfect in our own, magnificent, fucked-up ways. Laugh at yourself. Love yourself and others. Rejoice in the cosmic ridiculousness. PART 2: HOW

His eyes lit appreciatively as her gaze snagged there. “I could pick you up and wrap those lovely long legs of yours around my waist. Slip deep inside you, rock you against me and love you till you lay in my arms and slept like a babe. I will spend each night stretched beside you, teaching you what you want me to teach you. I can feel that you want it from me. Yet it will be at your pace, when you choose. I will wait as long as I must. “But know this, Lisa—when you are across the dinner table from me on the morrow, in my mind I am pushing you back on a bed. In my fantasy”—he laughed, as if at his own brashness—“you are discovering yourself with my willing body. Who knows, perhaps even laying siege to the heart that beats within this chest.” He thumped his chest with a fist and silently admitted she’d already begun to do that, otherwise he wouldn’t have offered himself. But she didn’t need to know that. He knotted the tartan slowly, never taking his eyes from hers. “Good night, Lisa. Sleep with the angels.” Her eyes stung from quick tears. It had been her mother’s nightly benediction: Sleep with the angels. But then he added words her mother never had: “Then come back to earth and sleep with your devil, who would burn in hell for one night in your arms.

For physical issues, we have an entire pharmacopoeia of pain medicine. For the actual pain of grief, we have . . . nothing. It’s always seemed so bizarre to me that we have an answer for almost every physical pain, but for this—some of the most intense pain we can experience—there is no medicine. You’re just supposed to feel it. And in a way, that’s true. The answer to pain is simply to feel it. Some traditions speak of practicing compassion in the face of pain, rather than trying to fix it. As I understand the Buddhist teaching, the fourth form of compassion in the Brahma Viharas, or the four immeasurables, describes an approach to the kinds of pain that cannot be fixed: upekkha, or equanimity. Upekkha is the practice of staying emotionally open and bearing witness to the pain while dwelling in equanimity around one’s limited ability to effect change. This form of compassion—for self, for others—is about remaining calm enough to feel everything, to remain calm while feeling everything, knowing that it can’t be changed. Equanimity (upekkha) is said to be the hardest form of compassion to teach, and the hardest to practice. It’s not, as is commonly understood, equanimity in the way of being unaffected by what’s happened, but more a quality of clear, calm attention in the face of immoveable truth. When something cannot be changed, the “enlightened” response is to pay attention. To feel it. To turn toward it and say, “I see you.” That’s the big secret of grief: the answer to the pain is in the pain. Or, as e. e. cummings wrote, healing of the wound is to be sought in the blood of the wound itself. It seems too intangible to be of use, but by allowing your pain to exist, you change it somehow. There’s power in witnessing your own pain. The challenge is to stay present in your heart, to your heart, to your own deep self, even, and especially, when that self is broken. Pain wants to be heard. It deserves to be heard. Denying or minimizing the reality of pain makes it worse. Telling the truth about the immensity of your pain—which is another way of paying attention—makes things different, if not better. It’s important to find those places where your grief gets to be as bad as it is, where it gets to suck as much as it does. Let your pain stretch out. Take up all the space it needs. When so many others tell you that your grief has to be cleaned up or contained, hearing that there is enough room for your pain to spread out, to unfurl—it’s healing. It’s a relief. The more you open to your pain, the more you can just be with it, the more you can give yourself the tenderness and care you need to survive this. Your pain needs space. Room to unfold. I think this is why we seek out natural landscapes that are larger than us. Not just in grief, but often in grief. The expanding horizon line, the sense of limitless space, a landscape wide and deep and vast enough to hold what is—we need those places. Sometimes grief like yours cannot be held by the universe itself. True. Sometimes grief needs more than an endless galaxy. Maybe your pain could wrap around the axle of the universe several times. Only the stars are large enough to take it on. With enough room to breathe, to expand, to be itself, pain softens. No longer confined and cramped, it can stop thrashing at the bars of its cage, can stop defending itself against its right to exist. There isn’t anything you need to do with your pain. Nothing you need to do about your pain. It simply is. Give it your attention, your care. Find ways to let it stretch out, let it exist. Tend to yourself inside it. That’s so different from trying to get yourself out of it. The way to come to pain is with open eyes, and an open heart, committed to bearing witness to your own broken place. It won’t fix anything. And it changes everything.

I am your wife, but I will do as I please, I raged, and the spell rose in my head without effort. Belt that holds my husband’s pants, Loosen now and make him dance. Tiras’s belt flew from his breeches like a sea serpent, slithering through the air only to strike at him with its tail. He stepped back from me, his eyes growing wide as he gripped the gyrating length of leather, holding it at arm’s length with one hand as he held up his pants with the other. But I wasn’t finished. Boots upon my husband’s feet, Kick him so he’ll take a seat. Tiras fell flat on his behind as his boots shimmied and wriggled free, throwing him off balance. His boots then proceeded to kick him on his back and his thighs as he yowled in stunned outrage. “Lark!” Shirt upon my husband’s chest, Wrap yourself around his head. His tunic promptly rose like Tiras was shrugging it off, only it wrapped itself around him, obscuring his angry face. I started to laugh then. I couldn’t help it. He looked so ridiculous sitting on the floor of the library, his socks hanging from his feet, his breeches falling around his hips, his shirt over his head, and his boots and belt attacking him. Tiras lashed out and grabbed my skirts, yanking me down beside him. “Call off the hounds, Lark!” he bellowed, and I laughed even harder, shaking with mirth even as he rolled himself on top of me and valiantly fought the tunic that kept wrapping itself around his face. The tunic was slightly dangerous, the boots weren’t very accurate, and the tail end of the belt had made a welt across my cheek. I decided enough was enough. I performed a sloppy rhyme, and Tiras let out a stream of profanities as the shirt ceased its murderous attempts and the belt and boots fell to the floor, inanimate once again. Tiras’s breathing was harsh and fast, his hair mussed and falling over his eyes as he braced his forearms on either side of my head. His big body pressed me into the floor, making it hard to draw breath. I was well and truly trapped, but I felt like the victor regardless. Are you injured, husband? He was glaring and angry for all of three seconds. Then the lines around his eyes deepened and a smile broke out across his face. He laughed with me, but he kept me pinned beneath him, his face inches from mine. “You enjoyed that, didn’t you?” Immensely. “Tell me this, wife. Is there a spell to quickly remove your dress?” he whispered, still smiling, his breath tickling my mouth. I felt my face grow hot, and I closed my eyes, trying to retreat, even as I immediately considered a spell to render us both naked.

If you’re going to give me the third degree,” she tells him, “let’s get it over with. Best to withhold food or water; water is probably best. I’ll get thirsty before I get hungry.” He shakes his head in disbelief. “Do you really think I’m like that? Why would you think that?” “I was taken by force, and you’re keeping me here against my will,” she says, leaning across the table toward him. She considers spitting in his face, but decides to save that gesture as punctuation for a more appropriate moment. “Imprisonment is still imprisonment, no matter how many layers of cotton you wrap it in.” That makes him lean farther away, and she knows she’s pushed a button. She remembers seeing those pictures of him back when he was all over the news, wrapped in cotton and kept in a bombproof cell. “I really don’t get you,” he says, a bit of anger in his voice this time. “We saved your life. You could at least be a little grateful.” “You have robbed me, and everyone here, of their purpose. That’s not salvation, that’s damnation.” “I’m sorry you feel that way.” Now it’s her turn to get angry. “Yes, you’re sorry I feel that way, everyone’s sorry I feel that way. Are you going to keep this up until I don’t feel that way anymore?” He stands up suddenly, pushing his chair back, and paces, fern leaves brushing his clothes. She knows she’s gotten to him. He seems like he’s about to storm out, but instead takes a deep breath and turns back to her. “I know what you’re going through,” he says. “I was brainwashed by my family to actually want to be unwound—and not just by my family, but by my friends, my church, everyone I looked up to. The only voice who spoke sense was my brother Marcus, but I was too blind to hear him until the day I got kidnapped.” “You mean see,” she says, putting a nice speed bump in his way. “Huh?” “Too blind to see him, too deaf to hear him. Get your senses straight. Or maybe you can’t, because you’re senseless.” He smiles. “You’re good.” “And anyway, I don’t need to hear your life story. I already know it. You got caught in a freeway pileup, and the Akron AWOL used you as a human shield—very noble. Then he turned you, like cheese gone bad.” “He didn’t turn me. It was getting away from my tithing, and seeing unwinding for what it is. That’s what turned me.” “Because being a murderer is better than being a tithe, isn’t that right, clapper?” He sits back down again, calmer, and it frustrates her that he is becoming immune to her snipes. “When you live a life without questions, you’re unprepared for the questions when they come,” he says. “You get angry and you totally lack the skills to deal with the anger. So yes, I became a clapper, but only because I was too innocent to know how guilty I was becoming.” ... “You think I’m like you, but I’m not,” Miracolina says. “I’m not part of a religious order that tithes. My parents did it in spite of our beliefs, not because of ii.” “But you were still raised to believe it was your purpose, weren’t you?” “My purpose was to save my brother’s life by being a marrow donor, so my purpose was served before I was six months old.” “And doesn’t that make you angry that the only reason you’re here was to help someone else?” “Not at all,” she says a little too quickly. She purses her lips and leans back in her chair, squirming a bit. The chair feels a little too hard beneath her. “All right, so maybe I do feel angry once in a while, but I understand why they did it. If I were them, I would have done the same thing.” “Agreed,” he says. “But once your purpose was served, shouldn’t your life be your own?” “Miracles are the property of God,” she answers. “No,” he says, “miracles are gifts from God. To calthem his property insults the spirit in which they are given.” She opens her mouth to reply but finds she has no response, because he’s right. Damn him for being right—nothing about him should be right! “We’ll talk again when you’re over yourself,” he says.

they had never been apart, and there was nothing Evelyn could do about it but unwrap her Almond Joy candy bar and sit there for the duration. “The front yard had a great big old chinaberry tree. I remember, we’d pick those little chinaberries all year long, and at Christmas, we’d string them and wrap them all around the tree from top to bottom. Momma was always warning us not to put chinaberries up our nose, and of course the first thing Idgie did, as soon as she learned to walk, was to go out in the yard and put chinaberries up her nose and in her ears as well. To the point that Dr. Hadley had to be called! He told Momma, ‘Mrs. Threadgoode, it looks like you’ve got yourself a little scalawag on your hands.’ “Well, of course Buddy just loved to hear that. He encouraged her every step of the way. But that’s how it is in big families. Everybody has their favorite. Her real name was Imogene, but Buddy started calling her Idgie. Buddy was eight when she was born, and he used to carry her all over town, just like she was a doll. When she got old enough to walk, she’d paddle around after him like a little duck, dragging that little wooden rooster behind her. “That Buddy had a million-dollar personality, with those dark eyes and those white teeth…he could charm you within an inch of your life. I don’t know of a girl in Whistle

The cane is just not going to cut it. I shared with some of my colleagues that these brothers live in neighborhoods where they are getting whapped with a piece of stick all night, stabbed with knives, and pegged with screwdrivers that have been sharpened down, and they are leaking blood. When you come to a fella without even interviewing him, without sitting him down to find out why you did what you did, your only interest is caning him, because you are burned out and frustrated yourself. You say to him, ‘Bend over, you are getting six.’ And the boy grits his teeth, skin up his face, takes those six cuts, and he is gone. But have you really been effective? Caning him is no big deal, because he’s probably ducking bullets at night. He has a lot more things on his mind than that. On the other hand, we can further send our delinquent students into damnation by telling them they are no body and all we want to do is punish, punish, punish. Here at R.M. Bailey, we have been trying a lot of different things. But at the end of the day, nothing that we do is better than the voice itself. Nothing is better than talking to the child, listening, developing trust, developing a friendship. Feel free to come to me anytime if something is bothering you, because I was your age once before. Charles chuck Mackey, former vice principal and coach of the R. M. Bailey Pacers school.

I want you to ride me.” “Fuck.” Dex shivered from head to toe. “That’s the idea.” Sloane put his hands behind his head, and Dex crawled over him. He sat on Sloane’s thighs and wrapped his lubed hand around Sloane’s hard cock, sliding it up to the head and drawing a sharp breath from Sloane. He loved watching his partner. The heated look in Dex’s eyes, the way those plump lips were slightly parted as he slowly eased his hand down to the root, twisting as he went. Sloane closed his eyes with a moan. When Dex had slathered him up good and driven Sloane to the point where he thought he’d come, he grabbed Dex’s wrist and pulled him over. He needed to taste those lips, to claim them as his, and he started by forcing his tongue inside Dex’s mouth, his kisses hungry and needy. Gripping Dex’s ass, Sloane moved Dex onto him, pulling away from Dex’s lips long enough to demand hoarsely, “Fuck yourself on my dick.” “Oh God.” Dex shifted back and reached behind him. He took hold of Sloane’s cock, and Sloane felt it being pushed between Dex’s ass cheeks. With gritted teeth he watched Dex gradually push himself farther back onto Sloane. “Fuck. Dex,” Sloane groaned, his hands gripping fistfuls of the sheets as he felt the tightness of Dex’s ass swallowing Sloane little by little. Sloane’s brow was beaded with sweat, and he gritted his teeth until Dex was sitting on him with Sloane shoved all the way up. Dex leaned slightly forward, and Sloane ran a hand up his lover’s chest. “You’re so fucking beautiful.” Dex

Akos sprinted to my side, bent over me, and wrapped an arm around my waist. Together we ran toward the rope. He grabbed it with one hand, and it jerked up, fast. Too fast for Vas to grab. Everyone around us was roaring. He shouted into my ear, “I’m going to need you to hold on by yourself!” I cursed at him. I tried not to look down at the crowded seats below us, the frenzy we had left behind, the distant ground, but it was hard not to. I focused instead on Akos’s armor. I wrapped my arms around his chest and clamped my hands around the collar of it. When he released me, I gritted my teeth--I was too weak to hold on like this, too weak to support my own weight. Akos reached up with the hand he had been using to hold me, and his fingers approached the force field that blanketed the amphitheater. It lit up brighter when his fingers touched it, then flickered, and went out. The rope jerked up, hard, making me whimper as I almost lost my grip, but then we were inside the transport vessel. We were inside, and it was deadly quiet. “You made Vas feel pain,” I said, breathless. I touched his face, ran a fingertip down his nose, over his upper lip. He wasn’t as bruised as he had been the last time I saw him, cowering on the floor at my touch. “I did,” he replied. “Eijeh was in the amphitheater, he was right there. You could have grabbed him. Why didn’t you--” His mouth--still under my fingers--twitched into a smile. “Because I came for you, you idiot.” I laughed and fell against him, not strong enough to stand anymore.

You should not do this, Benjamin.” No, he should not, but she sounded forlorn rather than truly upset. He climbed on the bed and scooted under the covers to sit beside her. Lovely cool sheets she had—probably cotton—and her scent was all around him. “Not do what?” “You will start kissing me, and I’ll get all muddled, and if I haven’t conceived already, you’ll see that I do by morning. I can’t think…” She huffed out a breath. “No woman could think when you exert yourself to be seductive.” “My dear, you are quite overwrought, though under the circumstances, one can expect no less.” He arranged himself on his back amid her pillows. “Come here.” He drew her gently down against him and wrapped an arm around her. “It isn’t my intention to muddle you.” Though it was gratifying in the extreme to think he could. “Then what are you doing here?” She shifted a little, restlessly, as if she’d never cuddled with anybody in a bed before—another gratifying thought. “Get comfy, my love.” He hiked one of her legs against his thighs, taking care that she did not touch his half-aroused cock in the process. “I am going to make an admission which will cause me to blush.” “As long as you don’t burst out in song.” She moved again, bringing her arm up to curl against his chest. “Should I light a candle to better appreciate your blush?” “You must please yourself, though I am naked. One would hope you’d appreciate more than just my blush.” She might have chuckled a little at that, and she might have stirred around just a little more to hide it, the minx. She did not light a candle. “This muddling business, Maggie. It goes both ways.

But if her idiot suitors were staying at Halstead Hall with her, then by thunder, he'd be here, too. They wouldn't take advantage of her on his watch. "We're agreed that you won't do any of that foolish nonsense you mentioned, like spying on them, right?" "Of course not. That's what I have you for." Her private lackey to jump at her commands. He was already regretting this. "Surely the gentlemen will accept the invitation," she went on, blithely ignoring his disgruntlement. "It's hunting season, and the estate has some excellent coveys." "I wouldn't know." She cast him an easy smile. "Because you generally hunt men, not grouse. And apparently you do it very well." A compliment? From her "No need to flatter me, my lady," he said dryly. "I've already agreed to your scheme." Her smile vanished. "Really, Mr. Pinter, sometimes you can be so..." "Honest?" he prodded. "Irritating." She tipped up her chin. "It will be easier to work together if you're not always so prickly." He felt more than prickly, and for the most foolish reasons imaginable. Because he didn't like her trawling for suitors. Or using him to do it. And because he hated her "lady of the manor" role. It reminded him too forcibly of the difference in their stations. "I am who I am, madam," he bit out, as much a reminder for himself as for her. "You knew what you were purchasing when you set out to do this." She frowned. "Must you make it sound so sordid?" He stepped as close as he dared. "You want me to gather information you can use in playing a false role to catch s husband. I am not the one making it sordid." "Tell me, sir, will I have to endure your moralizing at every turn?" she said in a voice dripping with sugar. "Because I'd happily pay extra to have you keep your opinions to yourself." "There isn't enough money in all the world for that." Her eyes blazed up at him. Good. He much preferred her in a temper. At least then she was herself, not putting on some show. She seemed to catch herself, pasting an utterly false smile to her lips. "I see. Well then, can you manage to be civil for the house party? It does me no good to bring suitors here if you'll be skulking about, making them uncomfortable." He tamped down the urge to provoke her further. If he did she'd strike off on her own, and that would be disastrous. "I shall try to keep my 'skulking' to a minimum." "Thank you." She thrust out her hand. "Shall we shake on it?" The minute his fingers closed about hers, he wished he'd refused. Because having her soft hand in his roused everything he'd been trying to suppress during this interview. He couldn't seem to let go. For such a small-boned female, she had a surprisingly firm grip. Her hand was like her-fragility and strength all wrapped in beauty. He had a mad impulse to lift it to his lips and press a kiss to her creamy skin. But he was no Lancelot to her Guinevere. Only in legend did lowly knights dare to court queens. Releasing her hand before he could do something stupid, he sketched a bow. "Good day, my lady. I'll begin my investigation at once and report to you as soon as I learn something." He left her standing there, a goddess surrounded by the aging glories of an aristocrat's mansion. God save him-this had to be the worst mission he'd ever undertaken, one he was sure to regret.

Why did you come here tonight?” she asked. “Other than the fact that you’ve finally come to your senses and realize you love me.” Chuckling, Grey reached up and untied the ribbons that held her mask. The pretty silk fell away to reveal the beautiful face beneath. “I missed you,” he replied honestly. “And you were right-about everything. I’m tired of drifting through life. I want to live again-with you.” A lone tear trickled down her cheek. “I think that might be the most romantic thing you’ve ever said to me.” He grinned. “I have more.” She pressed her fingers to his lips. “I’m tired of talking.” She kissed him, teasing his lips with the ripe curves of hers, sliding her tongue inside to rub against his in a sensual rhythm that had him fisting his hands in her skirts. By the time they reached Mayfair, Grey’s hair was mussed, Rose’s skirts crushed, and he was harder than an oratory competition for mutes. “I can’t believe you came,” she told him as the entered the house, arms wrapped around each other. “I’m so proud of you.” “I wouldn’t have done it without you.” She shook her head. “You did it for yourself not for me.” Perhaps that was true, and perhaps it wasn’t. He had no interest in discussing it tonight. “It’s just the beginning,” he promised. “I’m going to go wherever you want to go from now on. Within reason.” She laughed. “Of course. We can’t have you attending a musicale just to please me, can we?” She gazed up at him. “You know, I think I’m going to want to spend plenty of evenings at home as well. That time I spent out of society had some very soothing moments.” “Of course,” he agreed, thinking about all the things they could do to one another at home. Alone. “There has to be moderation.” Upstairs in their bedroom, he undressed her, unbuttoning each tiny button one by one until she sighed in exasperation. “In a hurry?” he teased. His wife got her revenge, when clad only in her chemise and stockings, she turned those nimble fingers of hers to his cravat, working the knot so slowly he thought he might go mad. She worsened the torment by slowly rubbing her hips against his thigh. His cock was so rigid he could hang clothes on it, and the need to bury himself inside her consumed him. Still, a skilled lover knows when to have patience-and a man in love knows that his woman’s pleasure comes far, far before his own. So, as ready as he was, Grey was in no hurry to let this night end, not when it might prove to be the best of his new-found life. Wearing only his trousers, he took Rose’s hand and led her to their bed. He climbed onto the mattress and pulled her down beside him, lying so that they were face-to-face. Warm fingers came up to gently touch the scar that ran down his face. Odd, but he hadn’t thought of it at all that evening. In fact, he’d almost forgot about it. “I heard you that night,” he admitted. “When you told me you loved me.” Her head tilted. “I thought you were asleep.” “No.” He held her gaze as he raised his own hand to brush the softness of her cheek. “I should have said it then, but I love you too, Rose. So much.” Her smile was smug. “I know.” She kissed him again. “Make love to me.” His entire body pulsed. “I intend to, but there’s one thing I have to do first.” Rose frowned. “What’s that?” Grey pulled the brand-new copy of Voluptuous from beneath the pillow where he’d hidden it before going to the ball. “There’s a story in here that I want to read to you.

But whether I’m on deck or below it, I’ll never be far.” “Shall I take that as a promise? Or a threat?” She sauntered toward him, hands cocked on her hips in an attitude of provocation. His eyes swept her body, washing her with angry heat. She noted the subtle tensing of his shoulders, the frayed edge of his breath. Even exhausted and hurt, he still wanted her. For a moment, Sophia felt hope flicker to life inside her. Enough for them both. And then, with the work of an instant, he quashed it all. Gray stepped back. He gave a loose shrug and a lazy half-smile. If I don’t care about you, his look said, you can’t possibly hurt me. “Take it however you wish.” “Oh no, you don’t. Don’t you try that move with me.” With trembling fingers, she began unbuttoning her gown. “What the devil are you doing? You think you can just hike up your shift and make-“ “Don’t get excited.” She stripped the bodice down her arms, then set to work unlacing her stays. “I’m merely settling a score. I can’t stand to be in your debt a moment longer.” Soon she was down to her chemise and plucking coins from the purse tucked between her breasts. One, two, three, four, five… “There,” she said, casing the sovereigns on the table. “Six pounds, and”-she fished out a crown-“ten shillings. You owe me the two.” He held up open palms. “Well, I’m afraid I have no coin on me. You’ll have to trust me for it.” “I wouldn’t trust you for anything. Not even two shillings.” He glared at her a moment, then turned on his heel and exited the cabin, banging the door shut behind him. Sophia stared at it, wondering whether she dared stomp after him with her bodice hanging loose around her hips. Before she could act on the obvious affirmative, he stormed back in. “Here.” A pair of coins clattered to the table. “Two shillings. And”-he drew his other hand from behind his back-“your two leaves of paper. I don’t want to be in your debt, either.” The ivory sheets fluttered as he released them. One drifted to the floor. Sophia tugged a banknote from her bosom and threw it on the growing pile. To her annoyance, it made no noise and had correspondingly little dramatic value. In compensation, she raised her voice. “Buy yourself some new boots. Damn you.” “While we’re settling scores, you owe me twenty-odd nights of undisturbed sleep.” “Oh, no,” she said, shaking her head. “We’re even on that regard.” She paused, glaring a hole in his forehead, debating just how hateful she would make this. Very. “You took my innocence,” she said coldly-and completely unfairly, because they both knew she’d given it freely enough. “Yes, and I’d like my jaded sensibilities restored, but there’s no use wishing after rainbows, now is there?” He had a point there. “I suppose we’re squared away then.” “I suppose we are.” “There’s nothing else I owe you?” His eyes were ice. “Not a thing.” But there is, she wanted to shout. I still owe you the truth, if only you’d care enough to ask for it. If only you cared enough for me, to want to know. But he didn’t. He reached for the door. “Wait,” he said. “There is one last thing.” Sophia’s heart pounded as he reached into his breast pocket and withdrew a scrap of white fabric. “There,” he said, unceremoniously casting it atop the pile of coins and notes and paper. “I’m bloody tired of carrying that around.” And then he was gone, leaving Sophia to wrap her arms over her half-naked chest and stare numbly at what he’d discarded. A lace-trimmed handkerchief, embroidered with a neat S.H.

You invest so much in it, don't you? It's what elevates you above the beasts of the field, it's what makes you special. Homo sapiens, you call yourself. Wise Man. Do you even know what it is, this consciousness you cite in your own exaltation? Do you even know what it's for? Maybe you think it gives you free will. Maybe you've forgotten that sleepwalkers converse, drive vehicles, commit crimes and clean up afterwards, unconscious the whole time. Maybe nobody's told you that even waking souls are only slaves in denial. Make a conscious choice. Decide to move your index finger. Too late! The electricity's already halfway down your arm. Your body began to act a full half-second before your conscious self 'chose' to, for the self chose nothing; something else set your body in motion, sent an executive summary—almost an afterthought— to the homunculus behind your eyes. That little man, that arrogant subroutine that thinks of itself as the person, mistakes correlation for causality: it reads the summary and it sees the hand move, and it thinks that one drove the other. But it's not in charge. You're not in charge. If free will even exists, it doesn't share living space with the likes of you. Insight, then. Wisdom. The quest for knowledge, the derivation of theorems, science and technology and all those exclusively human pursuits that must surely rest on a conscious foundation. Maybe that's what sentience would be for— if scientific breakthroughs didn't spring fully-formed from the subconscious mind, manifest themselves in dreams, as full-blown insights after a deep night's sleep. It's the most basic rule of the stymied researcher: stop thinking about the problem. Do something else. It will come to you if you just stop being conscious of it. Every concert pianist knows that the surest way to ruin a performance is to be aware of what the fingers are doing. Every dancer and acrobat knows enough to let the mind go, let the body run itself. Every driver of any manual vehicle arrives at destinations with no recollection of the stops and turns and roads traveled in getting there. You are all sleepwalkers, whether climbing creative peaks or slogging through some mundane routine for the thousandth time. You are all sleepwalkers. Don't even try to talk about the learning curve. Don't bother citing the months of deliberate practice that precede the unconscious performance, or the years of study and experiment leading up to the gift- wrapped Eureka moment. So what if your lessons are all learned consciously? Do you think that proves there's no other way? Heuristic software's been learning from experience for over a hundred years. Machines master chess, cars learn to drive themselves, statistical programs face problems and design the experiments to solve them and you think that the only path to learning leads through sentience? You're Stone-age nomads, eking out some marginal existence on the veldt—denying even the possibility of agriculture, because hunting and gathering was good enough for your parents. Do you want to know what consciousness is for? Do you want to know the only real purpose it serves? Training wheels. You can't see both aspects of the Necker Cube at once, so it lets you focus on one and dismiss the other. That's a pretty half-assed way to parse reality. You're always better off looking at more than one side of anything. Go on, try. Defocus. It's the next logical step. Oh, but you can't. There's something in the way. And it's fighting back.

One of the more interesting ways of informally assessing extraversion at the biogenic level is to do the lemon-drop test. There are several variations on the test, and I draw here on a demonstration procedure I frequently used with my undergraduates.7 Here are the ingredients you will need: an eyedropper, a cotton swab (the little stick with a wrap of cotton on either end we use for babies and are admonished not to stick in our ears), a thread, concentrated lemon juice (regular lemon juice won’t work as effectively), and the willing tongue of a volunteer (such as yourself). Attach the thread to the center of the double-tipped cotton swab so that it hangs exactly horizontal. Swallow four times, then put one end of the swab on the tongue, holding it for twenty seconds. Then place five drops of the concentrated lemon juice on the tongue. Swallow, then place the other end of the swab on the same portion of the tongue and hold it for twenty seconds. Then hold up the swab by the thread. For some people the swab will remain horizontal. For others it will dip on the lemon juice end. Can you guess which? For the extraverts, the swab stays relatively horizontal, but for introverts it dips. The reason is that introverts, because they have relatively high levels of chronic arousal, respond more vigorously to strong stimulation, like lemon juice, so they create more saliva. Extraverts, being less responsive to high levels of stimulation, stay relatively dry mouthed. In fact, there is evidence that because of this tendency toward lower salivation levels, extraverts actually have higher levels of tooth decay than do introverts.8 I have done this exercise on myself a number of times, and each time my swab dips deeply. I am, at least by this measure, a biogenic introvert.

Time management also involves energy management. Sometimes the rationalization for procrastination is wrapped up in the form of the statement “I’m not up to this,” which reflects the fact you feel tired, stressed, or some other uncomfortable state. Consequently, you conclude that you do not have the requisite energy for a task, which is likely combined with a distorted justification for putting it off (e.g., “I have to be at my best or else I will be unable to do it.”). Similar to reframing time, it is helpful to respond to the “I’m not up to this” reaction by reframing energy. Thinking through the actual behavioral and energy requirements of a job challenges the initial and often distorted reasoning with a more realistic view. Remember, you only need “enough” energy to start the task. Consequently, being “too tired” to unload the dishwasher or put in a load of laundry can be reframed to see these tasks as requiring only a low level of energy and focus. This sort of reframing can be used to address automatic thoughts about energy on tasks that require a little more get-up-and-go. For example, it is common for people to be on the fence about exercising because of the thought “I’m too tired to exercise.” That assumption can be redirected to consider the energy required for the smaller steps involved in the “exercise script” that serve as the “launch sequence” for getting to the gym (e.g., “Are you too tired to stand up and get your workout clothes? Carry them to the car?” etc.). You can also ask yourself if you have ever seen people at the gym who are slumped over the exercise machines because they ran out of energy from trying to exert themselves when “too tired.” Instead, you can draw on past experience that you will end up feeling better and more energized after exercise; in fact, you will sleep better, be more rested, and have the positive outcome of keeping up with your exercise plan. If nothing else, going through this process rather than giving into the impulse to avoid makes it more likely that you will make a reasoned decision rather than an impulsive one about the task. A separate energy management issue relevant to keeping plans going is your ability to maintain energy (and thereby your effort) over longer courses of time. Managing ADHD is an endurance sport. It is said that good soccer players find their rest on the field in order to be able to play the full 90 minutes of a game. Similarly, you will have to manage your pace and exertion throughout the day. That is, the choreography of different tasks and obligations in your Daily Planner affects your energy. It is important to engage in self-care throughout your day, including adequate sleep, time for meals, and downtime and recreational activities in order to recharge your battery. Even when sequencing tasks at work, you can follow up a difficult task, such as working on a report, with more administrative tasks, such as responding to e-mails or phone calls that do not require as much mental energy or at least represent a shift to a different mode. Similarly, at home you may take care of various chores earlier in the evening and spend the remaining time relaxing. A useful reminder is that there are ways to make some chores more tolerable, if not enjoyable, by linking them with preferred activities for which you have more motivation. Folding laundry while watching television, or doing yard work or household chores while listening to music on an iPod are examples of coupling obligations with pleasurable activities. Moreover, these pleasant experiences combined with task completion will likely be rewarding and energizing.

Hey, Ben,” she says, ignoring the rest of us. “You want to dance?” Ben’s cheeks turn the same scarlet as Rosie’s dress. He and Ryder exchange a pointed look while Lucy and I just stand there gawking. “Go on, man,” Ryder says, nudging him. “You look great, Rosie,” he adds. “Nice dress.” She smiles up at him, her blue eyes seeming to glitter beneath the disco-ball lighting. “Thanks. You don’t look so bad yourself.” She glances from Ryder to me and back to Ryder again. “The two of you…You looked good together up there.” “I know, right?” Lucy nods, and I shoot her a “what are you doing?” glare. She ignores it. “Maybe these two should stop the hating and listen to their parents.” An awkward silence follows. Finally, Ben seems to remember why Rosie came over in the first place. “Um, you want to go dance?” “Yeah. I love this song.” Ben nods. “Okay. Catch you guys later.” Rosie’s smile seems genuine as she follows Ben to the dance floor. I hope that means she’s finally figured out what a sweetheart he is. As soon as they’re gone, Lucy lets out a low whistle. “Whoa, did that just happen?” “I think it did,” I say, watching as Rosie wraps her arms around Ben’s neck. She must have said something funny, because he throws his head back and laughs. Lucy shakes her head in amazement. “I swear, it’s like we’re in some kind of alternate universe tonight.” “Well, in that case, how about you and me, Luce?” Mason says with a cocky grin. “Think you can handle me on the dance floor?” “Oh, what the hell?” Lucy says with a shrug. “Why not!” She reaches for Mason’s hand and drags him toward the dance floor but stops a few feet away and turns back to face Ryder and me. “Hey, you two--behave!” In seconds, she and Mason are swallowed by the crowd. “And then there were two,” Ryder says, reaching for my hand. He leans down, his lips near my ear. “Do you have any idea how badly I want to kiss you right now?” he whispers. “Later,” I say with a shiver. It’s not an empty word. It’s a promise. He gives my hand a squeeze. “So…until then, I guess we dance.” “We dance,” I say as a slow song begins to play. Talk about good timing.

For a moment, she could do nothing but stare at the vaulted ceiling, sucking in deep breaths. She didn’t know. Stars above, she didn’t know it could feel like this. The attentions she’d given herself had never felt that good. In her dreams, it had never felt that good. But then, it wasn’t him in the flesh. Not like now. Nikolai removed his fingers, then placed a gentler openmouthed kiss on her sex, licking slowly with the flat of his tongue. Sienna whimpered and scooted up the bed, far too sensitive there now. He gazed up and grinned, licking his bottom lip before he sucked the two fingers he’d had inside of her with a long slide from his mouth. “I could taste you forever.” “My heart would give out in a day,” she panted, incredulous he would do and say something so naughty. “Perhaps in an hour.” He chuckled and launched himself up and over her. “I like seeing that flush in your cheeks.” He nipped her lips. “And hearing that smile in your voice.” She wondered how he could see anything, but then again, he was vampire. “Well, I like breathing.” She panted heavily still. “So give me a moment to catch my breath.” He settled beside her, pulled the covers over them, and wrapped a strong arm around her waist, pulling her over till her head rested on his chest. “Take all the time you need.” His voice was light and airy, unlike his usual brooding self. She tilted her head toward him. “You’re happy with yourself, aren’t you?” “Quite.” “I’ve never experienced something like that before.” She had no experience with men, but she thought she knew enough from watching farm animals. Apparently not. “I am certainly glad to hear that,” he said only slightly more serious. “If another man tried to do that to you, I’d have to rip out his tongue.” “You’re very territorial.” “Very. Glad you’ve noted.” Strange how that act of intimacy had washed away the angst and tension from before. Then she realized that was exactly what he was trying to do. He’d wanted her pleasure alone, he’d said. He’d certainly gotten it. “Is it always like that?” she asked, almost too shy, but enjoying the intimacy that had grown between them in the dark. “No.” He flatted his palm, fingers spread, over her abdomen under the covers. “It will be better next time.” “Better?” He laughed and lowered his head, sweeping his lips across hers. Not a kiss, but a reminder that they’d knocked down a wall between them and there was no rebuilding it. Then he whispered, “Wait till you see what it feels like when I’m buried deep inside you.

How about when you feel as if you are at a treacherous crossing, facing an area of life that hasn’t even been on the map until recently. Suddenly there it is, right in front of you. And so the time and space in between while you first get over the shock of it, and you have to figure out WHAT must be done feels excruciating. It’s a nightmare you can’t awaken from. You might remember this time as a kind of personal D-day, as in damage, devastation, destruction, damnation, desolation – maybe a difficult divorce, or even diagnosis of some formidable disease. These are the days of our lives that whole, beautiful chapters of life go up in flames. And all you can do is watch them burn. Until you feel as though you are left only with the ashes of it all. It is at this moment you long for the rescue and relief that only time can provide. It is in this place, you must remember that in just 365 days – you're at least partially healed self will be vastly changed, likely for the better. Perhaps not too unlike a caterpillar’s unimaginable metamorphosis. Better. Stronger. Wiser. Tougher. Kinder. More fragile, more firm, all at the same time as more free. You will have gotten through the worst of it – somehow. And then it will all be different. Life will be different. You will be different. It might or might not ever make sense, but it will be more bearable than it seems when you are first thrown, with no warning, into the kilns of life with the heat stoked up – or when you get wrapped up, inexplicably, through no choice of your own, in a dark, painfully constricting space. Go ahead, remind yourself as someone did earlier, who was trying miserably to console you. It will eventually make you a better, stronger person. How’d they say it? More beautiful on the inside… It really will, though. That’s the kicker. Even if, in the hours of your agony, you would have preferred to be less beautiful, wise, strong, or experienced than apparently life, fate, your merciless ex, or a ruthless, biological, or natural enemy that has attacked silently, and invisibly - has in mind for you. As will that which your God feels you are capable of enduring, while you, in your pitiful anguish, are yet dubious of your own ability to even endure, not alone overcome. I assure you now, you will have joy and beauty, where there was once only ashes. In time. Perhaps even more than before. It’s so hard to imagine and believe it when it’s still fresh, and so, so painful. When it hurts too much to even stand, or think, or feel anything. When you are in the grip of fear, and you remember the old familiar foe, or finally understand, firsthand, in your bones, what that actually means.

Elizabeth’s breakfast had cured Ian’s hunger, in fact, the idea of ever eating again made his stomach churn as he started for the barn to check on Mayhem’s injury. He was partway there when he saw her off to the left, sitting on the hillside amid the bluebells, her arms wrapped around her knees, her forehead resting atop them. Even with her hair shining like newly minted gold in the sun, she looked like a picture of heartbreaking dejection. He started to turn away and leave her to moody privacy; then, with a sigh of irritation, he changed his mind and started down the hill toward her. A few yards away he realized her shoulders were shaking with sobs, and he frowned in surprise. Obviously there was no point in pretending the meal had been good, so he injected a note of amusement into his voice and said, “I applaud your ingenuity-shooting me yesterday would have been too quick.” Elizabeth started violently at the sound of his voice. Snapping her head up, she stared off to the left, keeping her tear-streaked face averted from him. “Did you want something?” “Dessert?” Ian suggested wryly, leaning slightly forward, trying to see her face. He thought he saw a morose smile touch her lips, and he added, “I thought we could whip up a batch of cream and put it on the biscuit. Afterward we can take whatever is left, mix it with the leftover eggs, and use it to patch the roof.” A teary chuckle escaped her, and she drew a shaky breath but still refused to look at him as she said, “I’m surprised you’re being so pleasant about it.” “There’s no sense crying over burnt bacon.” “I wasn’t crying over that,” she said, feeling sheepish and bewildered. A snowy handkerchief appeared before her face, and Elizabeth accepted it, dabbing at her wet cheeks. “Then why were you crying?” She gazed straight ahead, her eyes focused on the surrounding hills splashed with bluebells and hawthorn, the handkerchief clenched in her hand. “I was crying for my own ineptitude, and for my inability to control my life,” she admitted. The word “ineptitude” startled Ian, and it occurred to him that for the shallow little flirt he supposed her to be she had an exceptionally fine vocabulary. She glanced up at him then, and Ian found himself gazing into a pair of green eyes the amazing color of wet leaves. With tears still sparkling on her long russet lashes, her long hair tied back in a girlish bow, her full breasts thrusting against the bodice of her gown, she was a picture of alluring innocence and intoxicating sensuality. Ian jerked his gaze from her breasts and said abruptly, “I’m going to cut some wood so we’ll have it for a fire tonight. Afterward I’m going to do some fishing for our supper. I trust you’ll find a way to amuse yourself in the meantime.” Startled by his sudden brusqueness, Elizabeth nodded and stood up, dimly aware that he did not offer his hand to assist her.

Take your hands off him.' She did. 'Unshackle him.' Lucien's skin drained of colour as Ianthe obeyed me, her face queerly vacant, pliant. The blue stone shackles thumped to the mossy ground. Lucien's shirt was askew, the top button on his pants already undone. The roaring that filled my mind was so loud I could barely hear myself as I said, 'Pick up that rock.' Lucien remained pressed against that tree. And he watched in silence as Ianthe stopped to pick up a grey, rough rock about the size of an apple. 'Put your right hand on that boulder.' She obeyed, though a tremor went down her spine. Her mind thrashed and struggled against me, like a fish snared on a line. I dug my mental talons in deeper, and some inner voice of hers began screaming. 'Smash your hand with the rock as hard as you can until I tell you to stop.' The hand she'd put on him, on so many others. Ianthe brought the stone up. The first impact was a muffled, wet thud. The second was an actual crack. The third drew blood. Her arm rose and fell, her body shuddering with the agony. And I said to her very clearly, 'You will never touch another person against their will. You will never convince yourself that they truly want your advances; that they're playing games. You will never know another's touch unless they initiate, unless it's desired by both sides.' Thwack; crack; thud. 'You will not remember what happened here. You will tell the others that you fell.' Her ring finger had shifted in the wrong direction. 'You are allowed to see a healer to set the bones. But not to erase the scarring. And every time you look at that hand, you are going to remember that touching people against their will has consequences, and if you do it again, everything you are will cease to exist. You will live with that terror every day, and never know where it originates. Only the fear of something chasing you, hunting you, waiting for you the instant you let your guard down.' Silent tears of pain flowed down her face. 'You can stop now.' The bloodied rock tumbled onto the grass. Her hand was little more than cracked bones wrapped in shredded skin. 'Kneel here until someone finds you.' Ianthe fell to her knees, her ruined hand leaking blood onto her pale robes. 'I debated slitting your throat this morning,' I told her. 'I debated it all last night while you slept beside me. I've debated it every single day since I learned you sold out my sisters to Hybern.' I smiled a bit. 'But I think this is a better punishment. And I hope you live a long, long life, Ianthe, and never know a moment's peace.' I stared down at her for a moment longer, tying off the tapestry of words and commands I'd woven into her mind, and turned to Lucien. He'd fixed his pants, his shirt. His wide eyes slid from her to me, then to the bloodied stone. 'The word you're looking for, Lucien,' crooned a deceptively light female voice, 'is daemati.

Derian pulled the blanket snug around himself. “This is my added assurance.” Eena wrinkled her nose as if she thought his answer was odder than his actions. “It’s your what?” “If you recall the last time we were here standing in this very spot, you pelted me with neumberries.” He held up a single berry before popping it into his mouth. “I doubt you would risk soiling your blanket, so I figure wrapping it around me this way I’m pretty much assured safety from any potential attack.” He winked playfully, and she laughed out loud. “I’m afraid you don’t know me half as well as you think,” she announced. Aiming low, she flung a sizable berry at his calf. It hit its mark. “Whoa, whoa!” He lowered the blanket to cover his legs. “You can’t hide yourself entirely, Derian,” she said, aiming for his face. He ducked, raising the blanket like a shield in the process. Another round of ammunition pelted his ankles before he decided it was time to fight back. Eena found herself bound up in her own blanket, arms wrapped securely at her sides. She laughed nonstop, unable to move within his strong hold. Derian leaned forward until their noses touched, and then he kissed her giggles silent. He kept her in the blanket, snug and close to him, but Eena managed to wriggle an arm free and drape it around his neck, holding his lips in reach. She uttered a quick count in between kisses. “Seven,” she breathed. Derian paused, his mouth a whisper away from hers. It tickled when he spoke. “No, no, Eena.” “No what?” “No counting. Not today. No ground rules.” She barely uttered a partial “’kay” before his mouth covered hers again. His hot breath tasted like breakfast. He fixed his hands on each side of her face, and the blanket fell to the ground. As the intensity of their kisses grew hungry, he gripped her cheeks more securely. Eena could feel the air electrifying around them. Her heartbeat drummed—excited and anxious. “Derian…” she breathed. But he didn’t stop. She felt his hand move to support her neck while the other slid down her back, urging her closer. She brought her arms together and pressed against his chest, somewhat objecting to the intimacy. “Derian…” she tried again. But he covered her mouth with his own. She pushed more firmly against him without success. Her protest weakened as his kisses softened. The fervor subsided, and she could feel her wild pulse even out. Amidst a string of supple kisses, Derian’s breathing slowed. He planted his lips on her forehead for a moment before squeezing her tenderly. She snuggled up against his warm chest. “One ground rule,” he whispered in her ear. “We stop when you say ‘when.’” “When,” she uttered. “Okay,” he agreed. Then, as if the thought had just occurred to her, she stepped back to look up questioningly at the captain. “Wasn’t there a leftover sandwich in that basket from last night?” His lips formed a guilty smile as he confessed, “Yes—and it was delicious.

He crossed to the desk and took from a drawer a small package wrapped in black velvet. When he unfolded the cloth, Lyra saw something like a large watch or a small clock: a thick disc of brass and crystal. It might have been a compass or something of the sort. “What is it?” she said. “It’s an alethiometer. It’s one of only six that were ever made. Lyra, I urge you again: keep it private. It would be better if Mrs Coulter didn’t know about it. Your uncle –” “But what does it do?” “It tells you the truth. As for how to read it, you’ll have to learn by yourself. Now go – it’s getting lighter – hurry back to your room before anyone sees you.” He folded the velvet over the instrument and thrust it into her hands. It was surprisingly heavy. Then he put his own hands on either side of her head and held her gently for a moment. She tried to look up at him, and said, “What were you going to say about Uncle Asriel?” “Your uncle presented it to Jordan College some years ago. He might –” Before he could finish, there came a soft urgent knock on the door. She could feel his hands give an involuntary tremor. “Quick now, child,” he said quietly. “The powers of this world are very strong. Men and women are moved by tides much fiercer than you can imagine, and they sweep us all up into the current. Go well, Lyra; bless you, child; bless you. Keep your own counsel.” “Thank you, Master,” she said dutifully. Clutching the bundle to her breast, she left the study by the garden door, looking back briefly once to see the Master’s dæmon watching her from the windowsill. The sky was lighter already; there was a faint fresh stir in the air. “What’s that you’ve got?” said Mrs Lonsdale, closing the battered little suitcase with a snap. “The Master gave it me. Can’t it go in the suitcase?” “Too late. I’m not opening it now. It’ll have to go in your coat pocket, whatever it is. Hurry on down to the Buttery; don’t keep them waiting . . .” It was only after she’d said goodbye to the few servants who were up, and to Mrs Lonsdale, that she remembered Roger; and then she felt guilty for not having thought of him once since meeting Mrs Coulter. How quickly it had all happened! And now she was on her way to London: sitting next to the window in a zeppelin, no less, with Pantalaimon’s sharp little ermine-paws digging into her thigh while his front paws rested against the glass he gazed through. On Lyra’s other side Mrs Coulter sat working through some papers, but she soon put them away and talked. Such brilliant talk! Lyra was intoxicated; not about the North this time, but about London, and the restaurants and ballrooms, the soirées at Embassies or Ministries, the intrigues between White Hall and Westminster. Lyra was almost more fascinated by this than by the changing landscape below the airship. What Mrs Coulter was saying seemed to be accompanied by a scent of grown-upness, something disturbing but enticing at the same time: it was the smell of glamour.

In the middle of the night, Alexander—with the moist towel still on his face—was startled out of sleep by the cheerful drunken whisper of Ouspensky, who was shaking him awake, while taking his hand and placing into it something soft and warm. It took Alexander a moment to recognize the softness and warmness as a large human breast, a breast still attached to a human female, albeit a not entirely sober human female, who breathed fire on him, kneeled near his bed and said something in Polish that sounded like, “Wake up, cowboy, paradise is here.” “Lieutenant,” said Alexander in Russian, “you’re going on the rack tomorrow.” “You will pray to me as if I’m your god tomorrow. She is bought and paid for. Have a good one.” Ouspensky lowered the flaps on the tent and disappeared. Sitting up and turning on his kerosene lamp, Alexander was faced with a young, boozy, not unattractive Polish face. For a minute as he sat up, they watched each other, he with weariness, she with drunken friendliness. “I speak Russian,” she said in Russian. “I’m going to get into trouble being here?” “Yes,” said Alexander. “You better go back.” “Oh, but your friend…” “He is not my friend. He is my sworn enemy. He has brought you here to poison you. You need to go back quickly.” He helped her sit up. Her swinging breasts were exposed through her open dress. Alexander was naked except for his BVDs. He watched her appraise him. “Captain,” she said, “you’re not telling me you are poison? You don’t look like poison.” She reached out for him. “You don’t feel like poison.” She paused, whispering, “At ease, soldier.” Moving away from her slightly—only slightly—Alexander started to put on his trousers. She stopped him by rubbing him. He sighed, moving her hand away. “You left a sweetheart behind? I can tell. You’re missing her. I see many men like you.” “I bet you do.” “They always feel better after they’re with me. So relieved. Come on. What’s the worst that can happen? You will enjoy yourself?” “Yes,” said Alexander. “That’s the worst that can happen.” She stuck out her hand holding a French letter. “Come on. Nothing to be afraid of.” “I’m not afraid,” said Alexander. “Oh, come on.” He buckled his belt. “Let’s go. I’ll walk you back.” “You have some chocolate?” she said, smiling. “I’ll suck you off for some chocolate.” Alexander wavered, lingering on her bare breasts. “As it turns out, I do have some chocolate,” he said, throbbing everywhere, including his heart. “You can have it all.” He paused. “And you don’t even have to suck me off.” The Polish girl’s eyes cleared for a moment. “Really?” “Really.” He reached into his bag and handed her some small pieces of chocolate wrapped in foil. Hungrily she shoved the bars into her mouth and swallowed them whole. Alexander raised his eyebrows. “Better the chocolate than me,” he said. The girl laughed. “Will you really walk me back?” she said. “Because the streets are not safe for a girl like me.” Alexander took his machine gun. “Let’s go.

That's his perception of reality," Nenad responded. "He has adopted it as his interpretation and cannot break free from it, and probably doesn't even consider doing so. In fact, we too are unable to escape his worldview as it partly is our own. However, when faced with the choice between the cat and the belt, I choose the cat. It's not doomed, it's not poisoned, and it can be easily removed by hand from the engine, even if it comes at a financial cost. I have enough space in my cage for its rescue. I can imagine that within its mind, this engine has become a prison for his hopes of salvation. Overcoming our phobias of losing money in the pursuit of something else, even in small amounts, is healthy. A ground strap costs nothing, and though it may require a bit of time in a repair shop, in this day and age, we are used to wasting our time for far less. The reality of our daily lives is filled with every online distraction, like a sheet riddled with holes from moths that we wrap ourselves in out of habit without even noticing. It’s so comforting. At first, you embrace what everyone else does, what you are told to think. But eventually, you come to the realization that you have the power to dictate your thought patterns and become the architect of your ideology. You can construct a personal propaganda machine that aligns with your values and desires, creating a unique model of the world that is entirely your own. Your mind is still going to be a box in one of the billions of drawers, but it’s going to be YOUR box. Your true home. Manipulate yourself. We should manipulate ourselves towards common sense, compassion, and hope that we’ll get a good batch of people at some point so we can live among more like-minded peers. Now it’s up to our online feed. Now the education in our phone holds the reins, encapsulated in the three-second video of someone's take on history, the five-second clip of fitness models or investment strategies. And if we're fortunate, some famous person would quote Epictetus' Discourses, perhaps echoing the wisdom of Dostoevsky, Camus, Kafka, Marcus Aurelius, Sartre, etc. This is our chance for us to avoid descending into mere survival instincts without the tempering influence of morality and an understanding of the absurdity that we have created around us. To get addicted to the freedom in our minds. OR to choose the ground strap, choose to sacrifice someone else’s life so we can preserve our resources, because that’s what greed is, on a deep ancient level it’s you hoarding resources the same way a squirrel does with its winter supplies. Choose to be a squirrel rather than a human and live off your acorns. Choose to kill the cat. Choose not to ruin your precious machine. Choose the current model of society and disappear in it like a pelican getting caught in an airplane engine. Perhaps responsibility is the first and maybe even the only synonym for human purpose. Of course, there is value in the small moments we experience, but they lack foundation if they don’t fit into the break from working on something meaningful.

YOU FIRST When entering into relationships, we have a tendency to bend. We bend closer to one another, because regardless of what type of relationship it might be — romantic, business, friendship — there’s a reason you’re bringing that other person into your life, and that means the load is easier to carry if you carry it together, both bending toward the center. I picture people in relationships as two trees, leaning toward one another. Over time, as the relationship solidifies, you both become more comfortable bending, and as such bend farther, eventually resting trunk to trunk. You support each other and are stronger because of the shared strength of your root system and entwined branches. Double-tree power! But there’s a flaw in this mode of operation. Once you’ve spent some time leaning on someone else, if they disappear — because of a breakup, a business upset, a death, a move, an argument — you’re all that’s left, and far weaker than when you started. You’re a tree leaning sideways; the second foundation that once supported you is…gone. This is a big part of why the ending of particularly strong relationships can be so disruptive. When your support system presupposes two trunks — two people bearing the load, and divvying up the responsibilities; coping with the strong winds and hailstorms of life — it can be shocking and uncomfortable and incredibly difficult to function as an individual again; to be just a solitary tree, alone in the world, dealing with it all on your own. A lone tree needn’t be lonely, though. It’s most ideal, in fact, to grow tall and strong, straight up, with many branches. The strength of your trunk — your character, your professional life, your health, your sense of self — will help you cope with anything the world can throw at you, while your branches — your myriad interests, relationships, and experiences — will allow you to reach out to other trees who are likewise growing up toward the sky, rather than leaning and becoming co-dependent. Relationships of this sort, between two equally strong, independent people, tend to outlast even the most intertwined co-dependencies. Why? Because neither person worries that their world will collapse if the other disappears. It’s a relationship based on the connections between two people, not co-dependence. Being a strong individual first alleviates a great deal of jealousy, suspicion, and our innate desire to capture or cage someone else for our own benefit. Rather than worrying that our lives will end if that other person disappears, we know that they’re in our lives because they want to be; their lives won’t end if we’re not there, either. Two trees growing tall and strong, their branches intertwined, is a far sturdier image than two trees bent and twisted, tying themselves into uncomfortable knots to wrap around one another, desperately trying to prevent the other from leaving. You can choose which type of tree to be, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with either model; we all have different wants, needs, and priorities. But if you’re aiming for sturdier, more resilient relationships, it’s a safe bet that you’ll have better options and less drama if you focus on yourself and your own growth, first. Then reach out and connect with others who are doing the same.

You could have just asked.” She straightened up from Murphy and looked at me. “Instead, you took advantage of me and never said a word.” “I didn’t take advantage of you. I was just doing what I thought was best.” “Well, you don’t get to decide what’s best for me!” Her voice rose, and Murphy paused in purring to look up at her. “I don’t get a say?” I shot back, trying to hold on to my temper. She took a deep breath. “Of course you do. But you didn’t say anything. You just did. Just like at dinner. You just announced I was getting a restraining order. There was no conversation.” I opened my mouth, but she kept talking. “How am I supposed to trust you when you do things like this without me knowing?” “You don’t trust me anymore?” I said the words with quiet calm. Surely this wasn’t enough to ruin the trust between us. She blew out a breath and paced across the room. “I didn’t say that.” She spun away from me and looked at the wall. “I’m just upset.” I strode across the room. It was darker where she was. The lights were off in here, and from this position in the room, the crackling fire in the bedroom didn’t cast much light. My feet stopped when I was directly behind her. Usually, I would touch her without thought. But right then I paused. Fuck. That. I wrapped my hands around her wrists, then loosened my grip to slide my palms up her arms to rest at her shoulders. I felt her exhale, and I wrapped one of my arms across her chest and pulled her back against my front. “I could tell you I’m sorry,” I whispered in her ear. “I could whisper how much I love you and that I won’t ever do something like this again.” The back of her head hit my chest as I spoke. The silky strands of her perfectly straight hair tickled my lips as I talked, and the scent of her shampoo enticed me closer. “But I’m not going to apologize.” She stiffened, but I strengthened my hold, unwilling to let her pull away. I kept my voice whisper soft and my lips right beside her ear. “I’d do it again, in a friggin’ heartbeat if that’s what I thought you needed.” The frustration in her body was evident, but I ignored it. “Do you know how much I love you?” I whispered. “I love you so g**damned much that it scares the shit out of me. You have no idea the kind of power you wield, how much of me you own. Knowing you were completely vulnerable, that you were locked unknowingly in a bathroom with someone who literally lurked around while you were naked, while you were washing yourself, makes me sick. He could have raped you.” My voice broke on the last part because I had to force the words out of my mouth. “He didn’t,” she said quickly and tried to turn to face me. I wouldn’t let her. I liked her where she was. It was easier to bare my heart when she wasn’t staring into me with her eyes. “No, he didn’t. But he’s put bruises on you. The way you looked in that pool last night. The way your body just kind of stopped. You sank to the bottom with a dark cloud of hair obscuring your face. I knew you had to be reliving what happened. It broke me, Rim. Loving me has cost you so fucking much. Too much.” This time, she wouldn’t let me hold her. She spun around and tipped her chin up to look at me. I let her see. I let her see the bleakness in my eyes. “Loving you has given me way more than I imagined.” She reached up and brushed the backs of her knuckles across my cheek. I dragged my fingers through her hair. “It scares me too,” Rimmel whispered. “How much I love you.” “I’m going to protect you. I’m going to protect us,” I said. “I won’t ever stop.

The Blue Moon Wish Spell The “Blue Moon” is when there are 2 full moons in one month, it is in the horoscopic symbol of Pisces. To see the dates for the blue moon click here. It illuminates intuition, creativity, and compassion.  This is the time that you should start thinking about all your wishes and intentions. As a practitioner of witchcraft, you should make sure that you perform this ritual since such an astrological opportunity only occurs “once in a Blue Moon”.  Requirements a quartz crystal a cinnamon stick A blue pen a blue candle a sheet of parchment paper 3 safety pins a glass  of spring water or wine A piece silver cord or string, of a length of 24 inches a square of blue cloth Vial of success potion (not mandatory) 1 book of matches On the day before of the Blue Moon, collect all the above items and then set a specific time for performing the spell without any distractions.  Quietly sit down with all your items as listed above and place them before you on a table.  Shut your eyes and bring your mind to silence, after that, concentrate on your breathing.  The moment you feel clear and grounded, you can open your eyes and start the spell. While lighting the candle, think of 3 things that you would like to occur by the year’s end. You can also wish for something that takes place once in a blue moon. (rarely) Pat success oil on your, wrists, temple and your neck for a boost in case you have some. Envision one particular wish coming true while holding the quartz crystal in your hands. Vision yourself doing the thing you are wishing for, or clearly see something that you wish for happen before you. Pick your pen and paper up and start writing down your wishes as you keenly visualize them. Note them down in their order of importance to you.   After you note down the three wishes on your piece of parchment, separately tear them out Attach each of your wishes to the square piece of cloth using a safety pin Place the cinnamon stick in the middle of the cloth and then inwardly fold the sides of the cloth. After that, roll it up. Tightly seal your projections by wrapping the string around the cloth nine times and after that, tie steadily with a knot. Take your wishes and walk outside with them while holding the libation of your choice. Look up to the sky or the moon.  Lift up your glass and say the following words; “On this eve of the Blue Moon, out my intents go. I request they be received, and it is so” Place the cloth containing your wishes in a concealed place where you are the only one who can see it often all the way through the coming few months as a reminder to the wishes you have made.

How can one who has been abandoned—truly, no one left in sight—be less alone? Before, his answer would have been “books,” but now he can’t bring himself to believe it. It was a taradiddle wrapped up in weltschmerz, just some defense mechanism to feel better about being an unpopular youth, about being as lonely as he was.

Max grinned triumphantly and grabbed a chair, turning it so that he could sit on it backwards as he leaned close to me. “Tell me about the boyfriend who left you to drown in that car,” he urged, reaching out to touch my cheek. “Did you give him your V-card too?” A flicker of fear shuddered through me as I remembered sinking to the bottom of that river. But he’d been wrong about the V-card guess. I’d given my virginity to a wholly different asshole. “No,” I breathed. “I didn’t.” “You wanna tell the group who did then?” Max asked with a grin, his power wrapping me in thick cords and refusing to let go. In place of the fear that had been pulling at me, I felt lust building in my veins and my flesh heated at the memory of a dark room, roaming hands- Oh hell no, you psychotic asshole! I shoved all of my will into fighting off the pull of his gift and my fist snapped out with every inch of rage I was harbouring against this douchebag. My knuckles collided directly with the centre of his throat. Max fell back off of the chair with a cry of pain and hit the floor with the chair on top of him. The Siren spell was broken and I was on my feet half a second later, flames springing to life in my hands. I spared half a glance at the other Heirs but they only looked on in surprise. This was between me and Max and they weren’t going to get involved for once. “You crazy bitch,” Max wheezed, his voice strangled with pain. “I am a crazy bitch,” I agreed, glaring down at him. “And if you try that screwed up Siren shit on me ever again you’ll find out just how much of a bitch I can be.” He hissed a curse and raised a palm, throwing a wave of water at me. I unleashed the fire in my hands, throwing a torrent of power into the blow and the two Elements collided in the space between us, cancelling each other out with a hiss of steam. Max scrambled backwards, preparing a second blow and adrenaline shot through my limbs. I was outmatched here and he knew it. I may not have been able to fight him with magic but I’d grown up in the shittiest part of town and I sure as hell knew how to brawl like a cornered alley cat. Before he could cast another spell at me, I aimed a kick at his balls. Max grunted a curse as he doubled in on himself, clutching his manhood. I leaned down to speak to him in a low tone. “I’d think long and hard about trying to pull any more secrets from my lips,” I hissed. “Because some of the ones I’m keeping aren’t my own.” His eyes widened in surprise as he looked up at me. “If you tell anyone what I said when you were Song-Spelled then I’ll-” I interrupted him before he could threaten me with anything, my voice low and cold. “It won’t matter what you do to me after. Your secret will be out there. So I think you were just about to agree to keeping your leech powers to yourself.” Max scowled as he propped himself up on one arm, the pain in his balls obviously easing off. “Fine,” he spat, as if he was going to get up but I wanted to really make sure he got the point. I lifted my palms at Max as Darcy cried out in encouragement and I sent a wave of air crashing into him. It caught him in its grip and sent him flying into the air and tumbling away from me across the room. (Tory)

I loved every bit of this season—when the air turned crisp and you could pull all the warm sweaters out of the back of your closet. It felt like the equivalent of wrapping yourself up in a warm, cozy blanket with a cup of hot apple cider in your hands. 

And he was hot. Not Darius Acrux hot. But I’d always had a thing for danger and darkness, and wrap that combination up in a bundle of muscle and you basically had yourself some Tory kryptonite. Damn hot douchebags, I always knew they’d be my downfall.

When you finally decide to unburden yourself of my memories, please wrap them up in a bouquet of yellow tulips and throw them in the river Hydaspas, which flows into the Arabian Sea. As all seas are interconnected, I will collect this bouquet on the shore of the Atlantic Ocean

Listen to me, Brooklyn West. You are the most infuriating woman I’ve ever met. You’re fucking crazy, you drink far too much, swear worse than Nix’s batshit Nana, and resort to violence far too quickly.” Her lips part, almost reaching a smile. “I have zero clue how we’re going to straighten out the shit in your head.” I stroke her cheek with my thumb. “You’re fucked up, unstable, and sometimes, you scare the hell out of me. That’s the truth nobody wants to tell you.” Tears shine in her eyes. “I told you to let me go. You still can.” “Shut the fuck up. I’m not done.” Unable to help myself, I let my palm slide up her bare leg. She’s wearing a short black dress, which exposes her creamy thighs as it rides up. Despite the funeral taking place across the road, my cock hardens beneath her. “My life hasn’t been the same since you walked into it.” I graze my lips against hers. “You insisted on trying to kill yourself rather than be saved. I’ve been terrified of losing you since. Every single one of us is wrapped around your finger. We love the bones of you.

I felt both defeated and understood. Angry that these characters had deserved better than they'd gotten and somehow comforted by their experience. Yes, I thought. That is how life feels too often. Like you're doing everything you can to survive only to be sabotaged by something beyond your control, maybe even some darker part of yourself. Sometimes, it was your body. Your cells turning into poison and fighting against you. Or chronic pain sprouting up your neck and wrapping around the outsides of your scalp until it felt like fingernails sinking into your brain. Sometimes, it was lust or heartbreak or loneliness or fear driving you off the road toward something you'd spent months or years avoiding. Actively fighting against.

Elwin nodded. “You need the rest. If I had my way, I’d keep you knocked out like your cuddly friend over there, but—” “Cuddly?” Sophie interrupted, skipping right over the sedative part of that conversation. “See for yourself,” Elwin told her, helping her scoot up a little so she could see where Fitz was sleeping with his arms wrapped around a sparkly red stuffed dragon.

You know you get wrapped up in your own dramas. I mean, we all do, I’m not saying we don’t. But with you it’s practically an art form. And sometimes... Sometimes you worry more about yourself than you do about others. Kind of.

It was a beautiful idea, really, to wrap yourself up in memories and give old clothes a new life.

Single clean. The single clean is a natural progression from the swing and is the intermediary point between the swing and many of the overhead lifts. The clean introduces hand insertion, alignment points connected to the rack position, and positioning of the kettlebell in the hand in order to avoid injury and grip fatigue. It also teaches you how to use your legs to transmit vertical power from the lower to upper body. With practice, your clean becomes a smooth, rhythmic movement that you can sustain for extended lengths of time, although it may take hundreds of practice repetitions before it flows and becomes polished. Resting the kettlebell on the forearm is a distinguishing characteristic of kettlebells that makes them behave differently than dumbbells and makes them effective for developing the fitness that comes with high-repetition resistance training. By placing most of the load on the forearm, the muscles of the hand and grip are able to relax. It takes practice before the kettlebell will move smoothly in your hand and into position. Sometimes you will have bad repetitions and the kettlebell will crash into your forearm. To make this learning process a little kinder, you can wear wrist wraps or wristbands. In time your technique will become more polished and the kettlebell will just float into position on your arm in cleans and snatches, and at that point you may prefer to not use any wraps at all. However, it is an option for those with more tender arms—no sense giving yourself bruises if you do not need to. With the kettlebell on the floor, sit back with your hips and grip the handle with the fingers of one hand (see figure 7.11, a and b). Swing the kettlebell back through your legs as you did in the one-handed swing (see figure 7.11c), and as it swings forward, keep your forearm braced against your body (see figure 7.11d). During the swing, your arm comes away from the body as inertia pulls the kettlebell forward and up. During the clean, on the other hand, the arm does not disconnect from body, and at the point where the arm would disconnect during the swing, it instead moves vertically along the front of your body. Imagine you are standing inside a chimney. The walls of the chimney block you so that you cannot move out or to the side; you can only move the kettlebell up and down the chimney wall. When the hips reach forward extension, pull with the hip on the working side and give a gentle tug with your trapezius on the same side, pulling the kettlebell up the chimney (see figure 7.11e). Before the kettlebell settles to the chest, loosen your grip and open your hand to insert your fingers as deeply into the handle as you can at a curved angle until the medial portion of your forearm, the ulna, blocks you from inserting the hand any further (see figure 7.11f). Complete the vertical pull by letting the kettlebell rest on your chest and arm (see figure 7.11g) into what is called the rack position. This

Kitchen people understood that food didn't have to be gourmet to taste good, and that sometimes gourmet food didn't taste good at all. "Kiwis are a soulless fruit," my mother once said when she saw them in a fruit tart on the Ritz's dessert tray. "Don't ever use sun-dried tomatoes," my father told his staff. "They'll take your magic powers." Even junk food could be better. Once, for Jake's birthday, the staff laid out his favorite foods--- frozen meatballs and Twinkies--- on brass serving plates in the dining room. When they sliced the Twinkies horizontally to expose the cream, even my mother admitted they made an attractive dessert. At staff Christmas parties we served junk food, too: sour-cream-and-onion potato chips, chicken wings, and hot dogs, and for dessert more Twinkies. The rest of the year I never ate food like that, and by the holidays Cotswold tarts and melon wrapped in prosciutto bored me. In my black velvet dresses, I gnawed on fried drumsticks, with a napkin stuffed into my lace collars to catch the crumbs. "I'm not whipping up any foie gras for you tonight, kiddo," said Carla, who, in her olive-green T-shirt and holding a beer, looked the same as she did behind the line. "Fend for yourself.

Wrap up in a blanket and lie on the floor and tell yourself, “I don’t have to do anything. I don’t have to go anywhere. I don’t have to be anyone. I am just a person in a blanket on the floor.

In my restless dreams, I see that town. Silent Hill. You promised me you'd take me there again someday. But because of me, you were never able to. Well, I'm alone there now… In our ”“special place.” Waiting for you… Waiting for you to come to see me. But you never do. And so I wait, wrapped in my cocoon of pain and loneliness. I know I've done a terrible thing to you. Something you'll never forgive me for. I wish I could change that, but I can't. I feel so pathetic and ugly lying here, waiting for you... Every day I stare up at the cracks in the ceiling, and all I can think about is how unfair it all is... The doctor came today. He told me I could go home for a short stay. It's not that I'm getting better. It's just that this may be my last chance... I think you know what I mean... Even so, I'm glad to be coming home. I've missed you terribly. But I'm afraid James. I'm afraid you don't really want me to come home. Whenever you come see me, I can tell how hard it is on you... I don't know if you hate me or pity me... Or maybe I just disgust you.... I'm sorry about that. When I first learned that I was going to die, I just didn't want to accept it. I was so angry all the time, and I struck out at everyone I loved most. Especially you, James. That's why I understand if you do hate me. But I want you to know this, James. I'll always love you. Even though our life together had to end like this, I still wouldn't trade it for the world. We had some wonderful years together. Well, this letter has gone on too long, so I'll say goodbye. I told the nurse to give this to you after I'm gone. That means that when you read this, I'll already be dead. I can't tell you to remember me, but I can't bear for you to forget me. These last few years since I became ill...I'm so sorry for what I did to you, did to us... You've given me so much and I haven't been able to return a single thing. That's why I want you to live for yourself now. Do what's best for you, James. James... You made me happy. “I love you, Mary.” As the car began to slowly sink to the bottom of the lake, James pulled his wife close and gently held her. Their wish had finally come true. They would be together. And now they had an eternity to enjoy their happiness.

People were doing that, making memory quilts from the clothing of departed loved ones. It was a beautiful idea, really, to wrap yourself up in memories and give old clothes a new life.

Anyway, dear, that’s it. Just wanted to let you know I was working on it. I haven’t forgotten. And I hope you haven’t become so wrapped up in this yourself that you’re skipping meals or sleep. You used to have a very bad habit of trying to make up for initial laziness with last-moment diligence. Not a good plan, Irene.

After pushing the appliances into place, I emptied our hamper into the washer and started a cycle. As the remarkably quiet load finished, I observed that many of Nia’s clothes, particularly her undergarments, appeared old and worn. “Nia,” I stated, holding up a blouse with an obvious hole in it, “This is unacceptable. You need to go out right now and buy yourself some new clothes.” I didn’t have to ask her twice. The next morning, she went out shopping for a new wardrobe with her friends. While she was gone, my friend Erick and I cleaned up the flower beds in front of our house, planting fresh flowers and shrubs. When we were done, the kids and I decorated the driveway with sidewalk chalk, leaving messages of appreciation for Nia. After putting the kids to bed, I cleaned the house, intent on making everything sparkle on her return. With shopping bags draped over her shoulders, Nia approached the front, radiating a happiness and gratitude I hadn’t seen in her since the day before my confessions to her two weeks prior. Her gaze fell upon her new flower bed. “It’s beautiful,” she said. As she entered the house that smelled brand new, she turned to me with misty eyes and said something that overwhelmed me with emotion. “You’ve been so sweet to me,” she said after dropping her bags, covering her face with her hands. I didn’t deserve to hear those words; the things I was doing should have been done long ago, but they immediately brought me to tears. I walked over and wrapped her up as she sobbed into my shoulder. I reassured her of my undying love for her and reminded her that I was no longer the man I had described in my confessions. “I know you may think I’m doing this stuff just to win you back,” I said, “but I hope time will show how much I truly love you.” I wouldn’t need much time at all. An opportunity to demonstrate my physical and emotional faithfulness to her was on the horizon. 33 Shiny Boxes As the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.

more alive. You cannot understand New Orleans, truly, until someone who was raised by her, someone who loves her and is loved by her in return, takes you there. You cannot imagine the truth she possesses, the sins she will accept within you, the forgiveness she has for us all, until you walk through her with a man who can only love you the way he does, full of truth and power, because he was given life by those streets, by the people, by the thick air that nearly chokes you until you learn how to breathe through your skin and through your bones and how to move your body in a sway instead of a strut because that is what she demands. The city sticks to you, gets in your hair, under your nails; you sweat a kind of funk that feels so real and so base that all you want is to find the man you love and devour him with your whole body and let his whole body completely devour you, let yourself get folded up inside him, make yourself so small in his arms, disappear into his belly, his legs wrapped around your whole self, his sweat and your sweat no longer different, while you’re surrounded by dull pink walls in a bright purple building.

And you’re cute when you get all flustered.” She narrowed her eyes at him and put one hand on her hip. “I have no idea how Louise allowed you to survive childhood.” “It’s because I’m younger and he was always bigger.” Louise came around the side of the truck. “We’re going to borrow your four-wheeler, if you don’t mind.” “Of course.” It wasn’t really hers. Not like she paid for it or anything. But Palmer always referred to it as hers, and so did Louise. And like just now, Louise asked before she hopped on it. “Hi, Tella,” Ames said when she saw Tella’s head poke around the pickup. Even though they were baling hay, Tella still wore the hockey jersey she loved. “Hi, Aunt Ames.” “Okay, Tella. Let’s run down to the house, so we can get back and work a little longer.” “Can I drive?” Louise looked back at Ames with raised brows. “Sure, if your mom says it’s okay.” Tella grinned. “It should be. She let me drive Uncle Palmer’s pickup out here.” “By yourself?” Tella nodded. “Wow. Make sure you wear your seatbelt just in case the wheels fall off.” “Hey.” Palmer put on a mock-hurt expression and wrapped an arm around Ames’s head like he was going to put her in a headlock. “That wasn’t nice. I don’t say mean things like that about your car.” The four-wheeler started, and the motor faded slowly into the distance. Palmer’s arm loosened and dropped to her shoulders. The weight of it there felt good and right. She straightened in his embrace. Maybe they’d never bale hay together again. She looked up into his clear, blue eyes. Eyes that held no guile. Just genuine honesty. And admiration. “You’re beautiful. With or without sunburned cheeks.” His arm tightened. What had simply been his arm around her shoulder became Palmer hugging her. Still maybe in line with friendship, but so close to more. She wanted more. But she wanted his friendship, too. Could she have both? Their kiss hadn’t made anything awkward. She tossed her head, moving closer until they were touching. “That

My dad wasn’t unkind, he was just absent. I knew him from a distance, and he probably felt the same way about me. I was sure he loved me, but it wasn’t the cozy, wrap-yourself-up-in-it kind of love. He’d most likely donate a kidney to me if I needed it, but he wouldn’t rush out of work to attend an art show I was exhibiting in—that I knew for a fact.

I call this the Black 'n' Blue," she explained. "It's a freshly made pie with blackberries and blueberries and a buttery double crust. I'd say one piece will do the trick, but if you find yourself in a creative lull, I'd add a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top." Anna picked up a dessert neatly wrapped in plastic and tied with a bow. "Laughter and delight are guaranteed with this Mexican chocolate cinnamon roll.

Our identity becomes wrapped up in our bodies. We are absorbed by the outer world because that is what those chemicals force us to pay attention to—things we own, people we know, places we have to go, problems we face, hairstyles we dislike, our body parts, our weight, our looks in comparison to others, how much time we have or don’t have … you get the picture. And we remember who we are based

Yes, I thought. That is how life feels too often. Like you’re doing everything you can to survive only to be sabotaged by something beyond your control, maybe even some darker part of yourself. Sometimes, it was your body. Your cells turning into poison and fighting against you. Or chronic pain sprouting up your neck and wrapping around the outsides of your scalp until it felt like fingernails sinking into your brain.

Yes, I thought. That is how life feels too often. Like you’re doing everything you can to survive only to be sabotaged by something beyond your control, maybe even some darker part of yourself. Sometimes, it was your body. Your cells turning into poison and fighting against you. Or chronic pain sprouting up your neck and wrapping around the outsides of your scalp until it felt like fingernails sinking into your brain. Sometimes, it was lust or heartbreak or loneliness or fear driving you off the road toward something you’d spent months or years avoiding. Actively fighting against. At

Ryker wrapped his arms around my middle and stood up, scooping me off my feet. "But I'm sure we can handle a shower and some sleep." "Put me down, Ryker! I need to grab clothes and towels," I said. "I prefer neither." A familiar, assholeish grin plastered across his face as he carried us to Dad's room and the only shower in the apartment. "I'm not walking around naked in Dad's apartment. That will have to wait until..." Until. Until what? What was I saying? Ryker, the bastard, caught me in my words all too quickly. "Until what, Dani?" he asked with that damned smirk and the fucking sexy rumble in his voice. And the way his eyes were eating me up, even though we were both covered in dirt and soot. Ryker set me down on the bathroom floor. "It will have to wait until we're alone," I said. "Truly alone, not here." I focused on turning on the hot water. Ryker hooked his thumbs in the top of my shorts and began to slide them off me. "Ryker, not helping," I grumbled, fighting the smile trying to creep onto my lips. "Unless you intend to wear them in the shower, I think I am." Even though he was behind me I could see his smug grin pretty clearly in my head. I swatted his hand away. "No, Ryker," I said, turning to face him. "Bad dragon." He kept smiling but narrowed his eyes as he leaned down to whisper in my ear. "You can shower in peace, firecracker. I'll let you sleep, and eat, and I'll take this vampire pain in our ass. But after all of this has settled, I'm taking you deep into the Siberian plain and I'm going to fuck you until you don't know what to do with yourself.

We are often told to just be ourselves but what does that really mean?...There is no 'just' in any of these statements, because it is hard. I think we are often told how to be; how to behave, how to look, what to believe, and there is no part of our lives that isn't put under scrutiny in this way. We all feel the pressure to conform. Sometimes it can be really challenging to be yourself, especially when it is at odds with the mainstream. I always showed up, but for a time, I masked how I really felt and what was important to me. I felt so stifled, it was as if I had chains wrapped around me. Looking back, I wish I could've been myself unconditionally from the get-go, but I was making decisions based on fear.

There was more than getting justice for a wronged woman,” Michael added. “I also met you. One of the most extraordinary experiences in my life.” Nothing had been the same for him since. “Not much remarkable about that,” she demurred. “You sought out Nemesis not for yourself, but for your friend. It was bloody amazing what you did during that job. When Nemesis needed your help again, you answered the call. Just tonight, you’d been afraid but willing to make the climb down the side of Covington Hall. Damned extraordinary.” Thank God he’d been too distracted by climbing to think about the fact that she’d had her arms and legs wrapped around him, her body tight against his. A corner of her mouth turned up. “Oh, when you put it like that, maybe I am rather special.” “Sodding right.” A silence fell. But he wasn’t willing to let it linger

I’ll call a cab and go to my car. I’ll sleep there for the night and figure out what to do in the light of day.” He’d started shaking his head about halfway through her proclamation and hadn’t stopped. “Do you honestly think I’m going to let you sleep in a car abandoned in some ditch on the side of the highway?” She scowled, hackles rising. “There’s no letting me. I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.” I think. No, screw that. I know. “Hey,” he said, voice soft. He wrapped his fingers around her wrist and, when she tried to yank away, held tight. “I know you can. You’ve already proven yourself.” Her frown deepening, she cast a suspicious glance in his direction. She was stuck in the middle of nowhere with no resources. Any idiot could see that. “I’ve proven nothing other than I can land myself in a huge mess.” One brow rose. “Oh? How long did you walk tonight? By yourself, in the dark?” “I didn’t have a choice, and I don’t have a choice now.” “There are always choices, Maddie. Don’t forget, you made a hell of a big one today.” “That doesn’t count,” she said, voice rising. Temper, temper, Maddie. She shook the voice away. “I know my options, and I’m going back to my car.” He studied her. Summing her up like the lawyer he used to be. “I don’t want to ask, but I’m going to anyway. Why don’t you want to call your family?” “Because I don’t want to.” The words shot out of her mouth, surprising her with their force. “What about friends?” Penelope and Sophie would walk through fire for her, but they weren’t an option, at least not tonight. “They’re probably at my mom’s house, consoling my family.” He scrubbed a hand over his stubbled jaw. “Won’t they be worried?” “I’m sure they are,” she said. Her voice had taken on an edge that she hoped would pass for determined, but she feared that it bordered on petulance. “But I’m not calling them. I wrote a note and stole my own car from the parking lot, so it’s not like they’ll think I’ve been kidnapped.” “What did you do, hotwire the thing?” Amusement was plain in the deep tone of his voice. “If you must know, I have three extremely overprotective older brothers, a worrywart mother, and a . . .” She paused, trying out the words in her mind and deciding she wanted to own them. “. . . suffocating ex-fiancé. They insisted I have one of those industrial-strength, military-grade, combination-lock hideaway keys. My uncle brought my car to the church because his was in the shop. So really, it’s their fault this happened.” That was the moment she’d known she was going to run. Surrounded by the smell of gardenias that made her want to gag, she’d pushed her bridesmaids out the door, begging for a few minutes of peace and quiet. She’d gone over to the window, desperate for the smell of fresh air, and there sat her little Honda. The cherry red of the car had glowed in the sun like a gift from heaven. A sudden, almost reverent calm descended on her. It had felt like peace: a feeling so foreign to her that it had taken a moment to recognize it. Mitch laughed, pulling her away from those last minutes in the church and back to the temptation sitting next to her. “Princess, you really are something,” he said, still chuckling.

How could you do that?” I ask. My heart is thumping like crazy, and I can barely catch my breath. “What did you do?” my mother asks. Dad shrugs and washes his hands at the sink. He ignores me completely. Mom raises her brow at me in question. “He called Pete a thug, and then he told me I have to go on a date with Chase just because his father called and snapped his fingers.” I snap mine for good measure. Mom’s inquisitive grin turns into a scowl. “What?” she asks. She grabs my father’s shoulder and turns him to face her. “You of all people called Pete a thug?” “To his face!” I shout. “Then Pete left. And I don’t even know what he’s thinking.” “I know what he’s thinking,” Dad murmurs. Mom frowns. “He’s thinking you don’t like him!” Dad makes a noncommittal hum. That’s it? A hum? Mom’s face softens. She can read Dad like a book. I just wish I could. “What?” I ask. I look back and forth between them. “Your dad is afraid Pete’s trying to get in your pants,” Mom says. She lifts her brow at Dad. Dad just glares at her. He won’t even look at me. I throw up my hands. “That’s just it!” I cry. “He’s not trying to get in my pants. He won’t even kiss me!” “Oh,” Mom breathes. Dad murmurs something, and Mom rubs his shoulder, her eyes soft as she looks at him. “What?” I ask again. “Your dad’s afraid you’ll get your heart broken,” she says quietly. She looks sympathetically toward my dad. I take a deep breath and steel myself. “Most girls get to have their hearts broken when they’re eighteen or so. Maybe sixteen or whenever they find their first boyfriend.” I jab a finger toward my chest. “I’ve never even had a boyfriend, Dad,” I say. My eyes fill with tears, but I blink them back. How messed up is this? “I like Pete, and he’s someone you can like, too. So, what’s the problem? We haven’t even been on a date!” “I saw him watching you at the pool.” Dad heaves a sigh. “He looks at you like I look at your mother.” He tips her chin up so that her eyes meet his. “I saw her and I knew she was completely out of my league, but I wanted her more than I ever wanted anything.” He looks at me. “And that’s how Pete looks at you. That’s what scares me, Reagan. Not that he’s a thug or that he’s poor or that he’s been in prison. He looks at you like he never wants to stop looking at you. I’d probably like him more if he was just trying to get in your pants, because that’s something you can get over. But a man loving you, that’s completely different. You’re not ready for it.” He shrugs his shoulders. “You’re just not.” He may as well have stuck a knife in my chest. “How do you know what I’m ready for?” I ask. “I saw what that asshole did to you, Reagan,” he says. He slams his fist down on the kitchen counter, making the dishes jump. And me, too. “I saw you walking around here, jumping at shadows, wrapping yourself in a protective bubble so no one else could hurt you. You learned how to protect your body, but no one ever taught you to protect your heart.” He pounds his fist against his chest. “You’re unprepared for what Pete wants. Completely unprepared.” “What do you want me to do?” I ask. I can barely hear myself, but Dad hears me. “Stop it before it’s too late,” he spits out. “Just stop it.” “Okay,” I breathe. “You win.

You can’t be just a scribe, or a wizard. Nameless God,” he cried, raking a hand through his hair. “I wish they had never found you, never made you think you were the princess. Nothing else will ever be good enough, not now. You’ll never be happy. You’ll throw yourself into danger, take it all on yourself, just to prove that they were all wrong about you. And I just--I just--” And without warning, he stepped in front of me, grabbed my shoulders to stop my pacing, and kissed me. If I thought being kissed by Tyr had been what kissing was all about, I had been wrong. This kiss trampled Tyr’s kiss, threw it to the ground, and danced on its grave. It was like being kissed by sunlight, or joy. Kiernan’s arms wrapped around me, holding me so tight that I thought his hands might leave impressions on my back. But his lips were gentle, moving with mine as if they had done it for years, warm and soft. Little tingles of pleasure licked through my body, from my lips to my toes. I felt my own arms snake up around Kiernan’s neck, and I thought I might drown in sensation. And then there was coldness as air swept between our bodies. Kiernan gave me one last graze of a kiss, and pulled away. I gasped, like a drowning woman who has just had the air snatched away from her by the waves. “I love you, Sinda,” he said, not shakily but with certainty. “I have for--oh, years--before I even knew that I did. I loved you when you were the princess, and I love you now. I just want you to be happy. And I want you to be safe. I don’t care if you’re the Queen of Thorvaldor or a pig keeper in Mossfeld.” He brushed a hand down the side of my face, his thumb running over my lips.

I want to undress you, touch you, kiss you, taste you. And then I want you to taste yourself on my mouth.” He kissed her again, hot and strong and long. One hand crept to her clothed breast, kneading it. “I want you hard and hot and deep and fast. And then I want you slow and sweet. I want you to wrap those beautiful long legs around me. I want you under me and on top of me and sitting and standing. I want to see your eyes when pleasure makes you light up. I want to hold you when you come down and try to find your breath. I want everything with you, Ellie. I care about you more than I’ve cared about a woman in so long, I hardly recognized the feelings. I’m dying for you.” “Oh, God,” she whispered, moving against him. “Tell me,” he demanded. “Tell me you feel something for me. I taste it. Tell me you’re not just lonely.” “Of course I feel something, you big dope. Why do you think this scares the holy hell out of me? But I thought you’d be the one with the great control! Besides, we’re too different!” He

Scandalous man.” Ellen wrapped her hand over his right forearm. “So tell me how we go about this.” “About this?” Val placed a kiss on her nape and nuzzled her neck. “This getting up, getting dressed, and going about our day, as if…” She trailed off, frowning at his hand. “As if?” When Ellen remained silent, he gently pushed her onto her back and peered down into her face. “As if?” “As if we haven’t just misbehaved intimately.” He cocked his head, his beautiful green eyes shuttering. “Are you going to castigate yourself and resent me now?” “I am not ashamed. I am shy.” His dark brows flew up and then down as his lips curved in a smile. “Shy. I am shy too, you know.” “Shy you might be.” Ellen tried to roll back to her side. “You are not plagued by a great deal of modesty, though.” “I am modest, for a man raised with four brothers. What are you really asking me?” “I don’t know.

If God has called you to be really like Jesus in your spirit, He will draw you into a life of crucifixion and humility, and put on you such demands of obedience that He will not allow you to follow other Christians; and in many ways He will seem to let other good people do things that He will not let you do. Other Christians and ministers who seem very religious and useful may push themselves, pull wires and work schemes to carry out their schemes, but you cannot do it; and if you attempt it, you will meet with such failure and rebuke from the Lord as to make you sorely penitent. Others may brag on themselves, on their work, on their success, on their writings, but the Holy Spirit will not allow you to do any such thing; and if you begin it, He will lead you into some deep mortification that will make you despise yourself and all your good works. Others may be allowed to succeed in making money, but it is likely that God will keep you poor, because He wants you to have something far better than gold, and that is a helpless dependence upon Him, that He may have the privilege (the right) of supplying your needs day by day out of an unseen treasury. The Lord will let others be honoured and put forward, and keep you hidden away in obscurity, because He wants some choice fragrant fruit for His coming glory which can only be produced in the shade. He will let others do a work for Him and get the credit for it, but He will let you work and toil on without knowing how much you are doing; and then to make your work still more precious, He will let others get the credit for the work you have done, and this will make your reward ten times greater when Jesus comes. The Holy Spirit will put a watch over you, with a jealous love, and will rebuke you for little words and feelings or for wasting your time, over which other Christians never seem distressed. So make up your mind that God is an infinite Sovereign, and has the right to do as He pleases with His own, and He may not explain to you a thousand things which may puzzle your reason in His dealings with you. He will take you at your word and if you absolutely sell yourself to be His slave, He will wrap you up in a jealous love and let other people say and do many things which He will not let you say or do. Settle it for ever that you are to deal directly with the Holy Spirit, and that He is to have the privilege of tying your tongue, or chaining your hand, or closing your eyes, in ways that He does not deal with others. Now when you are so possessed with the Living God, that you are in your secret heart pleased and delighted over the peculiar, personal, private, jealous guardianship of the Holy Spirit over your life, you will have found the vestibule of heaven. These

I was missing you,” Bautista replied, standing to wrap his arms around Collins’s waist. “You’re always so busy these days.” “Yeah. But it’ll be over soon.” Dex’s gut twisted. The alarm bells in his head went off, and he listened intently. “What will be over soon?” Bautista asked, cocking his head to one side. Collins kissed his boyfriend on the lips before taking a step back, an almost heartbroken expression on his face as he held his hands up in surrender. “I don’t blame you for turning me in. You’re a good guy. It’s why I fell in love with you. Take care of yourself.” Shit.

Close your eyes if you wish and begin the breathing exercise that works best for you. Let yourself relax, as we get ready to clear your mind. Feel your mind start to empty. When a thought pops up disrupting this process, we want to acknowledge it, and then let it go. Imagine it vanishing away from your mind. If a certain thought remains, use one of these two visualizations to help release it. The first is to imagine tying your thought to a balloon and releasing the balloon to fly away. Feel the thought float out of your mind. If that doesn’t work for you, imagine you are wrapping a present. Place your thought into the box and wrap it up. Then set it aside for later. Repeat this process until your mind is emptied of thoughts and concerns. Enjoy the calmness of your mind. When you are ready, open your eyes. 

here’s your first lesson. Don’t wrap yourself up in all the bad stuff, and definitely don’t expect everything to always go against you. Sometimes . . .” he sat back, considering his words, “. . . you just don’t know. Things usually have a way of working out for the best.” Listening to Marcus talk made me

You can ask why all day long if you want to. You can ask God why and your friends why and yourself why until you're buried in nothing but that single question, but you'll never get an answer. This side of heaven, time is the only thing that helps a little bit. So don't give in. Don't let the whys have it. Don't let them take advantage of you. They'll crush your heart and steal your peace and mess with your mind and wrap around you so tight you won't be able to breathe. Don't let the whys ruin your life, child. Every time they try to sneak up, push them aside and move forward. Trust me, it's the only way you can get on with living.

Before Anna’s eyes she changed from a little girl into a sombre woman. She sat staring: serious, ironical. “Don’t you see, I’ve got to think it’s funny?” “Yes, I do.” “It happened all at once, at breakfast one morning. Richard’s always been horrid at breakfast. He’s always bad tempered and he nags at me. But the funny thing is, why did I let him? And he was going on and on, nagging away about me seeing Tommy so much. And suddenly, it was like a sort of revelation. It really was, Anna. He was sort of bouncing up and down the breakfast room. And his face was red. And he was so bad tempered. And I was listening to his voice. He’s got an ugly voice, hasn’t he? It’s a bully’s voice, isn’t it?” “Yes, it is.” “And I thought—Anna I wish I could explain it. It was really a revelation. I thought: I’ve been married to him for years and years, and all that time I’ve been—wrapped up in him. Well women are, aren’t they? I’ve thought of nothing else. I’ve cried myself to sleep night after night for years. And I’ve made scenes, and been a fool and been unhappy and…The point is, what for? I’m serious Anna.” Anna smiled, and Marion went on: “Because the point is, he’s not anything, is he? He’s not even very good-looking. He’s not even very intelligent—I don’t care if he is ever so important and a captain of industry. Do you see what I mean?” “Well, and then?” “I thought, My God, for that creature I’ve ruined my life. I remember the moment exactly. I was sitting at the breakfast-table, wearing a sort of negligee thing I’d bought because he likes me in that sort of thing—you know, frills and flowers, or well, he used to like me in them. I’ve always hated them. And I thought, for years and years I’ve even been wearing clothes I hated, just to please this creature.” Anna laughed. Marion was laughing, her handsome face alive with self-critical irony, and her eyes sad and truthful. “It’s humiliating, isn’t it Anna?” “Yes, it is.” “But I bet you’ve never made a fool of yourself about any stupid man. You’ve got too much sense.” “That’s what you think,” said Anna drily. But she saw this was a mistake; it was necessary for Marion to see her, Anna, as self-sufficient, and non-vulnerable. Marion, not hearing what Anna had said, insisted: “No, you’ve got too much sense, and that’s why I admire you.

I can’t breathe. I’m 97% sure that my nerve endings are literally on fire, and true to his promise, walking today, or the days in the near future, will be a challenge. God bless him. “God, Sarah.” If I could move right now, I’d open my eyes and look down at him, but I can’t. He’s still inside me, his body also still quivering. I didn’t think it was possible, but this round might be better than any of the previous six. Six. Rounds. Of sex. In one twelve-hour period. I collapse on his chest, bury my face in his neck, try to regain use of my extremities, and purr when he wraps his arms around my back and hugs me close. His arms make me want to bite him. In the best sexual way possible. I don’t know what he does to keep them so…awesome, but dear sweet Moses, am I thankful. “I’ll make you breakfast,” he murmurs against my neck, sending a fresh round of goose bumps over my skin. “Okay. I’ll get off of you in about a month.” He chuckles and slaps my ass, and then before I know it, I’m flat on my back and he’s leaning over me, smiling down at me with those amazing green eyes of his. “How can you move?” “Quick recovery,” he says and kisses my nose. “You stay here and collect yourself and I’ll go cook.” “Cook what?” I ask. “There’s nothing in your fridge.” “The bagel place delivers.” He winks, places a smacking kiss on my lips, then jumps up and saunters out of the bedroom. Naked. Holy shit. I cover my face with my hands and can’t help but smile. What a night! Adam didn’t wait until this morning to have his way with me again. No, that happened sometime around 2:00 a.m. It seems that man can’t keep his hands off of me, and that doesn’t hurt my feelings in the least. I was so right. One night with Adam Spencer was unforgettable and a giant boost to my ego. I giggle and sit up, sighing when my muscles complain. Good lord, muscles I didn’t even know existed are protesting after the night of exhausting sex I just had. I had sex. A lot. With the hottest man ever. I giggle once more and stand, groaning now at the uncomfortable pull of my inner thigh muscles, and walk into his bathroom to clean up. The shower is quick, and before I know it, I’m in his kitchen, wearing last night’s clothes, kind of excited about the walk of shame I’ll do when he drops me off. “I like that smile,” Adam says as he walks into the kitchen holding a brown bag that was just delivered. “You put it there,” I reply with a wink. “You put on shorts.” He raises a brow. “I can take them back off.” “No.” I shake my head and laugh as Adam opens the bag of food. He smirks and passes me a bagel, already toasted with cream cheese. “How do you feel?” “Sore.” I lick cream cheese off my thumb and grin at the sexy man taking a bite of his breakfast. “Well sexed.” “Mission accomplished then.” He reaches over the island and drags his thumb down my cheek. He kisses my forehead, then pulls away. “Thank you.” “For?” “Dinner. Breakfast.” The most amazing sex of my entire life. “You’re welcome.

Without moving apart, Zev moaned and whispered into Jonah’s mouth, “Damn, Blondie, you’re a great kisser.” Jonah moved his arms up to Zev’s back, wrapping the young man in his embrace and stroking his smooth, firm skin. “You’re not so bad yourself, Hassick. You been practicing this with someone without me knowing?” Zev snickered. “You jealous?” Jonah didn’t return the smile. He looked into Zev’s eyes and answered without any guile, “Yeah. I’m jealous of anyone who got to touch you.” Instead of looking freaked out, as Jonah had half expected, Zev remained completely calm. He gazed into Jonah’s eyes with such powerful emotion that Jonah’s heart raced and his breath hitched. “Unless you can manage being jealous of yourself, you don’t have to worry. Like I told you yesterday, I haven’t ever thought about anyone else—girls or guys—let alone touched anyone else. It’s just you, Blondie. It’s always been you.” Zev let his words sink in, then he reversed the tables on the discussion. “What about you? Been hiding out behind the bleachers sneaking kisses with cheerleaders?” Jonah snorted more than laughed. “Uh, Zev, I was teasing about the whole not-so-smart thing earlier, but now I’m thinking I may have been on to something. That hardness you feel against your stomach isn’t a banana. That’s me happy to see you, or feel you, in this case. And you’re a guy. With that background in place, we can add two and two together here and even someone with your limited math skills can come up with the correct answer. I’m gay. I’ve got no deep dark cheerleader secrets in my past.” Zev was amazed at how easily Jonah said the words. He admired how his friend so completely accepted this part of himself. No shame, no hesitation. Just a matter-of-fact statement. In that moment, Zev decided he’d take the same approach. He knew it’d shock his parents. Hell, it’d rock his whole community. But he was attracted to a man. He had a male mate. That meant he was gay. Zev Hassick was a gay shifter. The pack would just have to find a way to deal with that truth even though they’d always believed it to be impossible. “And in case you’re wondering,” Jonah continued, his hand still rubbing Zev’s back but now moving lower, skating over his ass, “I don’t have any deep dark football player secrets, either. I’ve had a crush on one guy for as long as I can remember and I kinda put all my eggs in that basket.” Zev took another kiss, slow, soft and sweet this time. “I better be the egg-basket guy in that story, Blondie, or the tickles are coming back in full force.

You’ve made yourself quite at home, I see.” “You’ve a nice one here, Kerry,” he said quite sincerely, his smile still sparkling with equal sincerity. “Good people, nice little town. I find I’m liking it a great deal. Your ocean is everything you described and more. I’d like to see more of it, through your eyes. When you have the time.” She debated the wisdom of trying to put him off as long as possible, but hell, he’d talked to half the town already and even had Fergus playing wingman for him. “Apparently I have time today,” she said dryly. “I don’t know how long this meeting will go, and I have errands to run. I still have to buy tonight’s special--unless you’re about to tell me that’s already been handled, too.” “Not that I’m aware of,” he replied easily. “But then, I just got into town late yesterday, so I’m not fully up to speed yet.” Oh, he was speedy all right. “It scares me to think what you’ll know after a full twenty-four hours. If you want to go with me to Blue’s to look at the early morning catch, I can meet you down in Half Moon around two.” He grinned. “We have a date, then.” “We have a meeting. Blue’s is--” “I’ll find it.” “I’m sure you will.” She went to climb in the cab of her truck, then paused. “I don’t guess it will do me any good to ask you to stop talking to people about me, will it?” “I don’t guess it would, no.” His accent, the way it wrapped around the os, making them sound like two delicious syllables in one, shouldn’t affect her like it always had. Like it still did. To be fair, given her protracted stay Down Under, she’d grown accustomed to the accent in general. It was the deep, smooth timbre of his voice, speaking in that vowel-curling way of his, that rolled right through her like ocean waves relentlessly lapping at the shore. Lapping at her. “Well, be warned,” she told him, trying to ignore the delicious little shiver that was snaking its way down her spine, and all she was doing was looking at him. “Folks here can tell you everything you ever wanted to know about me, my family, and the entire history of Blueberry Cove, but just know that they’ll also be telling everyone in the Cove every last detail they learn about you, too.” “Not much different from life in the Downs, then.

Why did she go into service, if she had no need of money?” Harry shrugged. “She wanted to experience what a family was like, if only as an outsider. Cat believes she’ll never have a family of her own.” Leo’s brows drew together as he tried to make sense of that. “Nothing is stopping her,” he pointed out. “You think not?” A hint of mockery varnished Harry’s hard green eyes. “You Hathaways would find it impossible to understand what it’s like to be brought up in isolation, by people who don’t give a damn about you. You have no choice but to assume it’s your fault, that you’re unlovable. And that feeling wraps around you until it becomes a prison, and you find yourself barricading the doors against anyone who wants to come in.

Oh, Hunter, I’m sorry,” she said on the crest of a sob. “I didn’t mean to hurt you like this. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” “You rip my heart out and it should not hurt?” His teeth closed on her earlobe, nipping lightly, sending shivers over her skin. “You spit upon all that I am, and it should not hurt? You abandon me, you dishonor me, and it should not hurt?” The raw emotion in his voice brought tears to her eyes. “I never intended to dishonor you…” Loretta longed to put her arms around him but was quickly reminded of her bonds when she tried. His mouth claimed hers, hot and demanding, yet strangely gentle. What followed was beautiful. Unable to remain passive, Loretta responded to him with a spiraling passion that both shocked and disoriented her. At some point Hunter cut the leather on her wrists and ankles, but she was too mindless to realize. He was like a fire inside her, embers licked to low flames, building quickly to an inferno. There was no fear. And no pain. Just a bittersweet joining, becoming one in a way she had never dreamed possible. Afterward Hunter drew her gently into his arms and reminded her of the promises he had made her, that she would never experience brutality or shame in his arms, only love. “How can you not hear the song my heart sings, Blue Eyes?” Loretta knew he was referring to far more than his lovemaking. Sobs built pressure in her chest, then crawled up her throat, gaining force until they tore from her, dry and ragged. “Oh, Hunter, you have to understand. You think only of yourself and your rights. What of mine?” Hunter drew her head back down to his shoulder and wrapped his arms around her. Her warm tears fell on his skin and trickled, cold and wet, under his arm. He closed his eyes, his mind replaying her words, the whispers a torment, the questions unanswerable. Did he think only of himself? Yes. To do otherwise meant losing her. Long after his wife fell into an exhausted sleep, he lay awake, staring into the darkness, searching within himself for a solution. There was none…

West had never decided what the hell it wanted to be: avenger or liberator. It had proved to be both, and in being both had become neither. Finally, the IEDs, rogue Afghans and the indifference of a war-sickened people had driven the military to a strategy of drones and men like me. The bitter bounty of our righteous war? Dead little girls and two-day heroes with blackened minds and stumps for limbs that the politicians could jerk off about for as long as the homecoming parade lasted. Wrap yourself in a flag that meant jack shit, drop some dollars into a bucket, close your door, and thank the Lord it wasn’t your son or daughter. That was the truth, as I saw it now. Just don’t say it out loud: if there was one thing the people back home hated more than terrorists, it was some asshole holding up a mirror to them. I kept walking, past the grunts, who had seen crazier shit than this and knew

I know he makes mistakes, but basically he’s a good kid,” she told him. “Trust him, and trust yourself.” She looked so earnest, he thought, as aroused as he was amused. “You’re the one who shouldn’t be trusting me,” he told her, right before he kissed her. As he lowered his mouth to hers, he wrapped his arms around her and drew her close. She leaned into him, her slender body warm and supple in his embrace. Her lips clung, then parted. When he swept inside, she was hot, sweet and more than willing to take him on. The second his tongue touched hers, she moaned. Her fingers dug into his shoulders, and he felt a shudder ripple through her body. He went from hard to ready to explode in two seconds. The way they were next to each other on a log didn’t allow him to explore her the way he wanted, so he broke the kiss and pulled her to her feet. Phoebe went willingly, if a little unsteadily. When they were both standing, he pressed his mouth to her jaw before sliding to her neck. She moaned and leaned back her head. Their lower bodies brushed against each other. When her belly came in contact with his erection, it was his turn to groan. He slid one hand from her waist up to her breast and cupped the feminine curve. Even through the layers of her shirt and bra, he could feel her tight nipple. One sweep of his thumb against it had her gasping. She touched his head and guided his mouth back to hers. This time when he entered her, she closed her lips around his tongue and sucked. He dropped his free hand to the small of her back, holding her in place so he could rub against her. The thick ropes of his control began to unravel. When she curled both arms around his neck, it seemed natural to place his around her waist and pick her up. She wrapped her legs around his hips, bringing herself in direct contact with his hard-on. It was paradise. It was pure torture. He swore. She broke the kiss and smiled at him. “So you find me annoying, but you still want me,” she whispered. “I don’t find you annoying.” He pushed against her crotch. “I don’t find you annoying, either.

Why can’t you just admit you’re attracted to me, Rachel?” I asked into her ear as I pressed my body against hers. She swallowed audibly and shook her head as if to clear her mind before speaking. “Because I’m not? I’m not attracted to guys who look like they’re Photoshopped and who have bigger chests than most girls I know.” I couldn’t help it. I laughed loudly and had to pull back slightly when the movement and being pressed up against her made my jeans shrink a size. “Liar.” Even if her voice hadn’t gone all breathy, I still hadn’t forgotten her blush. “And I really hate your tattoos.” “No you don’t.” “And your lip ring and your eyes. And your hair, it drives me nuts. You really need to cut it. Or better yet, one morning you’ll wake up and I will have shaved it off while you slept.” I smiled and let my nose run along her jaw, loving the quick breath she took and how her eyes fluttered shut when I did. “Good to know your favorite things about me, Sour Patch. And if you’re wondering . . . everything about you is my favorite.” “They’re not. And I wasn’t.” “Keep telling yourself that if it helps you sleep at night. But do you think we could wrap up this meeting about how much you want me? I really need to go buy about a dozen pints of ice cream so I can work at not looking Photoshopped anymore.” Her eyes snapped open and darkened as she narrowed them at me. “God, you’re annoying.” “And you’re keeping me from eating.” “I’m not the one who isn’t dressed.” Touché. “I think I should go like this. Maybe there will be a woman there who appreciates the way I look.

I don’t want to die.” I say, defiantly. “Bright Side, what?” He’s confused. Of course he’s confused. No one starts a conversation like that. I repeat, “I don’t want to fucking die.” “Oh, shit, Bright Side.” I hear him take a deep breath, a primer for the conversationthat’s about to unfold. “Talk to me. What’s going on?” “I’m fucking dying, Gus. I don’t want to die. That’s what’s fucking going on.” I hit the steering wheel with my palms. “Goddammit!” I scream... Gus doesn’t deserve this, but I know he’ll deal with it better than anyone else would. “Calm down, dude. Where are you?” “I don’t know. I’m sitting in my car in a fucking parking garage in the middle of motherfucking Minneapolis, Minnesota.” That was hostile. “Are you by yourself?” “Yes,” I snap. “You’re not supposed to be driving while you’re on your pain meds.” I don’t want his fatherly tone. “I know that.” “Are you in danger or hurt?” I burst out laughing, surprised that I can’t even laugh without sounding angry. The question is absurd to me though. I’m dying. “Bright Side, shut up for a second and talk to me. Do I need to call 911? What the fuck is going on?” He sounds scared. I shake my head like he can see me. “No, no. I’m just ... I’m fucking mad, Gus. That’s all.” And at a loss for words because my mind is jumbled up into this bitter, resentful ball. I don’t know what else to say so I repeat myself. “I’m really fucking mad.” “Well shit, by all means, there’s plenty of room at my table for anger.” He gets it. That’s why I called him, after all. “I’ve been dishing out heaping servings of fury for the past month. I feel better knowing I’m not the only one in this whole debacle with some rage issues. So fire away. Fucking give it to me.” I do. An explosive, steady stream of expletives flows out of me. I’m cursing it all, shouting out questions, pounding the steering wheel, and wiping away hot, angry tears. Occasionally Gus joins in, yelling affirmations. Sometimes he waits for a pause on my part and takes his turn and sometimes he just steamrolls over the top of me... Eventually, my tears stop, and I’m able to take normal breaths. My throat feels tight and my head hurts a little, but I’m calm. On the other end of the line, Gus gets quiet, too. Silence falls between us... My voice is raspy when I decide to break the silence. “Gus?” “Yeah, Bright Side.” He sounds like himself again. Calm. “Thanks.” I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off of me. And now I need to apologize. “Sorry, dude.” He laughs. “No worries. You feel better?” I can actually smile now. “Yeah, I really do.” “Good, me too. I think we should’ve done this weeks ago.” “I think I should’ve done it months ago.” I mean it. It felt so good to let it all out. “Bright Side, you know I love you all happy and adorable in your little world of sunshine and rainbows, but you’re kinda hot when you’re angry. I dig aggressive chicks. And that was crazy aggressive.” He knows I’m going to say it, but I can’t help myself. “Whatever.” I even roll my eyes. “I think I’m gonna rename you Demon Seed.” “What? I show you my dark side and now I have to be the fucking antichrist? I don’t like that. Why can’t I just be Angry Bitch?” He laughs hard and my heart swellsbecause I haven’t heard this laugh out of Gus in a month. And I love this laugh. “Well dude, since it seems my therapysession has wrapped up, I’d better get going. I need to get home.” “Sure. Drive slowly and text me when you get there so I know you made it. And no more driving after this trip.” “Yes sir. I love you, Gus.” “Love you, too, Angry Bitch,” his voice low and dramatic. He pauses because he knows I’m not going to hang up to that. “I was just trying it out,” he says innocently.

Gentry was reclining on his side, propped up on one elbow, the broad outline of his shoulders obscuring most of the light shed by the bedside lamp. His body was so large and sheltering, his self-confidence so substantial, that it seemed as if she could wrap it around herself like a blanket and stay safe forever. Shrewdly, he understood her Achilles' heel- that terrible need for sanctuary- and he did not hesitate to make use of it. He slid his arm over her waist, his hand resting on the middle of her back, his thumb brushing along the stiff arc of her spine. "I'll take care of you, Lottie. I'll keep you safe and provide all the comforts you require. All I want in return is for you to enjoy yourself with me. That isn't so terrible, is it?" He had Lucifer's own skill of making what he sounded perfectly reasonable. Discerning her weakness, he leaned over until the solid weight of his body was poised above her and his thigh pressed into the mattress between her legs. "Kiss me," he whispered. The sweet, drugging spice of his breath and skin sent her thoughts scattering like dry leaves in the wind.

Assign a file or paper tray to collect single-side printed paper for reuse. Boycott paper sourced from virgin forests and reams sold in plastic. Cancel magazine and newspaper subscriptions; view them online instead. Digitize important receipts and documents for safekeeping. Digital files are valid proofs for tax purposes. Download CutePDF Writer to save online files without having to print them. Email invitations or greeting cards instead of printing them (see “Holidays and Gifts” chapter). Forage the recycling can when paper scraps are needed, such as for bookmarks or pictures (for school collages, for example). Give extra paper to the local preschool. Hack the page margins of documents to maximize printing. Imagine a paperless world. Join the growing paperless community. Kill the fax machine; encourage electronic faxing through a service such as HelloFax. Limit yourself to print only on paper that has already been printed on one side. Make online billing and banking a common practice. Nag the kids’ teachers to send home only important papers. Opt out of paper newsletters. Print on both sides when using a new sheet of paper (duplex printing). Question the need for printing; print only when absolutely necessary. In most cases, it is not. Repurpose junk mail envelopes—make sure to cross out any barcode. Sign electronically using the Adobe Acrobat signing feature or SignNow.com. Turn down business cards; enter relevant info directly into a smartphone. Use shredded paper as a packing material, single-printed paper fastened with a metal clip for a quick notepad (grocery lists, errands lists), and double-printed paper to wrap presents or pick up your dog’s feces. Visit the local library to read business magazines and books. Write on paper using a pencil, which you can then erase to reuse paper, or better yet, use your computer, cell phone, or erasable board instead of paper. XYZ: eXamine Your Zipper; i.e., your leaks: attack any incoming source of paper.

Introduction. You introduce the characters/environment in the story, and hook in your listener. For example, “The music bumped and the ground shook below me. I looked around in awe. I had just stepped into my first nightclub in Asia, after nearly 30 hours of travel. And I was scared.” 2) Development. You share the characters’ main struggles and obstacles. For example, “It took me about six months and a few lucky breaks. But once I started making $2k a month, I pulled the trigger and bought my plane ticket in May of 2014. I was set to leave at the end of July. But a week after I bought my ticket, I met Natalie. She was the first girl in years that I truly connected with. The problem? I knew I’d have to leave her…” 3) Climax. This is the turning point in the story. For example, “And that’s when it hit me. ‘Holy fuck. What have I done?!’ I thought. I’d flown all the way across the world to fulfill some dream of adventure, travel, and entrepreneurship. But maybe that’s not what I wanted after all.” 4) Resolution. You wind the story down and wrap it up. It’s the “come-down” from the climax. For example, “I decided to give Vietnam a real try, even though it was scary. So I guess sometimes, you have to scare yourself a little bit. You have to destroy your life to let the next great thing happen. And that’s okay. Because you can build it back up better than you ever thought possible.

Just as before, Cale moved swiftly into his next hold. His arm shot out like a whip, giving her no time to react. Powerful hands wrapped around her small throat, and he squeezed with a gentle pressure, enough to be uncomfortable, but not enough to really hurt her. He meant to prove a point, but Analia knew this hold well, had been on the receiving end of it many times. This was a hold that could easily render her unconscious. She kept steady, oddly feeling safe even though her pulse spiked wildly. ‘How should you counter?’ Cale asked. ‘I could kick you in your bollocks.’ He smiled at her candor. ‘Aye, you could, but a man of any brains would expect a move like that in this position. A better move would be to raise your arm up and bring your elbow down across my arms. If you learn to do it right, you will break my hold, and will be able to get yourself in a more suitable position for a counterattack. Then you go for the bollocks.’” -Cale & Analia

He comes to a stop, plants one foot on the ground firmly, and uses his other foot to kick start his bike. He revs the throttle back a few times and looks over at me with complete excitement in his eyes as he kicks the start back into place. He nods his head back over his shoulder. “Hop on behind me and wrap your arms around my waist. You’re going to want to scoot close up against me and hold on tight, but not so tight that I can’t move freely.” I step up beside him and he reaches out his hand for me to take hold as I throw my leg up and over the seat. I scoot forward enough that my center is pressed tightly up against his rear end, and wrap my arms around his waist. Even if we didn’t move any further than this position right here, I would be a very happy girl. Adam lets out a laugh. “Even though I’m really enjoying you being this close, you might need to scoot yourself back just a bit so you can actually lean and move with me. Having you’re coochie pressed against my body has crossed my mind, but it might have to wait until later. Right now, you’re just going to manage pushing me forward.” My cheeks feel like they are on fire and my mouth drops open. I release my arms from around Adam’s waist and scoot back on the seat. “Did you just call my woman parts a coochie, and should I even ask about the wait until later comment?” I’m not going to tell him right now, but with that one simple sentence Adam has gotten me very worked up, in a very good way. Adam looks back over his shoulder and I can tell he’s smiling by the look in his eyes. “Well, I wasn’t sure what type of girl you were as far as vagina terminology goes? Coochie seemed like a safe word, but I have many options you can choose from that you might prefer. There is always the common pussy and cunt terms, then there are the more original ones like; cockpit, mud flaps, love tunnel, bone cave, meat massager, theme park, dick mitten….” I start shaking my head back and forth. “Ok, Ok, I got it. Coochie will do for now, I guess, and I will give it some more thought later as to a term I more prefer. I don’t think we need to keep talking about this right now if you plan on actually showing me why I should be your biggest fan and you my favorite rider out at the races. This is just a big distraction instead.” Adam reaches back and places his hand on my knee. “Maybe it’s a major part of making you my biggest fan as well as showing you that I’m meant to be your favorite rider. It can wait, though. Hold on and we can head on out toward the field.” I grab back hold of Adam and keep my coochie slid back further on the seat this time. “That might be a very strong incentive, Adam, for us both. I agree. Oh and you forgot to mention; purple people penis eater, honey pot, poody tat, stop-n-pop….” Adam releases my leg and grabs back hold of the handle. “Ok, you’re right; we will continue this conversation later on.

Turning down this invitation comes in lots of flavors. It looks like numbing yourself or distracting yourself or seeing something really beautiful as just normal. It can also look like refusing to forgive or not being grateful or getting wrapped around the axle with fear or envy. I think every day God sends us an invitation to live and sometimes we forget to show up or get head-faked into thinking we haven’t really been invited. But you see, we have been invited—every day, all over again.

A blanket could be used as a TV screen. How? No—why? Even better—why not? Why not wrap yourself up in your favorite TV shows and let the screen warm your body and soul?


The car slows down, interrupting his thoughts. "Here we are," says Ian, sitting up straight. He puts on his hat and takes a deep breath. "Let the show begin." He opens the door and camera flashes dazzle him. Adoring voices call him and a crowd circles him. "Come on, little Key." Maicol turns and smiles. "Excited girls can’t wait to tear you to pieces." He imitates a lion’s roar. Then he gets out and more flashes of light fly into the car. Andrea grasps the door handle, trying to keep his internal disorder under control. His skin sizzles as if on a grill and his heart is bursting through his rib cage. His hand trembles so much that he can’t even lower the simple lever. One door separates him from the new world that he’s about to enter. And he wonders why he's doing it. For the money? Because Susanna is enthusiastic? To glorify himself and his pride? Out of curiosity? He’s afraid of changing and perhaps Ian is right. The only thing is to be yourself, but put up barriers. He had been Andrea, as always, that afternoon in Clusone, but had placed Key in front as a layer to protect his true essence. His true self. Andrea thinks back to the image of his reflection. He focuses, wraps himself in it, and feels that he can control the turmoil. His breathing is regular. Calm now, he lowers the handle. He places a foot on the ground and steps out, as relaxed as if among friends. He’s bombarded by camera flashes and questions that fly at him wildly, but smiles as soon as Ian and Maicol stand by his side. "Good evening everyone. I’m Key," he says confidently. And time stops in a glow of solomonic certainty: now he knows who it was on stage with Nicolle.

He shouldn’t have walked out, because now the awkwardness was going to fester until she felt a need to talk about the incident in the bathroom. He could have laughed it off as morning wood, making it clear the pronounced lump had nothing to do with her. That would have been a lie, of course. He’d been up for several hours and it most definitely had something to do with her. But she might have bought the story and not had to talk about it. The kitchen felt claustrophobic all of a sudden, what with the two women he barely knew and the elephant in the room, so he took his coffee and muttered about catching the morning news. He turned on the TV in the living room and sank onto the couch with a sigh of relief. It would take a few minutes to make the French toast, so he had a few minutes of normal. “Can I talk to you for a second?” It was Emma, of course, and there went his normal. He sighed and moved over on the couch. “Knock yourself out.” She sat down, far enough away so none of their body parts touched. “I get the whole guy thing. Morning…you know, and I don’t want this to be weird.” “It’s no big deal.” “Okay.” She took a sip of her coffee, then wrapped both hands around the mug. “We’ll probably have more moments like this if we’re going to live together for a month. Probably best to just laugh them off.” He raised an eyebrow at her. “Actually, when a guy’s standing in front of you, fully hard and wearing nothing but a towel, laughing might not be the best way to handle it.” “True.” Her cheeks turned a pretty shade of pink and she laughed softly. “If we were in a movie, the towel would have fallen off. Could’ve been worse.” “With my luck, I’m surprised it didn’t.

The end of this short story could be a rather disturbing thing, if it came true. I hope you like it, and if you do, be sure to COMMENT and SHARE. Paradoxes of Destiny? Dani! My boy! Are you all right? Where are you? Have you hurt yourself? Are you all right? Daniiii! Why won’t you answer? It’s so cold and dark here. I can’t see a thing… It’s so silent. Dani? Can you hear me? I shouldn’t have looked at that text message while I was driving… I shouldn’t have done it! I'm so stupid sometimes! Son, are you all right?... We really wrecked the car when we rolled it! I can’t see or hear a thing… Am I in hospital? Am I dead…? Dani? Your silence is killing me… Are you all right?! I can see a glimmer of light. I feel trapped. Dani, are you there? I can’t move. It’s like I’m wrapped in this mossy green translucent plastic. I have to get out of here. The light is getting more and more intense. I think I can tear the wrapping that’s holding me in. I'm almost out. The light is blinding me. What a strange place. I've never seen anything like it. It doesn’t look like Earth. Am I dead? On another planet? Oh God, look at those hideous monsters! They’re so creepy and disgusting! They look like extraterrestrials. They’re aliens! I'm on another planet! I can’t believe it. I need to get the hell out here. Those monsters are going to devour me. I have to get away. I’m so scared. Am I floating? Am I flying? I’m going to go higher to try to escape. I can’t see the aliens anymore and the landscape looks less terrifying. I think I've made it. It’s very windy. Is that a highway? I think I can see some vehicles down there. Could they be the extraterrestrials’ transport? I’m going to go down a bit. I see people! Am I on Earth? Could this be a parallel universe? Where could Dani be? I shouldn’t have looked at that text message while I was driving. I shouldn’t… That tower down there looks a lot like the water tank in my town… It’s identical. But the water tank in my town doesn’t have that huge tower block next to it. It all looks very similar to my neighborhood, but it isn’t exactly the same: there are a lot of tower blocks here. There’s the river… and the factory. It’s definitely my neighborhood, but it looks kind of different. I must be in a parallel universe… It’s amazing that I can float. People don’t seem to notice my presence. Am I a ghost? I have to get back home and see if Dani’s there. God, I hope he’s safe and sound. Gabriela must be out of her mind with the crash. There’s my house! Home sweet home. And whose are those cars? The front of the house has been painted a different color… This is all so strange! There’s someone in the garden… Those trees I planted in the spring have really grown. Is… is that… Dani? Yes, yes! It’s Dani. But he looks so different… He looks older, he looks… like a big boy! What’s important is that he’s OK. I need to hug him tight and tell him how much I love him. Can he see me if I’m a ghost? I'll go up to him slowly so I don’t scare him. I need to hold him tight. He can’t see me, I won’t get any closer. He moved his head, I think he’s started to realize I’m here… Wow I’m so hungry all of a sudden! I can’t stop! How are you doing, son?! It’s me! Your dad! My dear boy? I can’t stop! I'm too hungry! Ahhhh, so delicious! What a pleasure! Nooo Daniii! Nooooo!.... I’m your daaaad!... Splat!... “Mum, bring the insect repellent, the garden’s full of mosquitoes,” grunted Daniel as he wiped the blood from the palm of his hand on his trousers. Gabriela was just coming out. She did an about turn and went back into her house, and shouted “Darling, bring the insect repellent, it’s on the fireplace…” Absolute cold and silence… THE END (1) This note is for those who have read EQUINOX—WHISPERS OF DESTINY. This story is a spin-off of the novel EQUINOX—WHISPERS OF DESTINY and revolves around Letus’s curious theories about the possibility of animal reincarnation