And now," Eric yelled into his mircophone, "we're going to sing a new song-one we just wrote. This one's for my girlfriend. We've been going out for three weeks, and, damn, our love is true. We're gonna be together forever, baby. This one's called 'Bang You Like a Drum.
But even when I stop crying, even when we fall asleep and I'm nestled in his arms, this will leave another scar. No one will see it. No one will know. But it will be there. And eventually all of the scars will have scars, and that's all I'll be--one big scar of a love gone wrong.
It's not fair. It's not fair that he lets his rage take over, that he lets it rule him. I don't know why he has to let it rule him. I don't know why he has to be two people. I don't know why he gets to be two people, and I only get to be me, the one who is here to take what he has to give, and who is here to pick pu the pieces afterward.
Do you think we can be friends?” I asked.He stared up at the ceiling. “Probably not, but we can pretend.
Vane grabbed me. “DuLac, let’s chat.” British-speak for “Stand still while I yell at you.
Ah, well,ʺ said Abe, idly studying his fingertips. ʺI have it on good authority thereʹs going to be a new ‘gateʹ opening up soon over on the south side of the wall."The truth dawned on me. ʺOh lord. Youʹre the one whoʹs been doling out C4.ʺʺYou make it sound so easy,ʺ he said with a frown. ʺThat stuffʹs hard to get a hold of.
Vane’s lips tightened to suppress a smile. “Why so hostile, love?”“You whacked me on the head with a ball!”“You deserved it.
I caught his hand. “What do you want me to do?”Leaning down, he kissed the pulse beating on my neck just above the damaged skin. “Tomorrow, I need you to die.
He’d used the amulet to read my thoughts again. I pictured smacking him in the face.
I noticed him right away. No, it wasn’t his lean, rugged face. Or the dark waves of shiny hair that hung just a little too long on his forehead. It wasn’t the slim, collarless biker jacket he wore, hugging his lean shoulders. It was the way he stood. The confident way he waited in the cafeteria line to get a slice of pizza. He didn’t saunter. He didn’t amble. He stood at the center, and let the other people buzz around him. His stance was straight and sure.
Rough palms cradled my face while my fingers gripped the pillow on either side of his. Lips, teeth, tongue, mingled together. I ate him up and didn’t let go until I had to come up for air.
Oh diary, I love her, I love her, I love her so much. Jordana is the most amazing person I have ever met. I could eat her. I could drink her blood. She's the only person I would allow to be shrunk to microscopic size and explore me in a tiny submersible machine. She is wonderful and beautiful and sensitive and funny and sexy. She's too good for me, she's too good for anyone! All I could do was let her know. I said: "I love you more than words. And I am a big fan of words.
Returning my voice to a conversational level, I called back, “Nora, I’m notattempting to embarrass you or single you out. I know you’re capable. But stay behind Chas, okay? You die, you d i e permanently, and for various reasons that we’ve already gotten angsty about together, I don’t want that to happen.”“Okay, okay,” she sighed.“Angsty?” Chas asked. “Ooh! Later, details!”“Yes, later.” With that, I waved the team forward.
Matt was almost completely naked. A tattered loincloth and an ugly chain with a yellow diamond were his only apparel.
Simple and predictable seem pretty darn tantalizing when you’re a witch.Lately, I’ve wished for a lot of things to be the way they were. Gone are my lustfor the macabre and the sweetly sinful fantasies of meeting a vampire. Somethingabout unconscious people slumped against the dark leather of the booths atcrimson made it less sexy.
Are we talking hell hounds and flames here?" Des asked, pacing at the end of our beds.I repeated the question and gave a heaving sigh of relief when Jameson said I had the wrong idea."He's going to 'lead us into temptation.'""That doesn't sound so bad," Des said with a cheeky grin.
Then his lips were on mine and I lost myself, overwhelmed by the surge of Trey’s emotions as they flooded through me. I kissed him back wanting to forget my fear of being discovered of putting him in danger and focus only on how good it felt being in his arms. After all relinquishing some control was a sacrifice worth making if it meant I could continue to live in this fantasy with Trey. But the dreaded tingling in my teeth started up again and I reluctantly pulled away.
How do you know me, girl?” He asked, his voice caked with venom. There was movement from the curtains and the throng of vamps seemed to cry out as one, in a sound of pure surprise.My head turned towards the figure of a young man. He looked like an angel, dressed in white and gold, but whether that was because he caused Petrel to stop or the flickering candlelight from the sconces above us, I couldn’t say.
Rejection is an opportunity for your selection.
Thinking, not for the first time, that life should come with a trapdoor. Just a little exit hatch you could disappear through when you´d utterly and completely mortified yourself. Or when you had spontaneous zit eruptions.“Good book?” he asked, taking it from her and reading the subtitle, “A Guide for Good Girls Who (Sometimes) Want to Be Bad,” out loud.But life did not come with a trapdoor.
I’m trying to decide whether to tell you two to get a room or go barf in the trash can,” Emma said. “I’m leaning toward the second choice. You are both getting way too weird. And gross.”Cal barked out a laugh and slid his fingers down my arm to entwine with mine. His touch, and Emma’s comments, only made me blush more. Looks like Emma saw Cal lick my face after all. Now that wasn’t awkward or anything.
What’s going on?” Ingrid asked. “Listen, nothing bad today, please.” She pulled a chair out and sat down. Faye stared at her and said the words as quickly as she could. “I’m just going to give it to you straight as I can. Mila is a witch.” Ingrid busted out with a laugh. “I wouldn’t call her that,” she said. “That’s a little harsh, isn’t it?” She poured the juice into her glass and took a drink. “What did the brat do this time?” She set her glass down.
People talk about books being an escape, but here on the tube, this one feels more like a lifeline...The motion of the train makes her head rattle, but her eyes lock on the words the way a figure skater might choose a focal point as she spins, and just like that, she's grounded again.
I don't believe everything happens for a reason. But I still search for reasons anyway. It's like I don't want to admit that maybe everything really is totally random...that people are just molecules in the air, bumping into each other and floating away again."-p150, NOTES TO SELF
The hours tick by as I lie in bed.Memories keep surfacing, tormenting me into unbelievable sadness. I can't bring myself to move. I can't fight the memories that keep filling my thoughts. I stay curled in the fetal position as each memory plays out. I can't stop them from coming. I can't make them go away. Nothing can distract me. I can't block the memories, so they continue to come.
I'm being pulled under - father and farther from the surface. My lungs continue to scream for air. Panic is building inside me, threatening to combust. I can't break free.Help! I can't break free!I open my mouth to scream.
One of his hands move away from my face to flatten against my back, pulling me closer to him as he deepens the kiss. He parts my lips under his as my mind seems to sign quietly in content. I kiss him back as fiercely as he kisses me, unable to control the infatuation that rushes through me - feeling almost like fireworks. Not so careful anymore.Little shivers of urgency shoot through me. I push off the window, pressing closer to him. The rush of sensation that is coursing through me feels like I've drunk a gallon of coffee. It feels like an electric buzz is flooding between us.
Night has settled over Paris.The streets have cleared of the crowds, and the city has been lit up. I set my book down, deciding to go for a walk. The Eiffel Tower is only a few blocks away. Now that there aren't many people out, I can walk there without having to fight my way through mobs of gawking tourists.
He drinks his coffee tentatively, glancing at me every few seconds, watching me. Every time he glances in my direction, I quickly turn away though he obviously knows I'm watching him. I know he's wondering why I'm staring at him, but he doesn't ask.I finally take a sip of coffee, set the mug back on the table, and voice what's on my mind, "I want to draw you.
He stares at me—taking me in—with his lips slightly parted. I struggle to hold myself in place as we gawk at each other. I want so desperately to run, but something is holding me back, keeping me in place.
Every gesture and every look he gives me takes me by surprise and causes my heart to stutter.
I freeze, my feet suddenly glued to the floor. It takes me a minute to gather the courage to turn around, but when I do, I immediately wish I hadn't. The boy is standing in the doorway at the end of the hall.Why is he here again? I barely allow myself time to ask the question before I move. Panicked, I turn and run back downstairs as fast as I can."Hey! Wait!" he calls after me.I don't stop.
I grab the nearest lamppost when my knees threaten to give out, panting for breath as the words rip through me
I take in all the colorful locks that line the bridge. Each one told a story. Each lock represented a relationship that was once special, whether it ended or turned into true happiness. The locks represented a past, present, and a possible future.
When we step onto the bridge, Nathan turns and spreads his arms out wide. ‘Welcome to Pont des Arts, a.k.a. The Lock Bridge.
The boy took my sketchbook.
I head in the direction of the Eiffel Tower when I exit the alley, relieved to be out of the dark.
He smirks, shaking his head and letting his eyes wander. I watch him carefully, wondering what I can say to get him to leave. “I’m not leaving until you answer some questions. Plus, I’m holding your sketchbook hostage, so you might want to cooperate.” I raise an eyebrow at him. I guess there isn’t much I can say. “This isn’t a hostage negotiation.” He chuckles half-heartedly as his eyes take me in, almost sizing me up. “I guess I should introduce myself.” He holds a hand out for me to shake. “I’m Nathan.” I stare at his hand for a moment. “Taylor,” I reply, meeting his eyes again without taking his hand. He lets his hand fall back to his side. “At least I got you to say something non-hostile.” “I haven’t been hostile,” I object. His eyebrows shoot up. “Oh, haven’t you?” “Why don’t you leave me alone?” I snap. “Leave and don’t come back.” I move passed him, heading for my apartment. He can’t follow and annoy me if I lock the door. “Where are you going?” he demands. I look back over my shoulder and roll my eyes at him, indicating the answer should be obvious: anywhere he isn’t. Once inside, I slam the door behind me. “That was totally not hostile!” he calls after me, sarcastically. I quickly head for my bedroom door, slamming it, too.
Vane grabbed me. “DuLac, let’s ch
The tallest slugger touched my forehead, and I ignited like a sparkler on the Fourth of July. Shards of dazzling light rippled under my skin. I was the constellation Grus. The Trifid Nebula. I was the Big Bang, expanding endlessly through time and space forever."I thought I was dying. That I was going to expire on a cold slab, trapped inside an UFO, my body filled with every light that had ever existed. I couldn't imagine a better way to die.
James, you’d like Lou Reed,” Michael insisted. “He was bisexual.”Their laughter turned to coughs. They were all staring at me when I turned around. I told myself to relax.“Oh, yeah?” I said. “He doesn’t sound bisexual.”Michael just shook his head, but Ronan and Glenn smiled.“They did electroshock therapy on him when he was a teenager,” Michael said.“Electro-what?” said Glenn. “They electrocuted people?”“Kind of. They zapped their brains to alter their personalities. That’s how they tried to make gay people straight back then.”They all looked at me for a response.I shrugged. “So, he was bisexual? It worked halfway?
And Esme remembered in a rush--the wolfsong, the haunting, lyrical spirals of it in the dawn quiet and the feeling of euphoria that had attended it. Even in recollection the howling uplifted her like the crescendo at the end of a symphony and made her heartbeat quicken.
That’s when I notice Cheryl and Mickey cuddled up on the couch. She’s leaning on his shoulder, his arm around her, her leg across his lap. Cheryl throws glances at Kerry that say, “Look at me!” while Kerry shoots a “You go, girl!” smirk right back. I think of CK, how he and I often sat like that. Not because we were seconds from making out or wanted to look like a couple, but just out of a deep, platonic connection. My heart hits a higher notch on the ache-o-meter, my teeth sear into my bottom lip, and then something inside me snaps as cleanly as a crayon.
You are a blue rose, Letti. It’s almost impossible that you exist amongst the other roses but you do. You bring wonder to those who are lucky enough to find you. The blue rose is lonely, lost and awaits someone special to believe in them; the same feeling I got from you the day we met. Blue roses are incomprehensible and mysterious. And so are you.
Depression is a funny thing. Some days you have the strength to get up out of bed and attempt to live your life as a normal human being, but others…you just don’t want to leave your room and socialize with the outside world—the world that you hate on days like this. You stay secluded in a tiny space, left alone to the thoughts that eat at your brain until you finally sit down and let them be thought.
My mind screams for me to run, but my feet are planted where they are. This can’t be happening. This can’t be real. There’s no way this is real!
But I say that this isn't the Underground. We are the Underground. You . . . me . . . all of your brothers, sisters, friends. This cavern is nothing more than a hole in the ground. We make it something more. No matter where we are, so long as we survive and stick together, the Underground is not lost.
To love, to live, to feel so much that your world keeps spinning, faster and faster, in that wonderful, chaotic mess of humanity that you’d so hastily give up. Immortality is overrated. It is nothing but the ability to live through it all and not experience a single thing, to eat everything without tasting it at all." Isak’s eyes shone with a desperate need. He wanted, more than anything it seemed, to be like me, when all I wanted was to be like him.
dJack be nimble,Jack be quick,Jack forgot to check if the ice was thick.Emma was still,Emma was late,Emma’s brother is now part of the lake.Time has passed,Time has gone,Time brought Jack back wrong.He was solemn,He was brave,He left his coat on Emma’s grave.Emma was sad,Emma was scared,But she knew inside that Jack really cared.Jack was lost,Jack had forgot,That he had a story before the plot.Jack had wondered,Jack had fought,Jack had remembered what he had forgot.I hope you dream.I hope you wonder.I hope you have fun because this is done.Keep believing everyone.Jack be fearless,Jack be bold,Jack drowned when he was 17 years old.
…I bet I’ll haunt your dreams tonight. I just wan’ed to paint a picture in your head. I wan’ed you to see me as the monster I can often be. You see, you are what you allow people to know ‘bout you. Truth or lies or some combination of the two, is what makes you who you are. So, you don’t know me yet. But what I need you to know about me for now, is that I can’t be trusted.
There was still a bit of sunshine in the sky, not that it mattered. High treetops and reaching branches entombed us from above in a dark coffin. It was still in the afternoon. We had time to gather things together for camp, but the choked rays that permeated the living casket were sputtering their last bits of life. — Tyrus Savage narration from ORRLETH, Volume One of the Orrleth Young Adult Fantasy Paranormal Series
Mom hadn't met Ramon; her advocacy was more arm's length - petitions, the website, letter writing, meetings with politicians. Her friend Hanna had formed a close friendship with Ramon though, visiting him as often as she could. Hanna told me that Ramon's greatest regret was that he wouldn't get to see his daughter grow up.And Jeremy's dad, who had that opportunity, was just throwing it away.It made me furious, and I couldn't let it go.
They think I’m not entirely ‘grounded in reality’, they say. They want me to go to some live-in nerdy activity ranch thing for troubled Canadian youth, that one out in Ontario where you come back programmed like some robot, dressed in a tye-dyed shirt and eating tuna sandwiches,” Mandy explained, a horrified look on her face. “You’re eighteen, not twelve! Would they really send you to some rat’s nest like that?” Wendy questioned in mock horror. “Aw hell no, if you get sent there, they’ll make you hold hands and sing songs about caring! And they’ll force you to recycle everything in blue canisters, and to discuss your emotions in front of groups of bratty little dopes!”“Dear god, they’ll have geeky youth wiener roasts at night, and no locks on the doors!” Mandy added, eyes wide. “…It’ll be the day pigs fly, my parents have the camp brochure on the fridge but they’ll never go through with sending me there. They always forget.
Maybe we can help. Where are you from? I've never seen you around here before. And, how did you get that cut? Where are you staying?” He shook his head and giggled. “Are you the police? You ask a lot of questions Phoenix.” “No. I just ... never mind.” I wanted to know more about him. The way those sparkly green eyes gazed at me. The way his dimples sunk deep into his cheeks, as he smiled and said my name with his deep voice.
You can’t be friends with someone you have feelings for. It’ll just be a constant reminder of what you can’t have. It’s like putting boiling water in an ice cold glass. It’s gonna bust and make a mess.
The words ‘I love you’ are worthless when you don’t know who the 'I' is in that statement.
I’d have to prove to everyone, including Ellia, that I was more than some guy she used to know, that what we shared had and still mattered. She may have forgotten the promise we made on the beach, but I hadn’t, and it was up to me to backup those words with action. Memories and ghosts were for the dead. Living things moved, and I was never one to stand still." ~Liam
She was my go-to person. I’d tell her everything. Now, all of those late-night phone calls, all the sleepovers at her house because I couldn’t deal with stuff at home, all the crying on her shoulder. It’s all gone. It’s like if she doesn’t know, then it didn’t happen, and if it didn’t happen then what exactly am I holding on to?” ~Stacey
Who cares about fault? As my dad would say, ‘Blame is like your rear-end and reflection. Seeing either always leaves you looking back.’ I’m more worried about what’s in front of me. And right now . . . the view is all messed up.” ~ Ellia
It’s like returning to a familiar room and noticing objects had been moved while you were gone—a chair here, a picture frame there. Items that were once brand new were suddenly broken in and worn from age. It was all very subtle, but enough to suspect paranormal activity or a cruel practical joke. When no one else saw what you saw, the freak factor really kicked in, because you were singled out and left questioning reality." ~Ellia
Hope can be foolish or misguided, but there was no such thing as false hope. Hope was always true even when there was no evidence to support its claim.” - Liam
Love is not for thrill-seekers, dreamers, or children with short attention spans. And you, son, fit into all three of those categories.
Why did it have to be such a shameful secret? Hadn’t I been potty-trained and taught to chew with my mouth closed? So what was the freaking big deal about having sex? Wasn’t it essential to the survival of our darn, hypocritical species?
Fireworks. Snowflakes. Sunstroke and frostbite. It was all that I could ask for and completely unexpected. I expected demands. He gifted me with tenderness. I expected ego. He let me experiment. I expected disrespect. He called me beautiful. I expected him to expect perfection. He taught me all I needed to know.
Her heart was telling her to trust him, but it wouldn’t be the first time that that foolish muscle, there in the middle of her chest, had betrayed her.
I'm sorry," I heard him say again. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a sudden blur of movement as he slid out of his seat, left some bills for the breakfast he wouldn't eat, and walked away. And as he did, I thought again of those mornings in the hallway at school, way back in ninth grade. Everything had started in such sharp detail, each aspect pronounced and clear. Obviously, endings were different. Harder to see, full of shapes that could be one thing or another, with all the things that you were once so sure of suddenly not familiar, if they were even recognizable at all.
To be inspired is great, but to inspire is an honor.
On a nightstand in a teenager’s room, a glass vase filled with violets leans precariously against a wall. The only thing saving the vase from a thousand-piece death on the hardwood floor is the groove in the nightstand’s surface that catches the bottom of vase, and of course the wall itself. The violets, nearly a week old, droop in the light of a waning gibbous moon. Wrinkled petals are already piling up on the floor between the nightstand and the wall, and a girl only six days sixteen stares at the dying bouquet from her bed.
Day in and day out we learn to train and grow as Guardians. We do as we're told and follow the rules. We all work hard. Now it's our turn to watch some demons tremble in fear! It's our turn to watch the hunters become the hunted. Who's ready to see some fighting? Better yet, who wants to see what our great protector is made of?
We need to talk," he insisted, opening the door to his jeep that was parked next to my car. I was still holding out hope this would end and I would see his smile soon. "What's wrong?" I retaliated before I go in. "There's something you need to know, something I haven't told you," he said, taking my backpack from me.
I stare past her at the inspirational kitten posters. There's one of a soaking-wet kitten climbing out of a toilet with the caption "it could be worse!""Just tell me whatever it is you're thinking," Mrs. Paulsen says. "Whatever is going through your mind right now.""I hope they didn't actually drop a cat in the toilet to get that picture," I choke out. "...Pardon?""Nothing. Sorry.
She smells like spring and flowers and rain, even though it’s winter. Sometimes, he thinks he loves her so much that his mind is unable to distinguish between love and obsession. Which is worse?
There are many of us who live alongside others, less fortunate, watching them go through everyday suffering for one reason or another, and we’re not moving even our little finger to help them. It’s in human nature, unfortunately: for the most part, the only people we genuinely care about are ourselves. However, once in a while we encounter different species, different kind of human beings among us: full of compassion, willing and wanting to help, and doing so with joy and happiness. Those are a rarity. But you know what, my dear? Being one of them is not a special calling- it’s a choice. So what will you choose, huh?
I was surrounded by heaven. The sun, the moon, the earth, and all those living stars. They wen't static like in pictures taken from impossibly far away- they breathed, they glowed. They were future and past, possibility and memory. They were beautiful. "I never knew there were so many," I whispered. We are merely pieces of a grander design, even more insignificant than I imagined. When the earth ceases to be, all those stars will shine on. Out deaths will mean nothing to them."I feel so small." No one replied. I wondered as I watched the stars, really seeing them for the fist time, whether they could see me, too.
Repression. Her therapist, Dr. Solomon, loved the word. He'd say it slowly, letting it roll off his tongue. Sometimes he'd add a chin stroke for good measure. He always looked pleased when he did this, like he'd discovered the Caramilk secret or something.
Jeeter?" Grace whispered into her walkie-talkie. "Are you awake?" She waited.A few weeks ago, she and Jeeter had started chatting on their walkie-talkies late at night when she couldn't sleep. He always answered her call no matter how late it was."I'm here," his voice echoed back. "Trouble sleeping again?""Yeah.""Another bad dream?""Uh-huh," she sniffed, unexpected tears flooding her eyes. My dad was calling for me, but I couldn't find him." She couldn't believe she'd said it. She'd never told anyone what she saw in her dreams. But Jeeter understood. He'd told her before that he had bad dreams too, since his mom had died.
He must have been handsome when he was alive and was handsome still, although made monstrous by his pallor and her awareness of what he was. His mouth looked soft, his cheekbones as sharp as blades, and his jaw curved, giving him an off-kilter beauty. His black hair a mad forest of dirty curls.
But in that moment, I didn’t want to be trusted. I wanted something far more primal. I stretched up on my tiptoes and leaned in. I closed my eyes as his scent overcame me. When his lips touched mine it felt as if he’d caressed them with a feather. It was all I could do not to wrap myself around him and do things I’d never really thought about doing before.
I was caged within a four dimensional cube that eclipsed the world around me in an icy mist. I screamed; begging someone, anyone to hear my pleas, but my voice had been extinguished and left me with a slight wheeze from what little oxygen I had. I could glimpse the field of energy as it shrank through the safety of my circle to envelop me in a blazing grip. I was alone; unbearably separated from my haven.
I've never had any summer lovin'. And I've never had any school year lovin', either. I've never had a boyfriend. I've never hooked up with a guy. And this morning, on my Internet browser, an article popped up about women marrying themselves. Even my wireless connection knows I'm alone.
It feels like someone is gripping my heart and twisting it. It feels like I can't breathe. I shut my eyes tightly against the memory that is threatening to surface. I can't br
THE DAY I ALMOST KILLED MYSELFIt was afternoon and the razorreflected the sky like like a mirror. The bath towelswere white like the bathtub and my wristswere white like the towels.The bathwater got lukewarm.The afternoon turned into lateafternoon and I was still pulling ropes of airinto my lungs like a sailor. The razor reflectedthe sunset. The bathwater got cold.The bath towels were white like the bathtub and my wrists were white like the towels.
All I know is that the fear I have been battling all night is breaking down the door of my ignorance. As my feet slam down I feel not the hard, wet asphalt but the soft Persian rug that led to the staircase in my father’s home. In the glow of lightning the dancing trees are illuminated but I see my mother in the glow of candlelight, spinning, twirling, her hair fanned out behind her. It is falling over me, saturating my thoughts, and I cannot. I cannot let it in.
Light bursts behind my closed eyes, so intensely I nearly hear the popping sound. It's my brain melting, or my world ending, or maybe we've just been hit by a meteor and this is the rapture and I'm given one last perfect moment before I'm sent to purgatory and he;s sent somewhere much, much better.It isn't his first kiss - I know that - but it's his first real one.
The things that I love about you aren't going to go away when you go on your book tour, and they're not going to go away when you go on your mission. I'll still be here, and I'll still be thinking about all those things. I'll still be working on being a better person, a better friend, a better son. I'll still be wondering what it would be like to be a better boyfriend for you. And you will be on your mission, thinking about how much you wish your weren't gay.
Too many adults wish to 'protect' teenagers when they should be stimulating them to read of life as it is lived.
I don't know what being in love with someone is supposed to feel like," Tyler admits with a breathy laugh, "but if being in love means thinking about someone every second of every day... If being in love means your entire mood shifts when they're around... If being in love means you'd do anything and everything for them," he murmurs, "then I am endlessly in love with you.
Some people were simply created with the right genes and the proper social skills, I figured. They ended up at a lunch table with a group of good-looking individuals, like them, who did what all good-looking individuals managed: making the rest of us feel both envious of them and sad for ourselves, intentional or not. They had activities outside of school and followers online—people of social necessity who sat at home on Friday nights and 'liked' popular posts in hopes that they, too, might one day be as attractive and personable.
I don't like you, Park. I think I live for you. I don't think I even breathe when we're not together. Which means when I see you on Monday morning, it's been like sixty hours since I've taken a breath. That's probably why I'm so crabby, and why I snap at you. All I do when we're apart is think about you, and all I do when we're together is panic. Because every second feels so important. And because I'm so out of control, I can't help myself. I'm not even mine anymore, I'm yours, and what if you decide that you don't want me? How could you want me like I want you?
I understand that you want to have fun. That you like to distract yourself from life by going and doing these ridiculous things and laughing the whole time while you do them. I know you want to pretend that everything’s okay by trying your best to act normal, but I don’t. I want to sit in this house and mope around and be sad and revel in the fact that my life is complete shit from here on out.
Uh, got into a fight with the kitchen or something?” he asked, smirking. I ran my hands through my hair and felt remains of the fruit as I did and cringed. Well, this must be attractive. I motioned for him to come into the living room and shut the door behind him.“Something like that,” I replied coolly. He walked past me and went to the kitchen, probably to get a better look. “Well, I see you won. The fruit won’t be going anywhere anytime soon. Maybe the apples. Those look like they need some more killing.
Do I look that bad?’ I said, my voice quavering with the rejection that I was ashamed for even caring about. ‘Is that what this is all about? How ugly I look?’Patrick kept his eyes on the back wall of the cave.‘If you really have to know, it’s the opposite of that,’ he said, his voice taking on a tender tone. ‘I think you are the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.
You can wait as long as you like, pretty one, it won't make any difference. He will never see you as anything more than some victim he has to protect. Why he thinks it his duty to protect you from the inevitable, I do not know... unless he knows something we do not...
There is a flaw to your plan.” A sly grin crept onto his face once again. My eyebrow arched at him questioningly.“I live across the street,” he told me; and, without another word, he turned around toward his house. Then I realized what he’d meant. I’d told my problems to a stranger I would probably see again.
I sunk to my knees in the spot he had left me. I felt a part of me had just been lost. I was fraught with so many emotions, confused by them all; however, I was hurt more than anything. Hurt to hear him call himself a monster. A monster? Of all the things I thought he was, a monster was not one of them.
By the sound of things, you know nothing about mathematics.''You can put it like that. I'm utterly useless.''Useless is such a harsh word, you are merely... inexperienced. So I thought we could start at the beginning.''I'm not that stupid. I know how to add, subtract and multiply-''I don't mean that kind of beginning...
Intense sunlight rained down on a half-submerged city. Waves crashed between buildings that stood like waterlogged tombstones. Skyscrapers of smashed glass and twisted rusting metal jutted from the churning swell as islands of broken dreams. A familiar tower with a familiar clock face…Big Ben. London stared back at Blue. What was left of it. A sea-drowned cemetery for a time and a place long dead.
There’s someone here.”“I know.” She said, “Where’s Scott?” “I’m not sure,” He said, “I thought you were going to wait outside with Nichole and Matt.”“We decided to come in.”“You mean they’re in here too?”“Yes.”“Okay…” He said calmly, “You stay here.”She nodded as he turned to go.“Oh, and Carrie.”“Yes?”“Could you actually listen to me this time?” He asked with a faint smile on his face.
The pity in Matt’s eyes was almost too much to bear but she found herself unable to turn away. She had only seen that look once and that was when he almost lost Nichole. The sparkle in his eye burned out as if it was nothing more than a dying ember leaving his brown eyes dark and cold. Like Scott’s.
Most insensible, corrupt, cheap, disrespectful young girls run after bad, rude, cocky, nonsensical boys, but a mature, educated, thoughtful, virtuos lady opts for a wise, well breed, experienced, humble, modest gentleman.
Fury ignited behind my breastbone , a hot glow like coals blooming into something sharp and dangerous. It was the same old crap- someone thinking they can push you around because you're young, because you're helpless. You had to just sit there and take it because you were under a certain number , because you weren't a real person yet; you could be picked up and dropped like a toy, left behind or thrown away...
That day and night, the bleeding and the screaming, had knocked something askew for Esme, like a picture swinging crooked on a wall. She loved the life she lived with her mother. It was beautiful. It was, she sometimes thought, a sweet emulation of the fairy tales they cherished in their lovely, gold-edged books. They sewed their own clothes from bolts of velvet and silk, ate all their meals as picnics, indoors or out, and danced on the rooftop, cutting passageways through the fog with their bodies. They embroidered tapestries of their own design, wove endless melodies on their violins, charted the course of the moon each month, and went to the theater and the ballet as often as they liked--every night last week to see Swan Lake again and again. Esme herself could dance like a faerie, climb trees like a squirrel, and sit so still in the park that birds would come to perch on her. Her mother had taught her all that, and for years it had been enough. But she wasn't a little girl anymore, and she had begun to catch hints and glints of another world outside her pretty little life, one filled with spice and poetry and strangers.
So it was a crossroads summer, when the universe seemed to stand perilously still like an egg wobbling on a precipice, a regular rite of passage summer that saw us traverse the hazardous divide between the illusions of boyhood and the far more pernicious deceptions of maturity, et cetera.
I'm working hard to have a good life.You don't need fancy things to feel good. You can hug a puppy. You can buy a can of paint and surround yourself with color. You can plant a flower and watch it grow. You can decide to trust people, the right people. You can decide to start over and let other people start over, too.
When they had hurried to the train station with their violin cases, they had drawn almost as many stares as they would on any normal day when their hair was to their knees and sheeting behind them like red silk. A poetic fruit-seller had told them once that they looked like dryads, and they did still, only now they looked like dryads who had tired of snagging their hair on brambles and sliced it all off on the edge of a knife.
Suddenly the bridge was filled with intense warmth, Will had lit the fire. Everyone immediately scurried over to it, with the exception of Scott. Carrie looked back at him, he was sitting with his back leaned against a stone pillar. The light from the flames danced on his sharp features and reflected in his dark eyes. Scott always wore a half-smile that was suspiciously close to a smirk. She was practically immune to his cockiness and wasn’t at all bothered by it the way that Will seemed to be.
“Alright, who’s first?” Crystal asked once Carrie was in the chair that she had instructed her to sit in. Everyone was quiet. “Who wants to draw straws?” Matt asked. Carrie hadn’t realized until this moment that the subtle smile on his face never faded. It was as though he found humor in everything that was going on. Will slowly raised his hand, his other hand was left shoved in the pocket of his blue jeans, “I’ll do it.”
In the woods lay a bleeding angel in all her glory. Her arms posed gracefully above her head and her hair soaked in the mud, the blood and feces in which she lay. Dying, fading into the other realm, her form christened by the rain as though the trees had begun to weep upon her in sadness for the brutality she had endured. (The Children of Ankh series)
I showed him the Post-it. “You see They’re from Lily.”“Who’s Lily?”“Some girl.”“Ooh... a girl!”“Boomer, we’re not in third grade anymore. You don’t say, ‘Ooh... a girl!’”“What? You fucking her?”“Okay, Boomer, you’re right. I liked ‘Ooh... a girl!’ much more than that. Let’s stick with ‘Ooh... a girl!
Inside my chest, my lungs are wild animals, clawing at the cage."Oh, man," Autumn mumbles from beside me. "His smile makes me stupid."Her words are a dim echo of my own thoughts: His smile ruins me. The feeling makes me uneasy, a dramatic lurch that tells me I need to have him or I won't be okay.
Not for the first time, I wonder what it would feel like that, to be so beautiful that you don't even realize people are watching you, to be so confident that you don't even have to worry about being nervous or feeling self-conscious. I've spent what seems like my whole life trying to pretend I'm that way. What would it be like to have it just come naturally?
Halfway to the house Stan stopped and turned to Jane. He put his hands on her shoulders and drew her toward him."I'm glad we're going steady," he whispered."So am I."In spite of the reassuring weight of his bracelet on her wrist, Jane suddenly felt shy. It seemed strange to be so close to Stan, to feel his crisp clean shirt against her cheek. She could not look up at him. Gently Stan lifted her face to his. "You're my girl," he whispered.-Fifteen
On the first day of a college you will worry about how will you do inside the college? and at the last day of a college you will wonder what will you do outside the college?
And what if the other kids laugh at me?” Kerry complained to her parents as she nibbled on a piece of toast that morning. “I have a Cape Breton accent! They’ll know I’m from Canada and they’ll start asking me if I lived in an igloo or ate maple syrup, bacon and seal meat every day!”“You’re really overreacting,” Susan chuckled, sipping on a glass of orange juice. “Canada is a lot like the States and the only thing separating both countries is an imaginary boarder! If anyone laughs at you, tell them it doesn’t snow year-round, you got free health care while you were there and that you never rode a polar bear to school. Besides, do you know how many popular movies and TV shows from the States were filmed in Canada?”“It’s not just the Canada stuff mom,” Kerry sighed worriedly. “I’m from Dym, it’s an industrial dump!”“Yeah, and have you looked at Pittsburgh lately?” Susan asked. “Full of coal mines and steel mills, just like Sydney was when we lived there! I actually rather came to like the pollution, I don’t think I’d ever want to leave it.
Teenagers think they are invincible” with that sly, stupid smile on their faces, they don’t know how right they are. We need never be hopeless, because we can never be irreparably broken. We think that we are invincible because we are. We cannot be born, and we cannot die. Like all energy, we can only change shapes and sizes and manifestations. They forget that when they get old. They get scared of losing and failing. But that part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot end, and so it cannot fail.
She swung around, her hair flying about her like wildfire. Fire. The fireplace.She reached in with all the power Todd had taught her to exercise and grasped as much as she could. She imagined gasoline spilling onto the logs, leaving trails of burning kerosene around the room. In her mind bright orange and red exploded in dazzling sparks. The oxygen seemed to thicken and swell around her.Then the entire room was alight with flame.
Dear Max - You looked so beautiful today. I'm going to remember what you looked like forever.... And I hope you remember me the same way - clean, ha-ha. I'm glad our last time together was happy.But I'm leaving tonight, leaving the flock, and this time it's for good. I don't know if I'll ever see any of you again. The thing is, Max, that everyone is a little bit right. Added up all together, it makes this one big right.Dylan's a little bit right about how my being here might be putting the rest of you in danger. The threat might have been just about Dr. Hans, but we don't know that for sure. Angel is a little bit right about how splitting up the flock will help all of us survive. And the rest of the flock is a little bit right about how when you and I are together, we're focused on each other - we can't help it.The thing is, Maximum, I love you. I can't help but be focused on you when we're together. If you're in the room, I want to be next to you. If you're gone, I think about you. You're the one who I want to talk to. In a fight, I want you at my back. When we're together, the sun is shining. When we're apart, everything is in shades of gray.I hope you'll forgive me someday for turning our worlds into shades of gray - at least for a while....You're not at your best when you're focused on me. I mean, you're at your best Maxness, but not your best leaderness. I mostly need Maxness. The flock mostly needs leaderness. And Angel, if you're listening to this, it ain't you, sweetie. Not yet....At least for a couple more years, the flock needs a leader to survive, no matter how capable everyone thinks he or she is. The truth is that they do need a leader, and the truth is that you are the best leader. It's one of the things I love about you.But the more I thought about it, the more sure I got that this is the right thing to do. Maybe not for you, or for me, but for all of us together, our flock.Please don't try to find me. This is the hardest thing I've ever done in my life, besides wearing that suit today, and seeing you again will only make it harder. You'd ask me to come back, and I would, because I can't say no to you. But all the same problems would still be there, and I'd end up leaving again, and then we'd have to go through this all over again.Please make us only go through this once....I love you. I love your smile, your snarl, your grin, your face when you're sleeping. I love your hair streaming out behind you as we fly, with the sunlight making it shine, if it doesn't have too much mud or blood in it. I love seeing your wings spreading out, white and brown and tan and speckled, and the tiny, downy feathers right at the top of your shoulders. I love your eyes, whether they're cold or calculating or suspicious or laughing or warm, like when you look at me....You're the best warrior I know, the best leader. You're the most comforting mom we've ever had. You're the biggest goofball, the worst driver, and a truly lousy cook. You've kept us safe and provided for us, in good times and bad. You're my best friend, my first and only love, and the most beautiful girl I've ever seen, with wings or without....Tell you what, sweetie: If in twenty years we haven't expired yet, and the world is still more or less in one piece, I'll meet you at the top of that cliff where we first met the hawks and learned to fly with them. You know the one. Twenty years from today, if I'm alive, I'll be there, waiting for you. You can bet on it.Good-bye, my love.FangP.S. Tell everyone I sure will miss them
I don’t know if it was just me making things up in my head but after the fear in their eyes had gone what replaced it was like a sad kind of wondering. A wondering of where the old me was hiding. A wondering about where the old me had gone to. It was like I had suddenly been taken over by someone else and they could see the old me had fallen away for good.
Something else you should really know about me. When I get nervous, my fingers shake. I’ve noticed this a lot recently. When mother and father argue and their voices are falling around the small family apartment, when their voices are banging against my bedroom door, I can feel my fingers start to move. I tell my fingers to stop and, sometimes, they do. But if I look at my hands closely, once I’ve told them to stop, and I try to focus on keeping them as still as possible, I notice that they are still moving.
It reached a point where the paranoia was getting to me. Everywhere I looked, it seemed like people were hanging out, wanting to date, hooking up, wanting to hook up—it was relationships, relationships, relationships everywhere. Guys checking out girls, girls checking out guys. Dudes checking out dudes, chicks checking out chicks. Fuck! That’s what being a teenager was all about.
Since Drake told me that day in the wooded lot,while the leaves agreed with gravity and left the trees,that he liked boys instead of girls, it's been easier to love him. Loving him feels like counting or usingthe phone or something else that's effortless. I'm likea leaf with nothing to do but fall.
I know what you're thinking. ‘How the hell does this broke ass piece of trailer trash know words like caveat,’ right? Well guess what? I've read every single book on the New York Times list of 'Top 100 Literary Classics,' not to mention every Jane Austen, Sylvia Plath or Bronte sisters’ book ever written. And fuck you very much for judging me, by the way.
The next thing Jordana says makes me realize that it's too late to save her. "I've noticed that when you light a match, the flame is the same shape as a falling tear." She's been sensitized, turned gooey in the middle. I saw it happening and I didn't do anything to stop it. From now on, she'll be writing diaries and sometimes including little poems and she'll buy gifts for her favourite teachers and she'll admire the scenery and she'll watch the news and she'll buy soup for homeless people and she'll never burn my leg hair again.
Despite my dad's assurances I was strangely nervous my stomach tight ever since we'd hung up. Maybe Deb had picked up on this and it was why she'd pretty much talked nonstop since I'd approached her and asked for a ride. I'd barely had time to explain the situation before she had launched into a dozen stories to illustrate the point that Things Happened But People Were Okay in the End.
A complex world of intrigues and power play among couples hascombined to deny young people the love and attention they trulydeserve, more and more teenagers are leaving home to peer up withbad influence which eventually lands them in jail for the lucky onesand six feet under for the not so lucky.
What’s the biggest problem facing teenagers today? Ourselves. We’re a generation of lazy underachievers who need to learn that hard work pays off. What’s your town known for? Cow manure! Hold for laughs... Actually Irondale is the setting of Fannie Flagg’s famous novel Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café. Why’d you enter the Junior Miss Birmingham pageant? To win... to go to State... then Nationals... maybe get the hell out of Alabama.
There are many of us who live alongside others, less fortunate, watching them go through everyday suffering for one reason or another, and we’re not moving even our little finger to help them. It’s in human nature, unfortunately: for the most part, the only people we genuinely care about are ourselves. However, once in a while we encounter different species, different kind of human beings among us: full of compassion, willing and wanting to help, and doing so with joy and happiness. Those are a rarity. But you know what, my dear? Being one of them is not a special calling- it’s a choice. So what will you choose, huh?
What’s going on?� Ingrid asked. “Listen, nothing bad today, please.� She pulled a chair out and sat down. Faye stared at her and said the words as quickly as she could. “I’m just going to give it to you straight as I can. Mila is a witch.� Ingrid busted out with a laugh. “I wouldn’t call her that,� she said. “That’s a little harsh, isn’t it?� She poured the juice into her glass and took a drink. “What did the brat do this time?� She set her glass down.
He stares at me—taking me in—with his lips slightly parted. I struggle to hold myself in place as we gawk at each other. I want so desperately to run, but something is holding me back, keeping me in place.
You are a blue rose, Letti. It’s almost impossible that you exist amongst the other roses but you do. You bring wonder to those who are lucky enough to find you. The blue rose is lonely, lost and awaits someone special to believe in them; the same feeling I got from you the day we met. Blue roses are incomprehensible and mysterious. And so are you.
Why did it have to be such a shameful secret? Hadn’t I been potty-trained and taught to chew with my mouth closed? So what was the freaking big deal about having sex? Wasn’t it essential to the survival of our darn, hypocritical species?
But that was last year,” I protested as we walked through school on Tuesday, three days beforeHalloween. “I’m serious, you know how people are. They forget about things.”“Oh, really?” Roux said, then turned and smiled at a brunette passing us. “Hey, Julia, what’s up?How are things?”“Slut,” Julia responded, and kept walking.Roux just looked back at me knowingly. “You were saying?
Do you ... still believe?''Our very presence here, a Polynesian goddess sitting next to a Zulu thunder god, listening to the song of a Greek siren, should be proof enough that religions can and do coexist.' He looked back at the cross over the entryway. 'And I still do not know.
In 1938, Louise Rosenblatt introduced reader response theory or the transactional view of reading. She asserted that what the reader brings to the reading act - his or her world of experiences, personality, and current frame of mind - is just as important in interpreting the text as what the author writes. According to this view, reading is a fusion of text and reader.
Seconds seem like a life time when the life you lived is slowly drained out of you by those who care not what you felt, hoped, or dreamed. When the darkness comes it is all consuming, there is no light and there is no pain. It is the never ending loss of hope that now consumes me as I die in his arms.
The young of the town, preoccupied with their own germinating angst, which each possessed in varying degree (though few were ever fully aware of its existence), felt no particular connection to the land, its people, its structures, or its history. As such, they had no inclination to defend its invisible borders from declared enemies within or without. They desired only escape from this small village, which each viewed as an existential prison built upon the antiquated expectations of their parents and their parents’ parents. And because of their invisible bondage, the young of this town were possessed by a quiet rage. But this rage laid torpid and inert within them, dulled to sleep by the tired repetition of nothing happening over and over and over again, day after day after day.This is the story of one of those young people, and the terrible things that happened to her, and the terrible things she did as a result.
I hoped for a miracle, but most of all, I hoped for someone to truly understand what I was going through.I can't make you live longer, I can't stop you from hurting but I can give you one wish as someone did for me. My wish helped me find purpose, faith, and courage. Friendship reaches beyond time and the true miracle is in giving, not recieving.
It's entirely possible to get to know someone without actually seeing them in person. In fact, it's better like that because none of the superficial stuff gets in the way. You really get to know a person. And it's easier to express yourself when you're writing things down. At least it is for me. I like to order my thoughts, and delete them if they don't make any sense. You can't do that in real life.
She, of all people, knew the sacred trust that word -- "librarian" -- implied. Because a librarian was supposed to to be a spiritual, intellectual mentor who kept your secrets and didn't give you a funny look when you checked out a book on the care and feeding of pythons...A librarian opened up new doors for you, intellectually, too, without shoving you through them.A librarian was important.
The thing is, if you're an ugly goon when you're 15, you're an ugly goon for the rest of your life — until the day you die. You're always a goon, even if lots of years go by, even if you get married and have a kid, even if you're more successful than you ever thought you'd be in your wildest dreams. You're still that same goon who everybody laughed at. It never changes.