#and I’m not going to spill my whole life story because it’s none of your business but Harry Potter is the reason I’m not dead right now
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daveys-sister · 2 years ago
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gotta unfollow for harry potter posting. come on, man.
Coolio
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redeliminator · 7 months ago
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Well, they did NOT survive their teenage codependent homoerotic friendship
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I have the priviledge of being an adult and being able to look back on my teenage years happy that I made it out. It wasn't easy and I had my fair share of pretty dark experiences, so I've been thinking A LOT what would have happened to me if I had found myself in a position like Andre when I was 17. So I wrote it down - the story of Andre and Cal's relationship from (mostly) Andre's POV and the whole emotional turmoil of ending your life alongside your best friend. All with a couple of not-so-subtle personal throw-ins. It's a mess and a long one on top of that, I'm sorry ;__;
After years of living with all these thoughts you’re too scared to open up about, suddenly it turns out that your (only) lifelong friend is actually not that different. Not only doesn’t he flinch at your uncanny remarks; he actually thinks they’re spot-on and laughs at your jokes that would probably send you straight into detention.
So far, the more people learnt about you, the more they drifted away. Suddenly, it doesn’t happen. Quite the contrary, the messed up things seem to strengthen the bond instead. For the first time, someone welcomes you into their inner life just the way you are and doesn’t expect you to “mend your ways” before they let you in. You gradually uncover the parts of yourself you have never shown to anyone before. It feels like the weight of the world is lifted off your shoulders. Like it was destined to happen. It feels real.
It is not at all surprising that in the end, you brought out the worst in each other. After all, your final bond was built on the acceptance of the darkest parts of your personalities. You fed off each other to the point of lethal codependency. You were nothing without him and he was nothing without you.
It was insane. But you felt validated. Starving for someone who understands, you clung to each other and never let go.
So, when you’re standing in that library, guns slung over your shoulders and blood spilling beneath your feet, and that guy, who led you out of that lonely misery and gave your life a spark, tells you that you’re done - well, you’re done. You’d follow him anywhere because what other choice do you have? You killed people. You’re not getting away on your own. You’re not doing it without him. It’s either both of you or none of you. So you agree.
But deep inside, you know there’s so much left to say. The world is wide enough for the two of you, why wouldn’t you want to explore it? We had a plan, we were supposed to last. All of that is suddenly cut short. Just like the lives you’ve just taken. What an irony.
And suddenly you wish you had never left that car. Or that you had swerved it just before pulling into the parking lot. What the fuck are you doing?! That’s when it should have been said: I’m done. You’re done. We’re done.
You never figured out if it was platonic or romantic. You probably didn’t even know what platonic meant. But there was one thing you had no doubt about: that loving him was the easiest thing in the world.
… until it wasn’t. 
That love tripped you up just when everything you thought you wanted was only a few inches away. Suddenly, it felt like jumping into a lake only to realize that concrete bricks have been tied to your feet.
You might have been done with the revenge, but you weren’t done loving him. In fact, you barely even started. You never even fully acknowledged it. You repressed it, scared of and confused about the intricacies of your own identity and feelings.
But what are you supposed to do about it now? Where will all that love go, if you refuse to go down together? Do you even have a choice at all? You won’t make it on your own. The only choice you have is whose hand will fire the shot that will end it all. There is no “if”.
It’s pretty safe to say that you agreeing to a double suicide is a spur-of-the-moment decision. No one would think clearly when faced with this kind of choice under such circumstances. You have just taken more than a dozen innocent lives. If they catch you, it’s game over. It’s a pathetic failure.
You were supposed to escape in a blaze of glory: a getaway car, a police chase, a rain of bullets fired towards you as you take one last look in the rearview mirror knowing you’re never gonna see this town again. You’ve turned the place that destroyed you into smoldering ruins and now you kiss it goodbye. It doesn’t get better than this.
But it’s not what happens. Suddenly, as you look around the room and glance over the dead bodies, you realize the thrill is gone. The excitement has vanished into thin air. The only thing you’re hearing are police sirens and people whimpering in pain. The reality of what you’ve done and what awaits you comes crashing down on you. It’s not glorious. It’s not rewarding. It’s bleak and hopeless. It’s a dead end.
Andre had to tone down Cal's carelessness during the preparations. No, we’re not gonna break into Brad’s garage and risk being spotted. No, your open mic poetry evening was not a fun idea; it was inconsiderate and dangerous. No, even if we had an M-80, we wouldn’t use it for a ceremonial explosion at my family’s vacation home where everyone could see it. 
And suddenly, as they’re wandering through the school looking at the carnage they caused, the roles get reversed. It’s Cal who has to lead Andre into the grim reality. 
We’re not making it out. We can still leave on our terms though. It’s your call.
The question is, did Cal really believe they didn’t stand a chance or did he use the circumstances to get what he wanted: for both of them to die?
If Andre didn’t agree, would Cal have the guts to shoot him himself? I don’t think he would. There was only one way Cal wanted it to end. I think Cal may have had some sort of feelings for Andre, but, in a fashion similar to Andre, he didn’t know exactly what these feelings were as he never got around to disentangling them. Cal was mentally ill, heavily unstable and out of touch with reality, but I think deep inside he still had the ability to feel. He could barely connect with that part of him, but it was still there. And Andre kept it alive because he did something no one else would ever do for Cal. He provided Cal with the means to die the way he wanted. A spectacular way out. 
And Cal would be forever grateful for that, even if that “forever” would come to an end in just a matter of seconds. How do you even thank someone for a favor like this? Thanks for letting me die, even though you didn’t know I planned it? How do you find someone who you don’t even have to ask for it? Hey, what would you say if we killed a bunch of people to send some twisted message that only we understand and then we blew our brains out? 
The thing is, none of them had to ask. The idea was already there. Maybe except for the “blowing our brains out” part. In any case, this is a one in a million chance that you find someone like this.
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sourholland · 7 months ago
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WELCOME TO THE STYLE MASTERLIST
based off of taylor swift’s song style
a/n → hope u guys like this :)
summary → he’s the quarterback of the cincinnati bengals, a worldwide heartthrob with an ego the size of lake erie—but does he have the heart to match it? you’re the bengals newest cheerleader, desperate to prove how much you deserve your spot on the team. it doesn’t take much to catch the eye of joe burrow, however that isn’t necessarily a good thing when you’re told that any romantic relations between cheerleaders and players is strictly prohibited.
warnings → strong language, alcohol
word count → 3.3k
remember to reblog and leave some comments if you enjoy!
SERIES MASTERLIST
Chapter 6
“It’s one picture, don’t drive yourself crazy over it,” Joe’s voice came through your phone. “I get why you’re freaking out, but I think we both agree that it could be a lot worse.”
“That’s the problem. This was our first time out together, who’s to say there aren’t more pictures like this but worse? We haven’t exactly been careful about seeing each other, Joe.”
There was a brief silence, the sound of his car air conditioner creating a white noise in the background of your phone call. He texted you back almost instantaneously after you sent him the screenshot from Twitter. He said he would have to tell his coaches he was having an important family matter so that they would allow him to walk out to take the call in the middle of analyzing game film. It took him all but five minutes to get outside and phone you.
“I know,” he sighed, inhaling a quick breath before he spoke again. “We’ll be better about stuff, you know I’ll make sure I’m not so–”
“It’s more than that and you know it. This doesn’t just end with one shitty photo on Twitter, it only gets worse from here. It makes no difference if we’re trying harder to sneak around because at some point one of us is going to fuck up, that’s if we already haven’t and don’t know, and then would all of this have been worth it?” You snapped at him, thankful he could not see the tears threatening to spill over and dampen your cheeks. “The fucking around and being casual hookup buddies. Will it have been worth it? Maybe for you, but that’s because you’re Joe Burrow and we both know we’re not even in remotely similar spots in this situation.”
“What are fucking talking about? That’s all bullshit, you know that’s bullshit,” his voice raised slightly, a twinge of hurt evident. “Look, Y/N–I understand that we aren’t exactly in the same position, but that doesn’t make it fair for you to act like none of this matters to me or whatever the fuck you’re going on about as far as all of this being worth it. What’s going on between us has never had anything to do with me, or my name, or what position I hold on the team.”
“Do you hear yourself right now? Of course it has something to do with who you are, it always had something to do with who you are and you can’t seriously tell me you don’t know that. You’re in the NFL and a star quarterback for fucks sake. You went to the Super Bowl last year! You can’t seriously sit here and tell me we’re risking the same things?”
The line was quiet, save for the sound of both of you breathing. Perhaps you were being petty, but Joe was being inconsiderate of what a loss of job would mean for you. He sounded hurt by the fact that the two of you hooking up was not a good enough reason to lose out on the extra money. The public humiliation you would receive was a whole different factor to be conquered in itself. While you might not know what this was like for him, he sure as hell wouldn’t ever know what it is like for you. 
Social status and money were such fickle things, seemingly unimportant in some scenarios until suddenly they became the center of the universe again. Joe would never again live a fully mundane life, he couldn’t see through the eyes of a college student who already had trouble making ends meet. It felt so unfair to know how this story would end, however if you could potentially stop it from being made worse, you might be thankful in the long run. 
“You’re right, that was a stupid thing for me to say. But Y/N, I’m just as much in this as you. It’s not easy for me either.”
“It shouldn’t have to be hard,” you sighed, face hot with emotion as you stared downward at your feet. “I just feel like we might be better off leaving this where it is, you know? Before things get messy. Which they will, you know they will.”
Joe didn’t speak at first, his silence left a sharp ache to burrow itself deep within your ribcage. His voice came out firm but hoarse, “If that’s what you want.”
As your breath grew slightly ragged, you realized that you hadn’t been preparing for his nonchalant response. Selfishly, you let a hand slide to your chest and then throat as you swallowed and attempted to formulate a response to his words. The line was silent, save for the sound of Joe’s breathing. 
“Is that what you want?” You asked him.
“It seems like that’s what you want, seeing as you were the one who brought it up. And if this is just sex then why should it matter?” said Joe, his tone defensive and his voice breathier than usual. “This is just sex to you, right?”
No, you wanted to shout at him. This is so much more than sex and you know that, but the second you said it aloud it could not be taken back and then things truly became complicated. Joe wished to provoke you, the tone of his voice said as much. This annoyed you, his desire to make this even more difficult for you. 
“What do you want me to say to that?” 
“It’s a simple question,” Joe hurled, clearly irritated.
“No, it’s not. You know that,” you sniffled. “How I feel about you doesn’t matter when we’re in this situation, anyway.”
“Bullshit, it’s not a simple question because you’re making it complicated. How you feel doesn’t matter because you say it doesn’t matter,” Joe answered furiously. “Look, I have to get back inside, but I just want to say that you saying all of this right now is really fucking selfish. Especially after all of the mixed signals you send… I never know what you actually want from me. One second you’re pissed off at the idea of me even seeing another girl and now you’re breaking stuff off with me over the phone.”
You flinched at his assessment, “I’m just trying to do the right thing for both of us.”
“Yeah, whatever you say,” he replied, voice dripping with sarcasm.
The line went dead and you knew he had hung up, frustrated with you and the entire situation. You let your hands run over your face, feeling a deep pain in your chest as you buried your face into the blankets on your couch that still held his distant scent. He surely hated now, unable to comprehend how deep your feelings for him went. Much deeper than his for you, you were sure of. When you told him that your relationship would grow messy, you hadn’t been lying. However, a piece of you was not solely referring to the conflict within your work. 
You debated calling him back, but knew that he would have already made it back into the facility. He sounded so upset with you, more so than he had ever been before. Joe was usually quite relaxed and level-headed, though now he was most definitely frustrated by the argument itself. 
Joe made no other attempts to contact you for the remainder of the day. That night, you let your phone sit idly by as you made dinner and still nothing. Maybe the two of you had broken up, that was what you had insisted anyways. He made you act like a complete idiot sometimes, thoughts skewed and rash as if you were once again sixteen. Nothing about Joe was in disarray, he always seemed to know exactly what he wanted to say and do. It never came out awkward or clunky, despite how he described his usual anxiety during interviews.
Attempting to sleep was difficult, your mind racing a mile a minute. Thoughts of Joe persisted, leaving you ridden with guilt and sadness about the supposed no contact. You knew not to text, though. Not only would it have been unfair to you, but Joe as well. There was also the fact that it would never work between the two of you, the carousel of disappointment and pain was unavoidable. 
⋆------------⋆
The Bengals lost their next preseason game against the Giants, the game was close but ended the same as the Cardinals had. The only difference in this game was Joe’s attendance, he wore a headset on the sidelines with his coaches as the team played. Still out on injury, he was helping to give instruction to his teammates most of the game. 
You had briefly locked eyes with Joe before the game began, everyone scrambling about to get into positions. His expression was blank, as if he had no idea who you were and there was never anything there. Your eyes raked over him, the way that the shirt he wore hugged his biceps and back. Joe spared the cheerleaders more glances than usual this game, watching more than he ever had time to while playing. You caught his lingering gaze once or twice, mind racing.
The final preseason game against the Rams played out the exact same, save for the fact that the Bengals won. It had been two weeks between the game and the morning of yours and Joe’s heated argument. The post on Twitter had somewhat died off at twenty thousand likes and his fans eventually found something new to speculate about. 
Sydney and Lena were absolutely furious when you divulged all information regarding the fight you had caused, earning a few much deserved playful swots to the arm. They attempted to coerce you into calling him and smoothing things over, insisting that you shouldn’t just end things on such an awful note. Once you explained more of the predicament and how you felt no desire to be ripped apart on the internet or by your coaches, both girls simply sighed and nodded at your decision. They understood how difficult it was for you, especially after silent tears had begun to fall during the long winded explanation of how seriously NFL executives and management took player-cheerleader fraternization and how it would unfortunately not just be swept under the rug when you two inevitably got caught.
The wallowing in self-pity lasted for another week before the girls had finally called for the bedrotting to end, “Babe, don’t cry. Come on, wipe those tears. We’re going out tonight,” said Sydney, sitting criss cross on your bedroom floor. “It’s Friday night, you’re hot as fuck and you’re an NFL cheerleader. I love you so I’m going to be honest with you right now, I get that you fumbled Joe Burrow, but we both know that he was just a guy at the end of the day. So again, you are hot as fuck and we’re going out. What do I always say?”
“I’m not feeling it tonight, Syd,” your reply was muffled as you spoke into the pillow you lay face down into. “Go without me.”
“Bitch, stop. You’re going out, we’re getting fucked up. Lena’s already on her way over here and you know she’s not leaving without you so let’s go. You’ll feel better, by the time we get to the club you’re going to be like ‘Who’s Joe Burrow anyways?’”
“Somehow I highly doubt that,” you sighed, turning to look up at the ceiling. “You don’t want me to come, I’m miserable and sad and I’m only going to spoil everyone’s fun.”
“I don’t care, Y/N. Spoil my fun, ruin my night, I’d say throw up in my clutch but you already managed that last time we went out. I just want to see you out of this bed for something other than practice, work, or class. You’re like a ghost and I’m not going to watch you throw away your senior year because of some erotic work hookup with a guy who I’m sure couldn’t even hold a candle to you,” Sydney spieled, perched on the edge of your bed. “The only way to get over a man is to get under a new one!”
Eventually Sydney did manage to get you up, it only took ripping all of the blankets off of you and hiding your phone. Once Lena came in and began tidying up the somewhat mess you’d been allowing to collect, you realized getting out was probably the best course of action. Although you had no plans of getting under any new guy, Sydney appreciated your partially willing participation once she began to do your hair and makeup. 
Lena dumped a bag of going out tops onto your bed, sifting through them and throwing each top into a certain pile. Some of them were from freshman year, leaving both you and Sydney to cringe and shout at her to make sure it went into the rapidly growing mass of ‘absolutely not’ tops. Eventually you settled for a fitted lilac top, adorned with sheer lace everywhere but the cups. Sydney wore a timeless black bodysuit that she had swiped from your closet during study abroad and Lena opted for blue slip dress and promised Sydney she would take care of her leather jacket if she let her borrow it.
The three of you Ubered to the club, knowing that you planned to drink. As soon as you slid into the backseat of the SUV, Sydney pulled her purse into her lap and was suddenly handing out shooters. There was one Malibu, a Fireball, and a Pink Whitney.
“Fuck that, I can’t even smell that shit without wanting to throw up,” you shook your head, pretending to gag in a dramatic motion. “You’re better off throwing the Pink Shitney out the window.”
“Throw up?” The driver’s head whipped towards the backseat suddenly. “No, no! If you throw up, I charge extra.”
“Nobody is going to throw up, sir,” Lena reassured him and looked back at both you and Sydney with a laugh. “Well, I don’t want it either. Rock, paper, scissors?”
Sydney and Lena went first, Lena won and chose the Malibu. You faced Sydney now, playing rock as she threw out scissors and proceeded to hunch over in fake despair as you snatched the shot of Fireball. Not that the taste was much better, but after a few horrible experiences with Pink Whitney during freshman year, you could no longer stomach it without revisiting the memories of endless mornings spent hugging the toilet bowl of your dorm floor after drinking with your girls and relishing in the alcohol that tastes identical to Minute Maid once you grew drunk enough.
The drive to the club was about fifteen minutes from your apartment, each of you taking a couple of photos together and dissecting Lena’s texts with her ex from the night before.Sydney was bantering with the driver once you finally pulled up beside the curb out front of the club, a considerably long queue already forming at the front door. 
“You look so hot,” Lena told you, practically skipping to join the line and get inside. “So do you, Syd.”
The bouncer worked quickly, only sending a few people away as he looked over IDs and gestured clusters inside of the club. Thankfully, your fake ID days had passed and you were finally able to toss it. Most of the drinking you had done over the course of your time at school was with small groups of girlfriends and occasionally nights spent at sleazy bars that weren’t strict about obviously fake IDs. Frats had never been your scene, although you managed to go a few times during your freshman year for the experience.
Once the three of you made it inside, Sydney immediately went to the bar after claiming the first round of drinks were on her. There were colorful lights illuminating the crowded atmosphere of those dancing and drinking with friends. The club mix that was playing boomed, your ears adjusting to the insanely loud music as Sydney approached with drinks and held up her phone to snap a photo of you and Lena.
“Drink up!” Sydney called out to both of you, taking a long sip and looking around the club in search of tonight’s target. 
It didn’t take long for Lena to pull both of you to dance, integrating yourselves with a group of sweaty, twenty-something girls who were the level of drunk you hoped to be soon enough. The floor vibrated, moisture collecting at your temples and hairline as you rocked against Sydney in a slightly buzzed bliss. One of the girls you had just met had her arms thrown around your neck, all of you singing at different pitches. 
A rotation of going to grab more drinks and then rejoining your group on the floor had begun, both you and Lena alternating who bought the next round of shots after Sydney found a cute guy at the bar to flirt with. The film of sweat clinging to your skin became unnoticeable after you grew drunk enough to stop caring, your face hot from drinking and dancing. 
“Lena!” You called over the music, drink in-hand. “I have to pee, I’ll be right back!”
“What?” She leaned in. “Bathroom? I’ll come with you!”
“No, stay! I’ll be good,” you promised, knowing she had already made two trips with you.
“You sure?”
“Yes!” You shouted over your shoulder, already making your way to the slightly grungy, low-lit bathroom.
There was a singular open stall, stray bits of toilet paper and a fake eyelash adorning the floor as you drunkenly made your way around the girls reapplying makeup in the mirror. Thoughts of the game washed over you, in turn bringing on thoughts of Joe. Something about going to the bathroom and finally having a few moments of peace allowed you to assess how intoxicated you truly were, which was considerable. The thought of talking to him outweighed the small voice of reason in the back of your mind, ultimately deciding that it would be a problem for your sober self.
As you left the bathroom, rather than going back out to dance with Lena, you leaned against the wall of the hallway and braced yourself in order to stay upright. You pulled your phone from your clutch, sighing and opening his contact. It was late, he might be asleep, you thought. Without thinking much, you dazedly pressed the call button and closed your eyes as the phone rang and you awaited his potential answer.
“Y/N,” his voice came through clear, not even taking two rings to pick up your call.
“Hi, Joe,” you concentrated very hard on your tone and slightly slurred speech, doing your best to sound sober.”M’sorry it’s so late, I just–I was thinking about you, which I know that I shouldn’t because we’re broken up but I was. I wanted to talk to you, I know you probably hate me and everything, or I hate you or whatever. I shouldn’t have called you, I’m sorry.”
“Are you drunk?” His voice comes out level, emotionless even.
The silence between the two of you is palpable, “No,” you hiccup.
He says nothing for a few seconds, “Are you at the club?”
“Why would you ask that?”
“I can hear music and people talking, it sounds like you’re in a club.”
This was wrong, you should not be calling Joe. Why couldn’t you shake him? After all of this, you only continued to want more. All you have done is hurt him and yourself through this situation, unable to make up your mind. Everything you have worked so hard for should be worth more than Joe Burrow, so why didn’t it feel like that?
“Yeah,” you replied, the slurring evident in your voice. “You got me.”
“This isn’t fair, YN… You calling me fucked up and out with who the hell knows isn’t right, not after you call me and tell me you would rather, ‘leave things where they are.’ I like you! I feel like I have made that incredibly obvious, and yet here we are once again.” He rattled off, voice slightly raised. “Look, I’m sorry to be an asshole but clearly you either can’t see or don’t care about how this has affected me or my life. And I get it, you’re still in college and we’re just in completely different stages of life as far as your age–”
“My age?” You finally interrupted his rambling, ready to counter him with what you would most likely regret saying tomorrow. “How come you’re suddenly so fucking mature and I’m just a kid?”
“Well for starters, you are the one who blindsided me a few weeks ago over the phone. You are the one who just called me up at one in the morning, for what? To tell me again that you don’t want to be with me? Or is this some sick joke where you apologize and then can’t remember when you wake up?” He snapped at you. “So yeah, Y/N… I would go as far as to say you’re the immature one in this situation.”
It was as if the wind had been knocked out of you, internalizing Joe’s words as you shifted weight from one foot to the other. Everything was fuzzy, your thoughts askew and irrational as you tried to compile the right words to respond with. He had never taken that tone with you before, nor had he ever sounded so hurt. Maybe he was right.
“I’m sorry, Joe,” was all you could muster without giving away how inebriated you truly are, figuring that would only make things worse. “I regret everything, all of it. We shouldn’t have started anything in the first place, but everytime you come near me it’s just so hard not to want you–” You trailed off, regret was most definitely not the right word, you mean to say that you regret how things have played out.
“Y/N, stop. You’re drunk and you don’t know what you’re saying,” he sighed. “Are you safe? Should I get you an Uber or do you have a way home?”
“I’m fine, don’t worry about me,” you say quietly.
“Then I’m gonna get off of here, call me once you’ve sobered up.”
His words stung, your heart cracking at the justifiable dismissal. He was most definitely not in the wrong here, but it didn’t make it any less hard. His usual flirtation and humor was long gone, replaced by obvious disdain due to the way you had ended things. 
“Bye, Joe.”
“Get home safe, Y/N.”
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kurishiri · 5 months ago
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03 . . . the past records ˗ˏˋ🍎🪞´ˎ˗
— this translation may not be 100% accurate or may contain creative liberties. if you enjoy, please consider reblogging, but don’t repost or claim these as your own!
— cw: none.
Liam: Hearing Al say they played this game to decide whether he stayed by Lord Elbie’s side or died... it makes me wonder, does he really hate being by his side that much?
Roger: Haha, it’s nothing that serious. If he really hated staying by his side that much, he wouldn’t have just left it to something like luck. He would’ve taken it in his own hands.
Liam: Right? That’s what I was thinking.
Roger: He says stuff like ‘it’s a game of luck,’ but really he just wants a cover up.
Liam: So... if he doesn’t have an excuse, he can’t be together with him? But why?
Roger: ......Who knows.
Liam: Hmm... I feel like despite hearing the whole story, I still don’t know what’s the answer to that question that started it all.
L: Why is Al with Lord Elbie?
Roger: Word’s that when they met, they were both going through something that made it hard for them to be apart from each other.
R: And anything more about that is beyond me.
Liam: Hm...
L: You see, Al has been helping me satisfy my curiosity by indulging in my whims...
L: ...but he would really have gone and done something dangerous, if I asked for it, I feel like.
L: Like, he puts his life on the line just for a game of luck... so much so, I wouldn’t be surprised if we found his corpse tomorrow... I guess.
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L: Oh, maybe he also has the ‘Cheshire Cat’s Curse’ like me?
Roger: ...If he did have such a Curse, maybe he would be able to be a part of others’ lives without feeling the need to keep up a pretense.
—— Perspective shift ——
Today’s mission for Crown was to pass judgment on the person who’s been illicitly making drugs, and to gather proof of their crime.
William and Harrison were to pass judgment,
while Alfons and Elbert were assigned to gather proof.
In a certain warehouse containing imported goods,
Alfons and Elbert were able to find the raw materials used to make that dangerous drug hidden within the very general spices.
They were carrying out their mission without a hitch——
when suddenly, several bullets shot through the air, piercing holes through the burlap bags piled high in a heap,
until the contents of the bags spilled on top of the two men.
Elbert: There’s an eyewitness... we have to go after them.
Alfons: Do you really have the luxury to say that when we’re in this state?
The two of them were buried in so much spice from the waist down, it was hard to laugh it off as any joke.
And Alfons let out a sigh as though he were fed up.
Alfons: This is William and Harry we’re talking about?
A: They won’t let a single one go alive, so it should be fine.
A: Anyhow, more importantly, I can’t help but feel an inkling that I’ve run into this smell before—
Elbert: ...! Al, over there, there are cats.
They had probably been hiding somewhere in the warehouse, but some stray cats had shown themselves, gathering around them.
Alfons: Ah, yes, I remember that spice’s scent now.
Elbert: ...?
Alfons: It’s cat powder.
While they were having an out-of-tune conversation, the two became surrounded by cats.
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Alfons: Come now, don’t cozy up on your own quite yet. Why don’t you help us out?
A: I hope you know the reason you guys can indulge yourselves in cat powder is because of us?
A cat drew closer to Alfons as he petted it around its neck.
The cat purred in response, snuggling its body up to his palm.
Elbert: ...Hehe.
Alfons: Whatever is the matter, suddenly laughing like that? Don’t tell me you are on a cat powder high as well?
Elbert: It’s not that. It’s just... I was remembering how you dote on cats, even when you act more like one than the cats themselves.
Alfons: I’m afraid you have me ever so slightly lost with that train of thought...
Elbert: I mean, when I think you saved that cat who had trouble getting down,
E: you would push it away when it got too close.
E: And when I think you have petted it... you pretend you don’t know them...
E: And when they’re going through a hard time, you are there by their side... but then, when they’re not going through such times, you try your best to distance yourself.
Alfons: ...You are quite an observant one, aren’t you. So? Would you mind telling me why you look so happy then?
Elbert: Because... I think that side of you is wonderful, Al.
Alfons: ......Is this your attempt to woo me?
Elbert: ...? No, I didn’t mean to woo you.
Alfons: Yes, I knew that from the start, so please don’t take my words so earnestly.
A: ...Elbie, how would you like to play a little game with me?
Elbert: Game...?
Alfons pulled out a coin from his pocket, flipping it in the air with his finger.
Then, when the coin fell atop the back of his hand, he covered it with the other.
Elbert: I guess, I’ll bet tails then.
Alfons: And that leaves me with heads.
A: If it is tails, as you say, then I win. Otherwise, it’s yours.
Elbert: So, the one who guessed wrong wins... somehow, it feels like it should be the opposite.
Alfons: Well, you can think of it as playing with a ‘mirror’ that is myself. And so, that which is incorrect becomes the correct choice, and conversely, the correct choice becomes incorrect.
Elbert: What will you do if you win?
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Alfons: Let’s see now...
A: I suppose, if I win, I will go on a journey to the edge of the world.
On the back of Alfons’ hand, the coin——showed heads.
Alfons: And once again, it is my loss.
A: Truly, when it comes to making the wrong choices, there is no one who can hold a candle to you.
A: ...I realize this is sorely belated, but is it alright if I ask you one question?
Elbert: ...What is it?
Alfons: The day we first met, when I suddenly appeared before you, what made you want to take me into the manor?
Elbert: ......
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full masterlist 🍎🪞
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fairyboygenius · 2 months ago
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good luck, babe!
farah karim x original female character (part one)
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warnings: vague harassment (not by farah or josie), weird comment by bad character calling farah “exotic”, being mean to alex because he gets in the way of the lesbian love story (sorry alex/farah stans i don’t know why you’re still here )
She never should’ve agreed to come to this stupid bar.
Farah shifted awkwardly, the cup of Sprite spilling ever so slightly onto her top. Her eyes tracked the scene. Typical; the Brits causing trouble in a Chicago bar. Gaz and Soap ganging up on college boys at the pool table, Price trying to flirt with a twenty something by the bathrooms, Ghost looking at his phone (for sure just the weather app) with his drink in hand. Alex was at the bar getting him and Farah refills. And there she sat, on a high barstool, regarding over the bar as though she owned it. Quiet scrutiny disguised as class radiated off of her, sort of giving off a “don’t touch me” sort of energy.
“Hey, pretty thing.”
Farah looked down and immediately rolled her eyes. A bland looking man, one that had clearly just been playing pool with Soap and Gaz, leered up at her, eyes directly level with her tits. Fuckin’ fantastic. Just what this mediocre night needed.
“Not interested.”
He moved on, unbothered. “I’m Beau. Beau Hunter.”
“That means nothing to me.”
“It could, though. Could change whatever exotic last name I’m sure you have, give you mine.”
Rage suddenly wafted off her. “You little-“
“Hunter! Third strike.”
Farah felt her mouth go dry at the sight of her knight in shining armor. A woman, 30ish. Brunette. Hair in two braids. A honeyed Midwestern accent tinged with venom. A lavender carabiner shaped like a heart jingled against her belt loop, heavy with multiple sets of keys.
Farah’s heart skipped a beat. That was new.
Beau- the prick- stepped back, face falling. “Josie. Didn’t realize you were workin’ tonight.”
The hero- Josie- shook her head, a slight scent of vanilla and cinnamon hitting Farah’s nose. “Well, no, but I’ve got express permission from Brooke to kick you out even if I’m off the clock. Your presence is making the bar unsafe for everyone. Time’s up, daddy’s money.”
Farah stifled a laugh as Beau pouted, slamming his drink down before storming out of the bar. Didn’t even pay for it, the dick.
That gaze focused itself on Farah then, moving in closer. Vanilla hit her nose again. “Sorry about him. He’s just an overgrown frat boy.” She held out her hand. “Josette, most people call me Josie or Jo. You haven’t earned my last name yet.”
Farah raised an eyebrow. “Earned it?”
Josie shrugged. “Why not add a little mystery into your trip? I’m assuming you’re not a local. Gonna make you work for it, a little bit.”
Farah laughed, surprising herself. “Farah, then. Farah Karim.”
“No mystery for you?”
“Deal with that enough in my job.”
Josie raised an eyebrow. She had a septum ring, Farah noticed. It looked good on her. “I’m assuming you can’t tell me, otherwise you’ll have to kill me, so I’ll let it slide. This your first time in Chicago?”
Farah shook her head. Maybe being around drunk people helped you feel drunk too, because her head was swimming. “Haven’t gotten much of a chance to explore the city. I love this neighborhood.”
“I’ve lived here my whole life. It’s probably my favorite place on Earth.” Josie held eye contact for a few more seconds before looking over at the bar, where Price seemed to have succeeded in his flirtations. He was passionately kissing the young girl, his hand sliding up her shirt. Josie and Farah both winced at the sight.
Farah groaned. “Sorry. My colleague seems to have forgotten that other people can see him.”
“It’s not your fault.” Josie sighed, crossing her arms over her ample chest. Farah tried not to let her eyes linger on the cleavage amplified by that one simple motion. What was going on with her? “I’m not on the clock, neither are you. It’s frankly none of our business if your boss is feeling up a teenybopper.”
Farah barked out a laugh. “You’ve got a way with words, for sure.”
“I just tell it like it is, sweetheart.”
Farah instantly felt blood rush to her face, blinking rapidly. There was a funny feeling in her chest, like a glitter bomb exploded or someone had shaken up a soda bottle.
“Oh, hey, Farah. I’m sorry, I got caught up talking with the bartender.” Alex touched her arm gently. Alex. She noticed a flash of disappointment in Josie’s eyes and immediately wanted to throttle him.
“Alex. Hey.” Farah took a sip of her drink, then gestured towards Josie. “This is Josie. You’ve gotta earn the right to know her last name.”
Josie recovered quickly, plastering on a smile. “Nice to meet you.”
Alex smiled, ever polite. “You too.” He turned to Farah then. “You ready to go?”
She nodded, eyes flickering back to Josie. “I’ll be ready in a second. Meet you outside.”
“Okay.” Alex pecked her cheek before turning away. Farah felt herself cringe on the inside. She took a deep breath before turning back to Josie.
“I’d love to get your number, so we could hang out when I’m in Chicago. I’m around too much testosterone as it is.”
Josie smiled. It seemed a bit forced. “I’ll give you my number.”
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daytaker · 8 months ago
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Tea Time
In which MC and Satan accidentally travel to a pocket dimension simulacrum of the underground labyrinth in the demon lord's castle.
Ship: None (MC & Satan, not MC/Satan) Word Count: 2.6k CW: Choking Set in the Nightbringer timeline.
You can find it on AO3 by clicking here.
(Author's note: Just as a heads-up, this is a very "early on in the game" version of Satan. He is mean. He is violent. He is mean and violent towards MC. I keep the tone light but I figured I should be a bit explicit about what you'll find below the cut.)
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Record scratch. Freeze frame. Perfect.
So...yep. That’s me. I’m the one on the left, running for my life through a torch-lit labyrinthine corridor, being chased by a three-headed devil dog. Now, it might be a cliche, but we’ve already done the record scratch bit, so I might as well go all out:
You’re probably wondering how I found myself in this situation.  
Well! Let me direct your attention to the other individual onscreen. On the right, has black horns, a fur mantle, and murderous intent written all over his face. This charming person is Satan. Yes, that Satan. But also, no, not really that Satan. For this story to make any sense, you’ll have to take my word for it that Satan is, in fact, a skinny blonde kid who looks like he's in his early twenties. 
Suspend your disbelief for me, please.
So what happened was this...
I spilled some tea on a book lying haphazardly on the floor of Satan’s room. It was an accident, of course, but try telling him that. I was bringing him tea in bed because he was griping in the group chat about his headache and I’m a very considerate attendant and friend, when suddenly the whole room shook.
Now, I never did figure out why that happened. Maybe Cerberus was acting up. Maybe someone ate Beel’s custard again. Maybe there was an earthquake! I don’t know if Hell has those, but it might be a possibility. The point is, the room shook, and I shook, and the teacup shook, and the tea inside the teacup shook, and it all poured out onto a book on the floor. I hardly noticed it, since the only drops that didn’t land on the book had scalded my hands, meaning I was a bit distracted, but Satan sure did. I don’t know if that headache of his had been exaggerated or if he was so angry that he didn’t care about the pain, but before I even found a place to put down the teacup and tend to my burns, he was out of bed and in my face.
It was scary. I’ll admit it. Satan scared me. Back in my own time, I’d always had the hardest time feeling like I was “getting to” him out of all the brothers. Even Lucifer had clear enough motives and something resembling a moral code that I felt like I could follow. But Satan was different. Always different. He put me on edge with his cynicism and short temper, and he carried himself with a haughtiness that devolved into irritation whenever he felt someone was doing something stupid.
Still, we’d gotten to a point where things were at least friendly between us, and I sometimes got the feeling that he was trying to play-act the sort of easy friendship I’d formed with Mammon and Levi and the rest. But it never felt…authentic. I appreciated the gestures–book recommendations, shopping trips, things like that. But he was never really comfortable, so I was never really comfortable. I guess, more than anything, I felt sorry for him. 
…It makes me feel like an asshole to admit that to myself.
That’s Satan from my time, though. This Satan… Where do I even begin? Trying to explain would be tedious, so I’ll just continue with the story and let you figure it out yourself. To recap, this was the situation: I’d spilled tea on his book, but the expression on his face made me feel like I’d been caught killing a kitten. Horror. Disgust. Disbelief. But most of all, rage.
His hands were on my throat before I could get a word out. So we’re back to where I was before this little tangent, when I said: Satan scared me. I was scared. Part of me knew that this wasn’t actually going to be how I died. I’ve been assaulted and almost killed by demons too many times to count. Maybe I should have been used to it by now. But the panic that set in when I couldn’t get air to my lungs, and when I looked into his green eyes, clouded over with fury, and when I felt his hot breath on my face, like I was staring down a raging bull–
You don’t get used to that.
My eyes were watering and my chest was burning and I was clawing at his hands, and as darkness swept over us, I thought that maybe I really was going to die like this.
But then, the hands were gone, and I fell onto my knees, sputtering and wheezing as my pulse thundered in my ears. It was only after a few seconds of steady breathing that I realized my hands were touching a cold stone floor. Wiping my eyes, I looked up. I was in a dark hallway lit with only torches, with divergent pathways splitting off in a variety of directions. It was musty, and damp, and my skin felt clammy, but there wasn’t anything new about this place. Not for me, at least.
“What happened?” Satan’s alarm seemed to have overridden his anger for now. He looked up and down the hallway, peeking down a few of the off-branches, before turning to me again. “What did you do?”
I made a weak attempt at answering, but the instant I inhaled to speak, my throat stopped working, and I burst into a frenzy of dry coughs, gripping my burning chest and neck.
Satan tsked and turned away from me uncomfortably, looking the hallway up and down again. Something seemed to catch his eye at the same time that I caught my breath.
“I don’t… know what happened, but…” I wheezed, and Satan cast me a sharp glare over his shoulder. “I know where we are. This… is the labyrinth… under the Demon Lord’s castle.”
There followed a fresh fit of coughing, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t playing it up somewhat at this point. I wanted him to feel bad. I wanted to see some flicker of guilt on his face. The Satan that I knew was at least capable of that.
“Would you stop that?” was all this one said to me. “I have a headache. And I know where we are. I lived here for a year, or did you forget?” He reached down and picked something up from the shadows by the wall. It was the tea-stained book. He turned and held it out for me to see, silently gloating in this evidence that, whatever had happened, the tea fiasco was related, so this whole thing was really my fault.
Satisfied by my silence, he approached the nearest torch and held the book up to the light. "Mysteries of the Demon King's Castle," he read off the cover. "Now equipped with easy-to-use pocket dimensions, giving you a fully immersive experience– dammit !”
He stopped reading and hurled the book down the hallway, out of sight.
“...I didn’t realize pocket dimensions were unlocked with tea,” I muttered sullenly. “Why did you leave a book with transdimensional charms on it lying on the floor?”
I thought it was a sober, reasonable question, but based on what I could see of Satan’s face, he disagreed. As he turned on me, he suddenly seemed taller than I remembered, so much so that he blocked out the torchlight. “Are you saying this is my fault?”
I couldn’t see what kind of face he was making in the dark, and I was glad about that as I backpedaled somewhat. “I’m… I’m just saying there’s fault to go ‘round!”
That didn’t seem to do much to quell his mounting annoyance. I wasn’t entirely sure what he was angry about at this point. The spilled tea? The wet book? The pocket dimension? The suggestion that he might be partially responsible for our current predicament? All I knew was that there was a dark energy stirring around him. It wasn’t out of control yet, but I took note and stepped back.
“...This is stupid,” he finally mumbled. That illusion that he was taller than before had ended, and he was the same stature as always as he walked in the direction he’d tossed the book. “I’ll get us out.”
I stayed where I was, rubbing my sore neck, and stared into the darkness after him. The sound of footsteps slowed. Everything was silent.
Then the sound of footsteps picked up again. Rapidly. Satan was running back in my direction, and chasing him was–
“Cerberus?!” I was running before I had time to think I should be running. “What’s he doing here?!”
“Shut up!” Satan said rather unhelpfully. Then he made a sudden turn, and I nearly tripped over my feet skidding to a stop and running after him. I made a grab for his hand, just to have something to keep us from being separated in the dark, but he hissed like the touch burned him and pulled it free again. 
Now, I was starting to feel pretty angry too.
“Why are we running?” I snapped between pants. “Isn’t that your dog?”
“Lucifer’s,” was his terse reply. “Stop following me. If we split up, at least one of us will live.”
“Are you being serious?” I struggled to keep up my pace while giving him a look of appropriately scathing incredulity.
Satan didn’t appreciate my expression, because he refused to look at me. He kept running, eyes trained forward, gritting his teeth. “I don’t know! I need a minute to think! So shut up!”
Fed up with him, I picked up my pace with the last of my flagging strength and shoved him bodily into a crevice. He was so shocked that for a few seconds, while he was reattaching his jaw to his skull, I was able to take his own advice and assess the situation clearly. No running like a lunatic. No accusatory jabs. Just me and my thoughts… And that was all I needed.
It was incredibly simple. Cerberus was here because Cerberus wasn't really here. This pocket dimension was designed for the book it came with, so it goes to figure that the creatures living in it were little more than illusions.
“How dare you–?”
Satan had recovered his senses and looked ready to lunge at me, so I sidestepped out of the crevice and into the path of the other beast.
“Wind and fire, heed your master’s call!” I shouted. The wind began to whip fiercely around me as the torches blazed. I never got tired of this. It was badass every time. But I didn’t have time to appreciate the theatrics. Cerberus had just rounded a corner and was loping towards me, all three jaws snapping. “Vile illusion! I cast you back into the darkness!”
The wind blew so violently that I could barely keep my balance, and from the sound of a thud and a hissed “damn!” behind me, it seemed like the wind was even less considerate of Satan. But in front of me, the gale seemed to blow the image of Cerberus away. The wind rushed, the torchlight blazed, and in seconds, the creature had vanished completely.
The air settled down and the torches dimmed to their usual brightness. In the absence of the howling wind, every sound was intensified. My heavy breathing. Satan’s heavy breathing. His voice behind me when he rasped, “What…?”
“It wasn’t real,” I answered breathlessly. “Just… an illusion.”
“What…did you do?”
I turned around to face him, only to find him on his knees, fists clenched on his thighs. I wilted somewhat. I hadn’t meant to draw power from him, but he was right there, and the illusion had been so intense…! 
“I…guess I had to borrow some of your power to banish the illusion. It- It wasn’t intentional…” I started to stammer out the best excuse I could pull from my ass, but then he looked up at me. His eyes flashed dangerously, his teeth were bared, and the sound he made was more like a snarl than a voice.
“This is my body! You can’t use it! You can’t, you can’t, you can’t! I’ll kill you!”
As enraged as he was, he was too weak to do much about the situation. I mumbled an apology, taking a step back. Satan kept muttering curses under his breath, head bowed, and before long, I’d pushed his words out of my mind. It wasn’t like this was the first time one of the brothers threatened to kill me, and it wouldn’t be the last.
Fatigued from my own burst of mana output, I shut my eyes, slid down the wall, and sat on the floor, running a hand through my hair as I exhaled. We would be fine now, I reassured myself. Satan would blow off his anger, and we’d figure out some way out of here. Leaving a pocket dimension should be relatively simple. Even if that failed, at the very least, Lucifer or Solomon would figure out how to rescue us. Right… All we had to do was…
......
I didn’t remember falling asleep, but then again, who does? When I woke up a short time later, stiff and sore against the stone wall, I was alone in the hallway.
“Satan?”
My voice echoed in the stone passage, and I reflexively shuddered. How many creepy things have chased me down these halls? Sure, this one wasn’t the real thing, but… what else besides Cerberus might be waiting in the wings?
It took some courage for me to shout louder. “Satan!”
Nothing.
I groaned. Loudly, too, just in case he could hear it. That bastard. My head reeled as I forced myself back to my feet. There was no way he would have just walked off into this maze without me, was there?
…Was there?
A nervous knot was growing in my stomach. “Satan, if you can hear me, you’d better say something!”
“Something.”
The voice came from directly behind me, and I shrieked. It was an ugly shriek, and it was loud, and when I turned around indignantly, I saw Satan. That asshole. He stood watching me with an irritating expression of self-satisfaction, and in his hand, he held the damn book that started all of this in the first place.
“So you’ve decided not to kill me?”
It was a stupid thing to say, and I knew it wouldn’t do anything besides annoy him, but I was embarrassed and I wanted to wipe the smug smirk off his stupid face.
It worked.
“Don’t you ever get tired of asking such irritating questions?” he snapped. “I was going to tell you I’ve found a simple way to get out of this nightmare.” He started thumbing through the pages, which smelled strongly of green tea.
One haphazardly sketched pentagram later, we were both standing in Satan’s room. A quick glance at my D.D.D. confirmed no time had passed during our little excursion to the illusory labyrinth. Thoroughly drained, I sighed and plopped down onto the floor with a bump. Three precariously stacked books proceeded to fall and hit me on the head, one after the other, like this was some sort of Looney Tunes skit.
“Careful!” chided Satan, steadying the stack. “You’ll start an avalanche, and I don’t have the patience to deal with that today! I have a headache.”
As I stood up, he flopped down on his bed, his back facing me. I stared at him for a few long seconds, then sighed. I could no longer repress a smirk.
“Want me to get you some tea?”
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This was something I wrote while I was developing Let's All Be Shadows. It's a little sillier tonally. While I'm finishing Chapter 19, I figured I'd post this here, since I realized I hadn't done that yet.
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devastatedloyallute · 5 months ago
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Chapter 3 of Bigger Than The Whole Sky -GuitarSpear Fic
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Chapter Summary: Adam and Lute spend the day with little Abel Read here on AO3 💕
“But yeah, that’s that story, ya happy now?” Adam asked as he scooted closer to Lute.
“That does clear that up,” she draped her arm over his shoulder, pulling him in. “You good? Something else on your mind, Sir?” 
“Ya know, this wasn’t it but it’s pretty fucking weird you keep calling me ‘Sir’ even when we aren’t on the job, Babe,” he muttered into her chest.
“And you calling me ‘Babe’ even though you tend to call nearly every woman babe, isn’t?” She smirked, curling a bit of his hair around her finger.
“...yeah okay, fair point. Anyway, I fuckin’ love you. I’m so fucking scared to lose you. I’ve somehow fucked up every legitimate relationship I’ve been in. I mean yeah, before you came along, I’d messed around with angels and stuff. There was that one and only time Sera let me down on Earth, and I fucked around with human ladies...yeah she wasn’t impressed with me on that one. But none of those were genuine feelings, you know?” Adam recounted his times as Lute petted his hair down, “I didn’t want to let myself get feelings for fucking anyone. Didn’t need to go through heartbreak in fucking Heaven, am I right?”
He looked up at her with soft eyes, “But when I met you, things felt different. I wanted to force those thoughts and feelings away. You climbed those ranks and soon you were appointed as lieutenant. I figured I could do one of two things: either give in and try to swoon you, or push you away. Can’t get rejected if I never try right? To be real, trying to push you away only backfired.”
Lute looked a little taken aback. “You were pushing me away? Couldn’t tell,” she shrugged.
“Me being an asshole seemed to only pull you in, you crazy bitch. You’re a masochist or somethin’, Babe,” he cupped her cheek and booped her nose with his thumb.
“What really makes you different is that you’re everything they were but better. I’m not afraid to pester you, and if I do go too far you put me in my fuckin’ place. You don’t take shit, and can dish it out. We have practically the same humor, we can bully each other but know it’s not serious. But we also have these soft and sensitive times. Not to mention our awesome as fuck sex life. You’re a kinky bitch,” he grins as he kisses her. Lute wraps her arms around his head as they kiss, breaking for air only to go in again. With smiles on both their faces, this truly was paradise.
“You know, I’ve got some insecurities too, now seems to be the time to voice them,” Lute brushed her now messy bangs out of her face.
“I just spilled my guts, so go for it, Babe,” he leaned back, ready to listen.
“It’s nothing spectacular, just that even though I’m well respected among the exorcists, I can’t shake the feeling of being outcasted. Not that I don’t get along with the others, but there’s this weighing feeling of judgment from them.”
“Eh, they’re just fuckin’ jealous of your position.”
“That’s just it, it’s not just that. I’ve heard them whisper about how I’m ‘the bosses’ favorite’.”
“Fucking true though-” He chirped, only to be met with a glare from Lute.
“You’re all I’ve got, Sir. Because of my position, and our status, the other exorcists are…intimated. So it’s been difficult to make…friends,” Lute appeared dejected. Adam sat up and scooped her into his lap. 
“Aw, don’t be down, Lute. You’ve got me and I’ve got you, who needs anyone else?” He squeezed her and nuzzled his forehead to hers. She nuzzled him back and kissed his cheek.
Someone had initiated a tickle war. There was a dramatic *THUD* as that said someone hit the floor.
Lute tried to catch her breath, recovering from the laughing fit brought on by Adam flinging himself off the bed. 
“You okay?” She managed to chuckle out, wiping the tears from her eyes.
“Hah, fuck, yeah, yeah I’m good,” he huffed out as he brought himself to the edge of the bed.
“Hey, did you ever get an answer to what happened to Abel? Is he in Heaven or not?”
“Yeah, he’s up here. Like how the fuck do you forget about the kid running around up here somewhere? How they managed to keep him a secret is beyond me.”
“So, where is he?” Lute questioned as Adam crawled up onto the bed rubbing the back of his head.
“He’s uh, now he’s in that district where the young kids go. Kids who died from neglect and shit. It’s basically a giant playground daycare sorta place. Emily decided she really didn’t want it looking like a school ‘cause it wouldn’t be the best memories for the ones who were killed in those shitty fucking school shootings. They still learn a few things but yeah it’s mainly a playplace,” Adam said as he awkwardly fixed his pajamas and straightened his feathers.
“...Have you ever gone to see him?”
“I did, once…It was a few years after I got here, I had just learned that he was up here. I hadn’t really thought he’d be up here since I was told I was the first human here, so when Sera told me, I went to go see him. When he saw me though he was terrified. I tried to be like ‘hey it’s me, your dad!’ only for him to make the saddest fucking face I’d ever seen and his little voice go ‘You let me die.’ It felt like being stabbed, set on fire, then thrown down an endless pit. It fucking sucked. I already had to bury this kid, just for him to also blame me for his death in the afterlife,” Adam faceplanted himself into his pillow with a groan. 
Lute pat his back in an attempt to comfort him, “It’s been a while, maybe you could try seeing him again? He’s eight, I don’t think he’ll have held a grudge this long.”
“Ughhh but what if he has? What if he doesn’t even want to see me? I have ultimately failed as a dad. You don’t know the pain of being rejected so coldly by your own kid. That shit stays with you,” Adam whined, turning his head to look at her. “You gonna come with me?”
“Of course, Sir. We don’t have any meetings tomorrow so we can go then,” she plants a small kiss on his temple. He groaned in response. Of course, he would want to see his son again, but doesn’t want to feel guilt tripped again. “Let’s get some rest.” 
---------------------------------------------------------------
Coming up to the entrance, the large sign read ‘Heaven’s Forever Daycare’. Adam shoved his hands into his pockets, still regretting letting Lute convince him to do this. Lute brushed her hand over his arm in reassurance.
“Don’t worry, Sir. The important thing is you’re here. I’ll do the talking. Come on,” Lute lead the way into the building, with Adam cautiously following her inside. At the desk stood an angel whose name tag read ‘Elle "L" - Nanny’, their clothes were covered in stickers, presumably from the children.
“Good morning, we are here to see Abel,” Lute said as she stepped up to the desk.
“Good morning, ma’am. Unfortunately, you will have to be a little more specific. We have about 30 ‘Abels’ here. Last name?” The nanny smiled politely at her.
Lute looked over to Adam who had his back turned to them, fiddling with the horns of his mask, and his feathers ruffled. She sighed and looked back at the worker, “There isn’t a last name. The first man, Adam’s son, that Abel.”
The angel looked past Lute at Adam, giving him a look of concern, “Ah, I see…one moment.”
Lute stepped back to console the anxious Adam, “You should probably remove your mask, Sir. He might not be able to recognize you with it.”
Adam removed his mask with a sigh, “Fuck…yeah, yeah you’re right. Fuck, I already hate this.”
A voice cried out “DAD!” followed by running footsteps. They turn to see a small boy with soft brown hair and golden eyes, running at them with arms held wide. Abel stops short of the pair, startled by Lute. 
“Wait, who are you?” He tilted his head at her in confusion.
Lute knelt down to his eye level, “I’m Lute, your, uh-” she glanced over at Adam, looking for an answer, only to be given a confused shrug. “Uh, I guess sort of like a stepmom? Sure, we’ll go with that.” She fumbled her way through that sentence.
 “Stepmom? That’s so cool!! I have a mom again! Wait, mom would be confusing ‘cause I used to have one of those…can I call you mama instead?” He asked as he hugged her enthusiastically.  
Lute fought back the tears that threaten to fall that sting at the corner of her eyes. ‘ This kid is adorable, ’ she thinks. “Uh, sure, buddy, Mama works,” she pat his head, looking over his features, “You look so much like your dad, it’s uncanny.”
Abel stepped toward Adam, looking up at him expectantly with his arms raised. Adam took a deep breath and picked his son up, “Hey kiddo, so…you still mad at me?” 
Abel shook his head, “No not anymore, Dad. I’ve learned a lot of things and one of those is forgiveness. People make mistakes, they’re just human after all. Sometimes all they need is a second chance, right?” 
Adam and Lute look at each other wide-eyed, sharing the same thought,  ‘ Oh shit, we are gonna be horrible parents to this kid. He’s too pure. ’ 
Abel wrapped his little arms around Adam’s neck and Adam put his hand on his kid’s back, “Thanks kiddo. Hey wanna go back with us? Or maybe just spend the day getting caught up and you can get to know your new mom?” 
Abel looked to the nanny as if asking if it were okay to go with them, to be given a nod in response. He spotted his friends in the distance, them watching him with his dad. “Yeah but…I want to come back here. I can’t leave my friends, dad. They don’t have their moms or dads here with them. But sometimes one of their parents will come to get them, and then they don’t come back. We all miss them when they leave. We know they are with family again but we never see them again. It’s really sad.” 
Lute comes to stand beside them, “Okay buddy we can do that, if you want to stay here we can always come and visit if you’d like.”  Abel nods in agreement and pulls out his fist, and Lute returns the fist bump. The kid’s eyes lit up and a smile grew on his face. 
“Here, take this for a sec,” Adam said as he handed Abel to Lute so he could put his mask back on. Abel giggled as he's passed to Lute. “So where ya wanna go, squirt?”
No response. 
“Hey? Hello?” Adam made confused faces, waving his hand over the kid’s face to get his attention.
Lute chuckled, “He’s watching how your mask changes”  
“Ooh yeah that tracks, it’s pretty fuckin cool, huh?” Abel nodded in amazement. “So now will ya tell me where you wanna go? The zoo? Ice cream shop? Anywhere, you name it.” 
“Oooh, ice cream! Ice cream!” He chanted.
Adam put Abel on his back, “Aight, hold on tight kid. You ever flown before?”
The kid shook his head. “Nuh-uh, my wings are too small,” he pouted.
“Well, you’re gonna now, at least as a passenger anyway. Get ready for the coolest time you’ve ever fuckin’ had!” With the flap of mighty wings, they were off. 
Heading to the ice cream shop, Adam made a loop in the air, only for Abel to have slipped off half way around. “OH SHIT” Adam mid-panic, managed to grab him quickly, “Whoops, you fucking good, kiddo?”
Abel stared up at his father with wide eyes, clearly shaken, “Y-yeah. That was scary. Fun, but scary. Please don’t do that again.”
“Holy fuck. Trust me little man, that was not planned. Fuckin’ gave me a heart attack.”
Lute hovered close by, disappointingly reminding herself, ‘ Boys will be boys. Boys will be boys .”
---------------------------------------------------------------
Back at home, they ordered pizza and wings for dinner. Sitting at the kitchen table, Adam asked, “So bud, did you have fun today? Anything we forgot?”
“Yeah I did have lots of fun. But I do have a question. The adults won’t tell me, but you’re my dad so you would know, right?” Abel questioned as he bit more of his pizza slice.
“Yeah! I know everything, hit me,” Adam boasted as he stuffed a wing in his mouth and pulled it back out clean.
“Where did mom and brother go? Why aren’t they here in Heaven with us?”
Silence. 
“Uh, well…Um…” Adam fumbled his hands around trying to form the way to word things. “Well, ya see…There are good people, and then there are not so good people. The not so good people go to a different place. So..” He shrugged, hoping to drop this topic.
Abel furrowed his brow and frowned. After a bit he asked, “Can we go visit them?” 
Lute put her hand on his shoulder, “Sorry buddy, we can’t do that.”
 “They’re probably not there anymore anyway,” Adam said under his breath not so quietly, which got met with a glare from Lute. 
“What does he mean, mama?” Abel looked at her with pleading eyes, hurt and confused.
Lute searched her mind for a way to answer without saying, ‘ We go down and purge the bad souls on a now bi annual schedule.'  That’s not a good idea.  “That place is full of violence, bad people killing just because they can. They could have fallen by any of those people. It’s not safe down there.” 
Adam realized her little lie and chimed in, “Yeah and there’s also this curse that clears out random souls who have been there for years and years. So that Hell doesn’t get too crowded. There’s a lot, and I mean a lot, of bad, horrible fuckin’ people who go to Hell every year.”
Lute shot him a look of disbelief as if to say, ‘ that was a little on the nose, don’t you think? ’ 
Abel remained quiet for a while. “I guess that does make sense. Not everyone comes to Heaven…So there has to be a place for the others to go. But what if there’s some people in Hell who only made small mistakes or just one big mistake? Can’t they eventually be forgiven for them?” 
The pair look at each other with unease. They need to find a way to get off of this topic and fast. It was very uncomfortable. Kid is spouting facts but they go against their entire job and everything they believe in. The silence was becoming deafening, what could they say that would be convincing enough to change the topic?
“How ‘bout we watch a movie?” Adam clapped his hands together, “When the movie’s done we can bring you back to the playcare.”
“Okay! Any movie? Even if I’ve watched it before?” Abel was practically bouncing in his seat. Adam and Lute shared a quick sigh of relief.
“‘Course! So whatcha wanna put on?” Adam, pleased with himself for changing the topic. 
“All Dogs Go To Heaven! I’ve only seen it once, the caretakers didn’t want to put it on again for some reason. I really liked it though! Charlie was a bad doggy, but he sacrificed himself for a little girl and got a second chance to get into Heaven!”
 Lute and Adam shared the same agonizing thought. ‘ It’s gonna be a long night. ’
“Oh you know, Hell is mentioned in the movie but I never thought it was real. Just a movie thing, but now I know that it's not. Maybe that’s why they wouldn’t play it again…But I really enjoyed it!” Abel realized.
As the movie ended, Adam got up to stretch. ‘ Yeah I can see why they didn’t wanna fucking play that movie again. Yeesh. Fuckin’ tear jerker ending though, damn. ’ Turning back to look at Lute who was picking up the leftovers from dinner, “What did you think, Babe?”
“It was…definitely something. That dog showed great loyalty, I respect it.” 
“Yeah! He became a better dog and got to go back to Heaven! Now do you think bad people can change?” Abel bounced with his little fists balled in excitement.
“Eh it’s just a movie, kiddo. It ain’t real. Anywho, you guys ready to go?”
“Mama, will you carry me this time? I don’t wanna fall again.”
“Come on, I said I was sorry!” 
“You actually didn’t, Sir,” Lute came over to join the two, turning the TV off. “We don’t have to fly there if you don’t want to, can always walk.”
“Oh okay! Let’s go! I can’t wait to see my friends and tell them what we did today!”
“Sheesh, kid, how do you still have so much fuckin’ energy?” Adam watched as Abel bounced on his toes, just raring to go.
Coming back to the daycare and checking in again with Elle at the desk, Abel gave the pair hugs before he ran off to greet his friends who were waiting for him.
“Bye Mama! Bye Dad! Come visit again!” Abel said as he waved them off. Lute and Adam wave back as they watch his friends look questionably at them. They wave goodbye to the nanny at the desk before heading home.
“Why did your parents bring you back? Did they not want to keep you?” One of the kids asked worriedly.
“No, no! I wanted to come back to be with you guys! I’m lucky to still have my dad but I’d feel bad ditching you guys. I don’t want to just leave and never come back,” Abel said as he waved his hands at his friends. “It’s okay! They’re gonna come visit when they can, they’re really busy with important angel stuff. He’s like a higher up, he’s so cool, my dad’s the best!”
---------------------------------------------------------------
Adam collapsed face first onto the couch, “That was fucking rough.”
“You’re telling me,” Lute said as she grabbed a drink for each of them from the fridge. She set his drink on the coffee table, and nudged him to move over so she could sit on the couch as she took a sip of her drink, “Being called ‘mama’ sure is a super weird feeling. You feel better now that you’ve reunited with Abel?”
Adam raised his head and pat the cushion, wanting to use her lap as a pillow, “You know, yeah. Today was mostly fun. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen any of my kids, but he hasn’t changed a bit. Well, other than the whole thinking sinners can be redeemed shit. He’s too smart for his own good. Gets it from me, ya know.” 
“Uh huh, of course he does, Sir,” Lute said as she ran her fingers through his hair.
“Are you for real sassing me right now, bitch?”
“Me? Whaat nooo, I would never,” she said with a mischievous grin.
“You are so lucking I’m so fucking tired.”
“Oh yeah? What would you do if you weren’t?” She cocked her eyebrow at him.
“...”
“Nothing? Giving me the silent treatment now?” 
Still no reaction. Was he really so tired he fell asleep already? 
“Hey, dick for brains. I’m gonna push you onto the floor if you don’t answer me.”
“...”
“Sir?” She leaned over him to check if his eyes are closed, “Adam?” 
He lunged at her, frivolously peppering her face with kisses.
“No! No more! Stop it!” Her retaliations fell on deaf ears. She laughed as she tried to push him off her but he held her down as he continued to bully her with his affections. 
“Nope, not gonna happen, Babe. You’re gonna get all these fucking kisses and you are gonna like ‘em,” he dove in to aggressively kiss her, but instead plants a soft kiss on her lips. “Betcha thought I was gonna do it again, huh?” He snuggled into her chest, making himself comfy. 
“We’re not sleeping out here on the couch. Come on, let's get ready for bed.”
“Mmh…no. Comfy here,” he mumbled against her. 
She rolled her eyes, and pat his shoulder, “The bed is much comfier, just have to get there first.”
Adam whined as he reluctantly rolled himself off the couch, “Alriiight…fine let’s go.”
The two once again head off down the hallway, going about their nightly routines, before laying down for the night.
---------------------------------------------------------------
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justcourttee · 10 months ago
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Dandelions-Prologue
A/N oh hey. it's been a while. care for a Dickinette AU?
Love at first sight always sounded so absurd to me.
An instant connection to someone you just met? The idea is so foolish that it sounds like some excuse a hopeless romantic made up to explain why they’ve never gone on a date before.
‘I just didn’t feel the sparks, you know?’
I, in fact, did not know. Nor did I bother to try and understand it. Love is fickle, the lines so blurry, so thin, that you never know where you’ll land until it’s too late to change your mind, much less your heart.
And while I couldn’t appreciate the concept when applied to relationships in reality, relationships in fiction were a whole other story. Watching two characters reach for the same piece of paper, eyes connecting while the rest of the world fades into the background, only leaving a longing to get to know this person right in front of them? It was something that never got old no matter how much time passed.
Rom-Coms, Shojo Manga, Soulmate AUs, Jane Austin.
From screen to paper, I’m obsessed, so much so that I began to write my own stories. But there’s one thing that’s been holding me back; I’ve never been in love.
Now I know how this sounds. Everyone tries to tell you that it’s not possible to never experience love, that there has to have been some unreachable crush, some first love, some friend that you loved much more than life itself, but I’m sorry to report that none of the above are true. Of course, I care for my brother and my best friends, but loving your friends doesn’t translate to the life-altering, reality-shattering love I want to write about.
I left college years ago, as the ever demanding job field insisted I needed higher education, I opted out for a couple of side jobs, using my free moments to sit in coffee shops and parks, anywhere I could watch love blossom and write down inspiration.
That’s how I met him. Dick Grayson.
Brew-tiful Day is one of my favorite spots to observe. The slightly overpriced coffee, the bumbling crowd of office workers, students, and hopeless romantics, the simple ambiance of it all just made for the perfect spot to write.
I was settling into my usual spot, my laptop booting up when the couch dipped so violently that I almost sent my fresh brew onto the three-day-old shirt I had dug out from the corner of my room. Scrambling to set down my cup, the weight beside me seemed to settle out, almost as if the person was trying to melt into the cushions.
The funny thing about watching romance movies play out is that when two characters unexpectedly sit on the same couch in the same coffee shop at the same time, I melt. When it happens in reality, I feel an intense sensation of existential dread.
The boy beside me must not share the sentiment, because as I go to move, trying to avoid any eye contact that may happen, he lets out the largest sigh humanely possible, so large that the pair of businessmen sitting nearby have resorted to glaring at us. Not him, Us. That’s all it takes for me to find my weight shifting back into the couch cushion. I can feel my brain scrambling at the speed of the words threatening to fall out of my mouth, unable to know where to go from here but desperate to fill the silence between us.
“What’s wrong?” It takes everything I have not to slap my hand over my own mouth. Word vomit. Usually, it’s only an impulsive thought that sits on the tip of my tongue, but not today.
His head lolls over in a manner that reminds me of a cat waking after a long nap, slow and lazy. He doesn’t appear to be appalled that I have spoken to him, but he doesn’t seem eager to spill it all either. If this was a movie-
I can feel the heat radiating off of my cheeks in waves. I just tried to drag this stranger into the rabbit hole of my obsession with love. The embarrassment of trying to recreate the moment that flashed through my head of two main characters having their first interaction together is crushing. For some reason, I feel the need to apologize and quickly.
“I’m sorry-”
“I’m in love with the woman I’m betrothed to.” His body remains frozen, his head still lolled in my direction, his arms still folded over his stomach, but one feature has become distinctly different. His lips have now moved only to find themselves pulled into a thin line that looks borderline painful.
The silence that followed was deafening. His eyes shifted over my face before fixing, sending an involuntary shiver down my spine. Unsettlingly deep blue seemed to stare past where my eyes were on my face, almost like they were looking for something that wasn’t present on the surface.
With a shaky breath, I can feel the words desperate to fill the space and reluctantly I let them.
“Is that a bad thing?”
Typically, this kind of meddling would be unheard of for me. When I go to Brew-tiful Day, it’s to sip mediocre coffee and observe. If someone were to even sit too close to me, I immediately would abandon ship in favor of a new seat or a new coffee shop altogether. Looking back on this day, if someone were to ask me to put into words how I was feeling, sharing a couch with this listless boy with unsettling eyes I don’t think a word existed for it in the English language.
All I knew was that I was inexplicably invested in any and everything he would be willing to tell me. Any and every look he would give me. Any and every sentiment that might follow.
He hums softly as if contemplating my question, but eventually decides it doesn't warrant an answer. Instead, he asks a question of his own, “What’s your name?”
“Marinette. And yours?”
“Dick. Dick Grayson.”
Dick never gave me an explanation. Instead, I watched as he slowly sat up, his spine unfurling one vertebra at a time, feeling as if the world was holding its breath for what came next.
“Marinette is such a long name. Can I call you Mari instead?”
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angelasscribbles · 2 years ago
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A Fervid Fixation Chapter 1: Pressurization
Series: A Fervid Fixation
Fandom: The Royal Romance
Pairings: Riley x Drake
Rating: MA
Warnings for this chapter: Language, Violence
Word Count: 2,817
A/N: This is from my follower appreciation prompt wheel event from November 2022. I told you guys I hadn’t forgotten about it!
A/N2: This was supposed to be a one-shot but of course, it got a little out of hand. Much like Drake in this one lol. This will be either a two or a three-shot I’m thinking. No plans for a whole series, just when I passed 5k words with no end in sight, I decided to split it up.
A/N3: This takes place during the social season but is a complete AU from anything else I’ve written. I’ve added/made up events that are not in canon such as the Derby Gala and the Capricorn nightclub (things you have seen in other series if you read all my stuff).
A/N4: You may recognize the opening sequence. I originally wrote it for this story, then stole it for chapter 4 of Unexpected, then stole it back because I had further ideas for it here.
My other stuff: Master List.
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This one came from @lovingchoices14 and the prompt was for Drake x dark x jealousy.
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Masquerade Ball…
“What were you doing with Liam in the hedge maze?”
The voice came out of the darkness, right in her ear, though she’d heard no one walk up behind her.
She spun toward the voice, prepared to fight. Her open palm swung out, but her arm was captured mid-swing.
A low chuckle accompanied the grip around her wrist, “Whoa there, Brooks. No need for violence.”
“Drake? Fuck! You scared the shit out of me!” Relief spilled through her followed by confusion, “Wait…what are you doing out here? How did you know-“
“Don’t change the subject. What were you doing with Liam in the hedge maze?” he asked again.
She jerked her arm free from his grasp, “None of your business!”
“Hmm.” His eyes slid down her body and she shivered.
She could damn near feel his eyes touching her physically, “What are you doing?”
“What do you mean?” He blinked and the physical weight of his gaze was gone.
She shook her head, maybe she had imagined it, “Nothing, never mind.”
The Derby Gala…
On the plane ride over, she’d said he was more her type than Liam, that she didn’t normally go for the stuffy, rich guys. Yet there she was, dancing and flirting with a roomful of them. Again.
He swirled the whiskey around in his glass as he watched her from the bar at the edge of the ballroom.
The more she seemed to be enjoying herself, the more agitated he became.
His mind replayed every flirty interaction between them, from the plane ride over to how it felt lying next to her in the snow in Lythikos.
When he had pulled her up from the ground and caught her in his arms as she stumbled into him, something inside had sprung to life and despite his best efforts since, had refused to die.
When she’d slipped her hand into his and proclaimed it was for safety, he’d told her that they should both be careful. He hadn’t been talking about the slippery walking conditions.
Inviting her to meet him in Olivia’s wine cellar had been a mistake. Wanting her was a mistake. Entertaining the notion that she might return even a small fragment of the feelings he harbored for her was tantamount to treason. The jealous rage that stirred in his chest when other men touched her, watched her, looked at her like they wanted to devour her was dangerous.
He knew that he absolutely, positively, most definitely should turn around and walk out of that ballroom. He should go to his quarters and mute his desire for her with good whiskey and bad porn.
If he had a fraction of common sense and self-preservation, that’s exactly what he would have done.
What he did was slam his glass down onto the bar, jump to his feet, and storm out onto the dancefloor.
“Excuse me, but I believe the lady promised me this dance.”
“Oh, I…uh…but-“
He didn’t give the young nobleman a chance to protest before he had swept her to the other side of the floor, out of his reach.
“What are you doing, Drake?”
“I’m cutting in, what does it look like?”
“I thought you said you couldn’t dance.”
“I said I don’t dance, I never said I couldn’t,” he mumbled.
“Okay…if you don’t dance, then why are you doing it now?”
He pulled her body tight against his own, his fingers digging into the small of her back, “You know why.”
“I…don’t…”
“Riley….”
Time stood still.
The use of her first name shocked her. His nearness clouded her judgment as they stood in the middle of the dance floor, not moving. The heat from his body as it pressed against hers, his scent washing over her, and the thump of his heart under her hand as it rested on his chest all conspired to make her temporarily lose her grip on sanity.
The feel of their bodies pressed so closely together left no misunderstanding about the state of his arousal. His arms wrapped so tightly around her telegraphed his need with perfect clarity. The pleading in his eyes as he stared down at her sent butterflies swooping through her stomach. In that moment, he was something she had never seen from him before.
Vulnerable.
Her hand moved to tangle in his hair. His body went completely rigid.
He leaned down.
She stretched up.
His lips stopped a fraction of an inch from hers.
She licked her lips and closed her eyes.
He stepped back and released her.
Her eyes flew open, “What are you doing?”
“We can’t….I shouldn’t….”
“Drake-“
He raked a hand brusquely through his hair, “Is this what you want, Brooks?”
“What?” She blinked up at him in confusion, thinking at first that he meant the two of them.
He gestured around the ballroom, “This? Fancy balls, expensive dresses, pretentious food… bowing and scraping to the nobility? Is this what you want?”
“Not exactly…”
“What do you want?” His gaze burned into her like he was searching for the answers to life itself.
“I…don’t know…”
“Well, figure it out, and soon, for all our sakes!”
“What does that mean?”
But he had already strode off the dance floor without answering her.
Capricorn Night Club….
Drake stood in the darkened nightclub chatting with one of Liam’s guardsmen, his eyes scanning the room, always on the lookout for her.
His eyes locked on her as she walked toward the VIP lounge in the exclusive nightclub Liam had dragged them to.
She smiled at him as she passed. A satisfied grin broke out across his face at the attention, his head turning to track her movements as she made her way from the main part of the club into the cordoned-off hallway leading to the VIP section.
A man that bore a passing resemblance to Liam followed behind her.
Drake’s head swiveled from Riley to the Liam look alike as his hand shot out and thumped into the dark-haired man’s chest, “Whoa there, buddy! Where do you think you’re going?”
“Oh, it’s okay!” the man pointed at the door Riley has just disappeared through, “I’m with the lady!”
A harsh laugh escaped him as he shoved the man backward, “Like bloody hell you are!”
“I don’t know who you think you are,” The man huffed, “but you can’t just-“
“I don’t know who the fuck you think you are-“
“My name is Nick, I’m a-“
“It was a rhetorical question, dumbass!”
“I’m a count! You can’t just-“
“I don’t give two fucks who you are! I’m the head of her security,” he lied, ”Your title means shit to me and you’re not getting in there!”
Nick’s face reddened as he insisted, “I was invited!”
Drake stepped into his personal space and jabbed a finger into the other man’s chest, “You don’t hear well, do you? I don’t care what she said or what she did, you’re not getting near her!”
“Oh, I get it…you like her! Well,” Nick brushed at his chest as if Drake’s touch had sullied it, “you might have a little crush, but she obviously doesn’t feel the same way because she invited me back to-“
Drake’s voice had dropped dangerously low as he emphasized every word, “I told you, I don’t care what she did. You’re not getting through that door!”
“Who’s going to stop me? You?”
Drake threw his head back and laughed. This mother fucker had no idea who the hell he was messing with.
Months of having to sit idly by while he watched Liam court her rankled inside him. Having to additionally watch as any wanker with a title was able to fawn and paw all over her had only pushed his ire higher. He was a powder keg ready to go off and this tosser had just given him an acceptable target.
“I fail to see what’s so funny-“ Nick’s words were cut off by Drake’s fist. Blood spurted out of his mouth and nose as he staggered backward.
Nick made the mistake of swinging back.
Drake ducked the sloppily thrown uppercut and rammed head-first into the other man’s chest, taking him to the ground in the process.
Four guardsmen pulled him off Nick while he rained punches down on him. As he was pulled from the other man’s body, he managed to deliver one last kick as he told him, “Stay the fuck away from her!”
“This…this is an abuse of power! Of your position! I could report you!” Nick spluttered as two other guardsmen helped him to his feet.
Drake stopped struggling and shrugged off the guardsmen as he drew an arm across his mouth. The smile that slowly crawled across his face was full of amusement and malice as he drawled, “Oh yeah? To whom? The crown prince? The man determined to marry her?”
Nick paled, his eyes shooting from Drake’s face to the guardsmen scattered outside the doorway.
He found no sympathy and no hope of an ally in any of their faces. His shoulders slumped in defeat, “I…I didn’t realize…”
“Come on, guy,” one of the guardsmen clapped him on the back, “let’s go get you an icepack and I’ll walk you out of here.”
“Jesus, Drake!” the young guardsman he’d been chatting with earlier shook his head, “What the hell was that?”
“Nothing, Marco. Sorry. I’ll see you later. I have something I need to take care of.”
Drake stormed into the VIP lounge with rage boiling through his veins.
He found Riley standing at the ledge that overlooked the dancefloor, chatting and laughing with yet another simpering self-important nobleman.
“Excuse us, please,” he gave the man a brief glance, then to Riley, “We need to talk.”
“About what?” she asked as she stumbled to keep up with his long strides, something she had to do because his hand had a firm grip around her upper arm.
When they reached a private corner, he stopped and spun her around to face him, “I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing, Riley, but it stops now!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” She jerked her arm away and rubbed the spot he had dug his fingers into.
“You know exactly what I’m talking about!” he yelled, “Flaunting that Nick guy right under my nose!”
“Not everything is about you, asshole! I’m allowed to make friends!”
“You knew damn good and well he was never going to get past Liam’s guard detail, so the only reason I can fathom for you inviting him to follow you back here is that you wanted to get my attention! Well, you’ve got it! So, what’s your game, Riley?”
“Oh, wow! You think really highly of yourself, don’t you? How was I supposed to know you’d be skulking around outside the door to the lounge?”
Drake reached for her, and she flinched away from him. All of the anger whooshed right out of him as shock and shame punched him in the gut.
Did she think he would hurt her?
“Riley…I’m sorry, I-“
“Is everything okay over here?” Liam’s eyes flicked back and forth from Riley to Drake in concern.
“Everything’s fine,” Drake said from between clenched teeth, “just tell your little girlfriend here not to be inviting strangers into the VIP area. It’s a hassle for the security team.”
Before Liam could answer, his phone chirped. He pulled it out and glanced down at the screen. His brows drew together in confusion then he looked up at Drake, “Did you assault someone trying to get into the VIP section tonight, Drake?”
“What?!” Riley gasped.
Drake’s eyes stayed locked on Riley’s as he shrugged, “Guy needs to learn to take no for an answer. He was sniffing around somewhere he had no business being.”
Liam rubbed his eyes with a sigh, “That’s what the security team is for, Drake. You should have left the guy to them, it’s literally their job.”
Drake’s eyes finally left Riley to give Liam his attention, “I’d say I’m sorry,” before sliding right back to Riley, “but I’m not.”
Liam noticed. “What the hell is going on between you two right now?”
“Nothing,” Drake scoffed, “Absolutely nothing. Right, Brooks?”
She returned his gaze defiantly, “You got that right!” Then to Liam, “Drake is just being extra annoying tonight.”
Liam touched Riley’s shoulder, “Excuse us for a moment?”
“Sure, I should go find Nick and make sure he’s okay.”
“Too late for that, Brooks,” Drake smirked, “He’s already been escorted from the premises.”
An exasperated cry escaped the back of her throat as she tossed her head and stomped her foot before storming away.
Liam watched her go then turned back to Drake, “Is everything okay with you?”
“I’m fine, Li! That guy just-“
“I’m not talking about him. Could you go a little easier on Riley? For me?”
“What?”
“She isn’t used to all these restrictions, Drake! She makes friends everywhere we go, she doesn’t mean anything by it. Remember the night we met her? She took four total strangers on a tour of the city!”
“Yeah, well…maybe she should learn not to be so trusting.”
“Perhaps. But still. Just dial it back a bit, all right?”
“Yeah, all right, okay, I’ll try to ease up a little.”
“Good man! Thank you!” Liam clapped him on the shoulder, “And you're sure everything’s okay with you?”
“I’m fine, just had a bad day. I’m going to go find some whiskey. That always helps.”
He was spiraling out of control and he knew it.
He was at the bar four shots in when he saw her approaching. He turned away from her hoping she’d take the hint.
She didn’t.
“Drake, what the hell was that about earlier?”
“Go away, Brooks,” he signaled the bartender for another drink.
“You can’t just go around beating people up!”
“I can and I will,” he finally turned toward her with the fresh drink in his hand, “if you were so concerned about that guy’s wellbeing, you shouldn’t have used him to provoke me.”
“I wasn’t using him to do shit! I just thought he was funny, and I wanted him to meet Maxwell!”
Drake threw the drink back, then stood up, “Whatever. I don’t have time for this. I have shit to do.”
“Oh, yeah? Like what? What do you do, Drake? Other than hang around and harass me?”
“I do things, Brooks,” he replied tightly as he tossed a handful of bills onto the bar top.  
“What things?” she challenged, crossing her arms with a skeptical smirk.
He tried to walk away but she was blocking his way. He stopped in front of her, “Things you don’t need to worry about!”
“Right. Because those things are nonexistent!”
“Is that all you care about? Career? Position?” he leaned closer, bringing his mouth to her ear as he whispered the last word, “Money?”
“I don’t care about any of those things!” She spat at him, “but dating broke, unemployed losers hasn’t exactly gotten me anywhere in life, has it?” She shrugged, “I’m trying something different right now, that’s all.”
He drew back. His jaw clenched. “Is that how you see me?”
“What?” Her pique drained away as her mind scrambled to catch up with the sudden change in his demeanor.
His feelings were hurt.
“A broke, unemployed loser?”
“No! That’s not what I-“
“It’s fine. I’m used to entitled stuck-up bitches looking down on me. Just didn’t expect it from you!”
She watched him walk away, a mixture of regret, fury, and frustration swirling through her.
The accusation stung.
The truth was, she’d been fighting her growing attraction to him since they’d met. But he ran so hot and cold, she had no idea how he felt about anything. Sometimes they got along. Most of the time he acted indifferent to her existence. Occasionally he was downright hostile to her. But then there were moments like Lythikos and the Derby Gala. Every time she thought she had him figured out, he did something that threw her a curveball.
He was frustrating, infuriating, and obnoxiously attractive. Every time he came close to her, her body ignited with an incendiary heat, one that she was sure she couldn’t, and shouldn’t trust.
Drake Walker was dangerous in more ways than one. He was angry, unpredictable, and confounding. He acted like a jealous boyfriend one minute and as if he barely liked her the next.
He was also intelligent and funny when he decided to let his guard down a little and show it. There were times when she suspected there might be an actual heart under all that bluster and sniping.
She utterly hated the fact that his mere presence provoked reactions in her body that she didn’t seem to be able to control and she was beginning to worry about just how much of a problem he was going to be.
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hope-to-hell · 1 year ago
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Fulgurite Dreams, chapter four: Stones Along the Path
Adrian Toomes x Reader. A little smut. Things are coming to a head.
———
(Hey, uh, Mr. T? What the fuck?
Listen, kid. I’ve seen you out there. And you could damn well use a second set of eyes.)
He’ll be okay. He will. He will. It’s just this moment to get through, this gasping wet red mist that catches on his lips and lashes, this not as bad as it looks. Promise.
That’s good, because you look like hell.
He’ll be okay with a few new scars that, given time, will catch on the furrows of his brow and be memorialized there. But tonight blood runs in rivulets down his face and he’s leaning back against the shower wall with his eyes shut tight;
Guess I’m not as fast as I used to be
his belly twitches beneath the spread of your fingers
and I know I said I was done with it all
and he shifts his feet
but it looks like it isn’t done with me.
and brings his hand up to cover yours.
It’s okay to worry about him, mind. He’s a tough sonuvabitch but he’s still just a man at the end of the day: a man who aches and bleeds, a man who’s gonna feel every scrape and bruise in the morning. It's okay if your words don’t come out right, if instead they manifest as a half-spoken can I just that hangs about your lips. He hears the meaning just the same. And what could be better now than his hand guiding yours around his cock, urging you to lean against him and so what if the angle’s off? You’ve got him here where the outside world can’t reach in, where it’s just you and him and the fading scent of copper.
Adrian—
Later, sweetheart. Now c’mere.
Dream about his eyes rolled back. Dream about all the many thoughts that spill like ribbons from his eyes, his mouth, his ears; he whispers none of this is real but all of it is true. He’s tangled in velvet and satin, throwing light in one moment and absorbing it the next. Wrap him in leather, in raw skin still slick with blood and fat. Hold him close, even as he slips through your fingers.
I worry.
I know.
He swallows a strange small sound, a pebble in a deep well; he breathes harshly wet and for a moment his body is unfathomably heavy, leaning on you with the weight of worlds. But his head tilts back to thump against the tile and when he opens his eyes they cut like knives through the shower’s haze.
What are you gonna tell him?
The truth, mostly.
(Kid.
Yeah?
I’m gonna tell you a story, and you’re gonna listen.)
Is it really a secret if they both know?
(For a while, we were enemies. I hope that’s changed.)
If they were both remade by this strange new world, does that mean they’re kin?
(You shouldn’t hunt alone.
I’m not— what’s happening? I don’t get it. )
He stands in the kitchen with a knife in his hand. It’s a warning and a wager: I’m willing to bet these stars can change. He stands and smiles and draws the line: this is where I kill you for your secrets, and this is where I let it go. In his mind’s eye, he flicks the blade and watches close for where it lands.
(Wind’s shifted.)
One for glory. Two for grace. Three for blood and four for bone. Five to fly and six to fall. Adrian throws the dice.
That’s how it is, honey. I don’t like it either but I have to see this through.
(You can’t fight the whole world, kid. What are you gonna do when you have to take a life?
Maybe I won't have to.
And if you do?)
Bone shards reach skyward through his empty eyes; he breathes dust and oil and fuck, don’t let this—he’s okay, he’s okay, it’s gonna be fine — oh Adrian, honey, what have you done?
Same thing I always do, sweetheart: ride the updraft. He whispers thick wet secrets in your ear. It’ll be alright.
(Besides. What would Liz say if I let you do this on your own? Let an old man be selfish. Don’t make me disappoint my little girl.)
I need to put this right. Damn kid thinks he can handle this, but it’s gonna take more than a few webs and some smartass comments. I don’t want him to carry that weight.
Once upon a time, a man walked away from a black-market empire. He took his wings and left his crew earthbound, hungering after that last big job that would’ve made all their dreams come true, that would’ve weighed down their pockets for the rest of their lives. But the thing is,
(It’s like riding a bike)
hunger has a way of driving men mad.
Time to go hunting.
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mollypaup · 11 months ago
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(hi please read this collection of side stories from Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon, one of my favorite video games ever.)
Seven Colored Bells
I looked upon those seven girls no longer breathing.
I recalled the word “deathbed.”
In that bright white alley, they lay there lifeless. I didn’t think to explore the cause behind it.
Death cannot be overturned or reversed. It stays right where it is. It doesn’t go anywhere.
The only reason I spilled tears was because of the wretched shape I was in.
I had no memory of being loved.
Especially not at first glance.
The day they were welcomed into their homes, they were given heirloom bells. It proved that they were loved like family.
In all my days, I’d never been given a bell.
And yet here I was, alive, while these girls, who were supposedly loved unconditionally, were dead.
It might have been poison. Perhaps even disease.
Maybe I, too, would be whisked off by the cold wind of death.
Either way, I was alive.
A part of my heart scoffed, ‘Served you right. Just look at the evidence. You ridiculed me, and I survived. You paid the price of cruelty with your lives. Behold! I’m alive!’
But no matter how much I yelled, none of them opened their eyes.
And my tears didn’t stop.
As I picked up one bell after another off the floor, I swore to myself that I wouldn’t grieve over them.
Not after I’d endured such suffering my whole life. I had the right to mock their life and death.
The sound of the bells that were not mine echoed in vain through the air like the tolling bells of a funeral.
Red Bell Anri
Cough! Cough cough cough!
From beyond the tiny window, fitted into the side of the tiny house, a raspy cough could be heard.
There was a tiny bed in the room, where a tiny human child’s body lay resting.
"Honey, you know you have to get some sleep."
The scolding came from a tall woman who entered the room.She’d come to put out the lantern as she rubbed the boy’s back.
"No." he replied, shaking his head.
"I’m not sleeping. Anri might come back home."
"Oh, sweetie…"
The mother’s face was troubled. It was easy to see she knew something. She knew that the “Anri” the young boy was waiting for was not coming back.
"Anri’s coming back, I know she is! She always comes home. I gave her a red bell. She’s my little sister.”
Ah! So evidently, Anri was this little boy’s sister.
I continued to watch them in silence.
Thinking about the boy, I was reminded of Anri, who was even tinier than her poor, sickly brother.
Once, she came to visit her big brother.He was so pleased and overcome with love for her, that he gave her a red bell.
Although I was not there, I could picture the scene already.
"Well, if Anri does come, I’ll be sure to wake you."
"I know the sound of Anri’s bell better than anyone!"
Anri’s bell was small and red, but she was no longer with us.
Her red bell was only here because it had been stripped from her dead body.
As I looked up at the moon, I recalled the words "desecrating the dead."
What I was about to do was the epitome of spitting in the eyes of the dead.
That was exactly what I was doing.
I had already abandoned her corpse, and now I was adding another sin to my list.
But this was my revenge. It was the perfect thing to do. This was my revenge on her for calling me mangy.
I called to the boy in a delicate voice.
I rang the bell, the sign of his little sister that the boy claimed to know so well.
The window opened.
"Anri?" The boy called to me.
Yes! It’s me!
It’s me, Anri!
He stretched out his arms to embrace me.
"What happened to you? You’re all scruffy." he asked.
I looked nothing like the beautiful little girl he knew and sounded nothing like her either.
Only the red bell remained the same.
My revenge was secure.
I’m Anri. Anri, with her red bell.
The youngest little sister embraced by her brother’s small arms.
Blue Bell Fleur
"I just don’t get the boss these days."
Behind the mill, I heard two men talking. They wore matching white uniforms smeared with soot, while smoke seeped from the mouths on their young faces.
I snuck up to where their shadows touched the earth and eavesdropped from behind a pole.
"He missed the deadline again."
"And he smacked me just yesterday. Said I left the ashtray full.”
"Huh. If he didn’t dog us like that, he wouldn’t have anything else to do.”
"Heh, he said all we do anyways is smoke cigarettes."
"I just don’t get him."
"Boy, you said it."
There was the banging sound of a mallet.
Word had it this mill was built by the skilled, but eccentric, foreman.
He’d since taken on two assistants to make furniture around the clock. But the two men just idled their days away, breathing out an endless stream of white smoke.
"It must be you-know-what."
"Wouldn’t be surprised."
"Ask him."
"You idiot. He’ll do more than just box your ears if you do. I wouldn’t complain even if he ran me through the sander alive.”
"Ugh, you just can’t win with him."
"Boy, I’ll say."
And with that, they let out white sighs.
"It’s seriously been a month since Fleur went missing? Huh, I guess she’s not coming back."
"She probably finally had it with that barbarian, but I’m gonna miss how one look at her kisser and the boss’ mood would do a 180.”
That was as far as I overheard.
Stealthily, I did an about-face and skirted the wall of the mill. From my neck now dangled a blue bell. The symbol of this mill.
Today, I had come to be the boss’ Fleur.
Approaching the window, a loud voiced boomed from inside.
"I told you, it’s just not possible! You’re not making any sense, you dimwit!”
The sound of the receiver slamming down was coupled with wood being shaved.
My ears stood on end and trembles racked my body.
The words “run through the sander alive” danced in my head.
No doubt it’d hurt like mad.
I imagined it, looking down at the blue bell.
Does it hurt more than death?
Not having experienced either, I didn’t know, but dying probably hurt more.
At that thought, the trembling stopped.
It must’ve hurt Fleur a lot.
"I can’t do this anymore!"
This time, a piece of furniture flew out the window. Things were taking a turn for the worse.
I couldn’t control my shivers and the blue bell let out a ring. The boss turned his wrinkled, brown face in my direction and scowled.
I thought he’d look right through me with his muddy gray eyes. I didn’t have the beautiful body of Fleur at all.
I was terrified he’d say I wasn’t his lovely Fleur and would run me through the sander right then and there.
He suddenly swung his hand high.
The palm of his weathered, old hand was blistered, the skin like bark. I was sure he’d strike me, but instead his hand came up to cup my face.
His rough and powerful hand stroked my head so softly.
"You scrawny little thing."
His gruff voice was more like a groan. The way it trembled struck my heart.
Didn’t he doubt me?
Didn’t he see right through me?
Should I really let him continue stroking my head like this?
I was speechless as he took me in his arms effortlessly.
"Boys, get in here!" He yelled behind the mill.
"Quit your grumbling and get back to work! If you don’t want me to wax your heads, then polish me some new wood! And step on it!”
Despite being yelled at, the two men had twinkles in their eyes.
"The boss’ Fleur is back!" They hollered, hands in the air.
Unable to speak, the blue bell spoke for me with a tinkle. At that moment, I had won over her name.
I am Fleur.
Fleur, with her blue bell.
Petted by a hardheaded boss, I am a furniture maker’s beloved daughter.
Purple Bell Silvia
Dawn was just about to break and the subdued rays of morning light were finally spreading across the sky.
I was taking my time, strolling through the bustling scene of the early hours. The clamor hurt my ears.
Angry shouts rang from the main street, while flirts could be heard in the alleys. I avoided the hubbub on my way.
Just being in a foul place like this made me remember the life I’d led.
There was a shop with its door propped open. The music that wafted from within was not what you’d consider uplifting.
The sign by the entrance was half-shrouded in dark. The world “Silvia” adorned it.
"Boss, I think you’ve had enough." A sweet voice said from behind the bar.
The bartender was a long-haired woman in a sleeveless dress who was leaning against the wall.
"I know it’s up to you, but I think you’ve been hitting the bottle hard lately.” The voice was young and lilted, like that of a male cat calling to a female.
"I think it might not-"
"Rika."
A glass clattered hard against the bar’s surface, cutting her off.
Silence followed.
"Fine… Don’t listen to me, then…"
The girl behind the counter took the glass to fill it, but grumbled in disapproval.
"I’m just saying this out of concern for you. You look exhausted these days. And the last lady to run this place… Well…you know…”
"Rika."
Again the glass hit the counter.
A cigarette was lit.
"Once you’re done, you can leave for today."
"Whaaat?"
"Do you want me to fire you?"
The woman bristled with anger, but the girl named Rika only shrugged her shoulders.
"Don’t say that. If you deserted me, I’d be all alone.”
The glass she placed on the bar didn’t smell of the pungent alcohol. It was a white liquid.
"The last owner of this place died from alcohol poisoning. I don’t want that to happen to you. See you tomorrow.”
There was the sound of high heels approaching. I darted behind the sign.
"Huh?"
Rika looked up and down the alley bathed in morning light.
"Silvia…?"
I already knew who she was calling to by that name.
Rika gave a heavy sigh for the first time and dragged her feet down the dirty street.
It was only when she was finally out of sight that I made up my mind.
I’d never heard how Silvia had been brought up before she died. She was so shy and quiet, there wasn’t much to say about her. She was the one girl I didn’t hate.
But now I was going to steal her name.
At first, I thought it was revenge. It had to be.
Revenge against them for living better lives than me.
And it was revenge against my own cruel fate.
Step by step, I made my way through the half-open door into the shop and whispered, “Mama.”
The woman was slumped over the bar, the same as when Rika first left. She sluggishly hoisted herself up to look at me and shook her head as though she wasn’t sure what she was hearing.
I whispered once more.
"Mama."
That’s when her barren eyes, laced with crow’s feet, wrinkled in a squint.
"Oh… so it’s you." She laughed with tears in her eyes.
"You poor little thing… You look just the same as when you first came here.”
Something about how she said that made her sound like Rika.
"Where have you been? You’ve been gone for so long… What have you been doing with yourself?”
"Here, drink up. You can have this, it’s your favorite. I’ll give you whatever you need. Anything at all.”
"There’s a good girl," she cooed in a slow drawl, offering me the glass.
I wonder if Silvia was also served warm milk like this the first time she came here.
"I’m sorry," I whispered for the first time to myself.
I am Silvia.
Silvia, with her purple bell.
The little girl who was held close by Mama in a small downtown bar.
Yellow Bell Lotte
A tall human was watering the garden. His white shirt and black slacks were simple and clean.
"Teacher!"
As the two young children called out, a man who was watering the grass raised his head.
"Yes? Anything the matter?"
The man they called “teacher” kneeled down to peer at the young boy through his glasses.
"Teacher, when’s Lotte coming back?" The question came from the little girl.
Even from a distance, I could see the man’s face grow dark.
"Teacher, will Lotte ever come back?"
The little boy looked up expectantly, but their teacher could only furrow his eyebrows and purse his lips.
More children gathered, questions alight on their small faces. Their matching white shirts were tattered with use.
I could imagine that Lotte, too, had joined this circle with her signature yellow bell.
The young children didn’t appear to have parents. They lived in the big, plain house with the man they called "teacher."
"Well, what’s taking her so long? She’s gone away before, but…”
The teacher murmured and excuse, but the children wouldn’t be soothed.
"We wanna play with Lotte again."
"M-Maybe Lotte’s sick."
"Maybe she’s hurt."
"I bet she misses us."
"She must miss us!"
As worry spread among the children, the teacher asked them a question.
"Let me ask you. Does it make you sad to think that Lotte’s lonely?”
"Of course."
"We miss her!"
The teacher nodded and continued. "Then, if Lotte knew how you missed her, it’d make her sad. Right?” His voice was gentle.
As I watched from a distance, I hesitated momentarily.I knew that the yellow bell that Lotte possessed was from this orphanage, which was why I’d come. But I couldn’t imagine that she really had a family in this place.
Would anyone care if she were gone?
Their worries now put to rest, the children returned to their games. But one girl lingered behind. A freckled girl with curly hair.
"But…we’re all…" The girl mumbled, looking down at her feet.
"We’re all still sad even if Lotte isn’t lonely."
The teacher put his hand on top of the girl’s head.
"I supposed there are some things that can’t be helped."
"I know what you do at night!" The girl blurted, looking at him hard.
"If you really felt it couldn’t be helped, then you wouldn’t be out searching for Lotte every night after we’ve gone to sleep!”
The teacher quickly put a finger to his lips. "Everyone’s worried enough as it is."
"But now I’m more worried about you, Teacher!"
The man simply nodded with a sad smile at the girl’s words.
"I know that. And I’m sorry."
Then, with the hose still in hand, he looked at the sky and spoke aloud. "Between you and me, I’m not all that worried about Lotte. I’m sure she’ll survive outside these walls.
"All that matters is that we all considered her family. I’m sure she wants to treasure those words too, because the family we made here is the only one we’ve ever had.
"As far as I’m concerned, we’re Lotte’s family, and as long as she knows that, everything will be okay.
And to be honest, I believe that Lotte will return someday.”
Night came and the lights in the orphanage winked out. I slowly crept out from the shadows that spread before the orphanage.
The moment the teacher saw me, he stopped in his tracks.
The light from the full moon completely transformed me.
I rang the bell, knowing it was all I could rely on.
"Lotte… Is that you?"
Yes, yes. It’s me, Lotte.
"So then, does this mean you’re ready to come back to our home?”
But of course. If you’ll have me, that is.
Back at the orphanage, the freckled girl was trying her best to calm the children who were crying from the teacher’s absence. For days now, she’d taken his place guarding them at night.
Holding the young girl to him, the teacher announced my return to all the children, to all the family.
I am Lotte.
Lotte, with her yellow bell.
A gentle member of this orphanage with a bigger family than anyone could ask for.
Orange Bell Bisque
Everyone in town called the old writer who lived in this house a weirdo.
The house was old-fashioned, and the walls seemed weighted with history. So little care and upkeep had been done to the place, it wouldn’t be a stretch to call it a dump.
The front door was always open, and not because it wasn’t locked, but because there was no lock at all.
Some would think that an invitation to burglars, but the place was such a mess that you’d lose all interest in stealing the moment you stepped inside.
The house reflected its owner; an oddball, aged and in disarray.
And this day, that oddball writer was laying in the middle of his hallway.
For a moment, I thought he was dead, but every once in a while his finger would twitch, betraying signs of life.
The bones in the back of hands stood out, gnarled under paper-thin skin, but his slicked-back hair looked young. The black-framed glasses he habitually wore had stayed on, even after his fall.
He’d probably worn those glasses so long that they were a part of his very being.
And there he lay.
Weaving my way through the filth and the clothes and the furniture, I entered the house, and he didn’t even notice.
"Bisque…" He called my name in a gravelly voice.
With each call, my body would shiver with surprise and the bell would ring.
It was a refreshing sound. The old man must’ve heard it, too.
He immediately leapt off the floor and turned his back to me.
"Not another step!" The man almost spat out.
"I don’t want you coming near me!"
And with that, he went back to the mountain of papers that buried what might have once been a desk. His hand never stopped moving as he scratched at his head.
Believe it or not, he’d call out, drop to the floor and do it all again.
I was thoroughly baffled, and so I sat in the corner of the writer’s room until night fell. The bell at my neck continued to tinkle lightly as I tilted my head.
Can this man truly be Bisque’s family?
I came to check up on him every few days, but each time he’d act just as wild and nonsensical.
When he wasn’t throwing himself on the floor, he was completely immersed in his writing. Disturbed by his unnatural behavior, I tried my best not to allow my bell to ring.
And so I stayed nestled in the corner, until I finally heard the sound of a pen sliding across the desk.
"Phew…" A loud sigh was immediately followed by a loud thud.
He’d fallen backwards off this chair.
"Finally. Finished."
The way he breathed those words sounded so unlike his usual crazed tone.
I lifted my head and the bell chimed to him gently.
With his back still on the floor, he let out a low moan.
"Oh, Bisque. Bisque, my dear…"
I was sure he’d yell at me to stay away again today, but instead he just lifted his thin, ghost-like arm and gestured to me.
Just as neared him with my careful, steady steps, he suddenly grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and dragged me down with him.
At first, I went stiff with fear, but then I heard the beating of his heart.
He gently closed his eyes and petted me.
"Ah, Bisque, is that you…? You’ve gotten so much thinner…since I last saw you.”
His bony hands were rough, but he petted me softly.
As I sat there, unable to answer, the beating of his heart became softer and softer. He continued to coo at me gently.
"Phew… Finally, I’m able to sleep…"
His last words sounded more like he was speaking them from a dream. As the hand on me never wavered, I finally realized.
My doubts were cleared.
I understood now that this was the orange-belled Bisque’s family.
And as I gently closed my eyes, I could feel the sound of my own heartbeat slowly melting free of its ice.
I am Bisque.
Bisque, with her orange bell.
The foster child who brings peaceful slumber to the master writer, whom everyone called crazy.
Silver Bell Chris
The silver bell wasn’t a particularly outstanding decoration, but it did ring the most beautifully.
I’d always wondered what kind of home such a lovely bell had come from.
It belonged to an old woman who lived alone without relatives, in a large mansion I’d never seen before.
"Madam, it’s time for supper."
"Thank you, dear."
"Madam, the lillies in the garden have bloomed. I’ve put them in this vase.”
"What a lovely scent."
"Madam, it’s started raining. Allow me to close the windows.”
"Yes, and draw the curtains, too."
The old woman was waited on hand and foot by her servants. She’d rely on their help as she sat idly in her chair, listening to her favorite music.
She’d even ask them to change out the records, but most of the servants seemed to genuinely adore their employer. But there was one thing the old woman would ask several times a day:
"Excuse me, but could you call Chris here for me?"
Later that same day…
"Oh, where is Chris?"
And again, even later…
"Please find Chris for me."
Though normally obedient, this one request was always met with hesitation.
"Madam, Chris is already…" The maids would start cautiously.
”Oh. Yes, you’re quite right.” the old woman would say, cutting them off.
"She’s not with us anymore, is she? Hmm… I’d nearly forgotten…” She’d murmur with a nod, but not a few hours later, she’d ask the same questions again.
She had them stop her favorite record. "Oh, wherever could my darling Chris be?"
One rainy night, the mansion was in an uproar.
"Madam?"
"Madam!"
The servants dashed through the halls in a frenzy. Finally, one of the maids shouted in despair.
"Why can’t I find her cane?!"
Though it wasn’t too cold outside, the sheets of rain continued to pour relentlessly.
"She couldn’t have gone outside, could she?"
A chill passed over the gathered servants before they set out. They put on their coats and called for help outside.
I tore my eyes from them and made for the rain-drenched town.
Amidst the downpour, I smelled the sweet fragrance of lily. In the back lane of a park, far from the mansion, I made out the figure of the old woman.
She was surrounded by a crowd who moved and gabbed around her.
"C’mon, lady, you’ll catch your death out here. Maybe you should see the police.”
The old woman’s shoes and designer clothes were soaked through.
A man tried taking her by the hand, but the old woman refused to budge, her face adamant.
Fed up with her antics, the men finally left, leaving her behind.
I cautiously stepped just into her field of vision and without saying a word, rang my silver bell.
It rang clear through the rain.
The old woman raised her head sharply in surprise, her blurry eyes looking at me.
"Chris…?" The old lady rasped. I rang the bell again in a nod, and then turned around.
"Chris, wait! Wait for me!" Her cane clicked as she followed me.
I may not be able to carry her all the way to the mansion, but it’d be enough to bring her to her servants.
I stopped often to look over my shoulder, to make sure I didn’t lose her. The sound of that beautiful bell was a beacon.
At last, one of the servants noticed the old woman and shouted, “Madam!”
As she ran towards her, the old woman bent down to scoop me up and held me, trembling.
The servants weren’t able to hide their surprise, seeing how much the late Chris had changed upon her return.
Not one of them said that I wasn’t Chris.
Because the old woman called me so, the maids nodded in obedience, just glad that their beloved employer had returned home safe.
I am Chris.
Chris with her silver bell.
I’m the tiny, adorable Chris, loved by her grandmother in this grand mansion.
Pink Bell Maria I
I’ve gained so much.
Gentle hands and many, many new names.
Monday’s Anri.
Tuesday’s Fleur.
Wednesday’s Silvia.
Thursday’s Lotte.
Friday’s Bisque.
Saturday’s Chris.
And for just one day, I’m no one else but myself.
It was supposed to be revenge.
Revenge for the deceased girls who’d led a better life than I. With vengeance and blasphemy laid to rest, all that’s left is me.
A lie.
Before I knew, I began wondering about the future.
When? Tell me, when?
When will I fall in love?
Once I find someone who loves me, I’ll finally be given a name. Not just someone else’s substitute, but a name all my own.
That’s what I decided.
So then, why?
Why did I have to meet him?
He lived on a cliff face that looked down on the town. His features were considered striking, his posture regal. But those weren’t the only things that made me stop in my tracks.
I didn’t really need a reason.
Because to him, it didn’t matter what bell I put on. Nothing would change the fact that I was nothing.
A bell with two stripes of light pink lay at his feet.
It didn’t belong to him.
The bell, like his love, was waste on the street. His features knew despair.
You could see the hollowness of death in his eyes.
No matter how much I stared or spoke, he never once looked back at me.
I gingerly pick up the rosy pink bell. Its soft sound should be enough to reach his ears, stir his heart and open his eyes.
Then, in a husky voice, he will speak in a tone drowning in emotion. He will call out the name of his past love.
"…Maria?"
And I’ll choke up with emotion, and smile as I say,
"That’s right. I’m your Maria."
And then, there won’t be any real “me” left in this world.
"Please. Tell me your real name."
I giggle softly and answer again.
"I’m Maria."
His brow will surely furrow as he snuggles close.
"That’s not your name. It can’t be."
But that’s the name of your beloved, right?
I loved you.
But the one that you loved was never me at all. You loved the real owner of this pink bell.
Imagine it, a rival whom even death couldn’t kill. The one woman he really loved.
I hated her, cursed her and stole her name and identity. And I’d do it no matter how miserable it makes me.
"Oh Maria! If we’d never met then I’m sure I’d have rotted away right on the spot!”
Those are the only words that can bring me salvation now. As long as you’re happy, then I’ll never need a silly name.
A storm was brewing.
The high winds that had been beating on the windows since morning gathered dark clouds and pelted the forest trees.
I leapt from the safety of the old woman’s blanket, raced through the town, and headed for the mountain cottage.
My old hideout.
I’d take a bell and think about the past each time I came here.
I go by many names now.
So whose ghost remains in this dreary mountain hut?
A brilliant flash of light, coupled with thunder, filled the sky. Every hair on my body stood on end. There was a tearing sound of wood splitting. Chills ran down my spine.
I quickened my pace without thinking.
A tremor crept down my back.
The scene that greeted me as I reached that hut was indescribable.
A massive cloud of smoked clogged my nose and burned my skin. The mountain was on fire, and the gusty winds helped spread the flames quickly.
In my panic, I dove into the hut.
The heat was as hot as stoked coals. But through the burning and stench, I knew I had to salvage my bells.
They’d been proof that the girls had lived and now they were the one place I felt at home.
I gathered the seven bells and made for my escape, but the hut entrance was already engulfed in flames.
I leapt through a broke window, feeling as through I was being burned alive. I could hear the destruction all about me.
Just outside the window was the cliff face. I jumped down from my perch, prepared to take the dive. Through it all, I kept the seven bells tightly held in my mouth.
Pink Bell Maria II
After falling unconscious, I awoke to the pattering of raindrops. I could still smell the mountainside burning, but the rain was now falling harder than before.
I knew I was far from safe.
Nestled close against the ground, I’d already lost the sensation in both my arms and legs.
I asked the heavens if this was punishment. Was this what I deserved for having taken the dead girls’ happiness as my own, in a twisted and shameless act?
"…!"
Through the ash-ridden world, a voice was calling me. No, that’s not my name.
And yet…
"Maria! Maria!"
Yes, the one calling me was none other than my beloved.
"Maria, hang in there! Don’t die on me!"
"Oh, yes!
My love! My one true love!
Don’t give up!” I whispered desperately. "Don’t give into the despair, please! Live!"
I thought that if he lost me, he’d never see his precious Maria again.
And it wasn’t just him.
Anri, Fleur, Silvia…
Lotte, Bisque, Chris…
They’d all been beautiful.
"Don’t kill me!" I shouted. "Please don’t kill the ones you love."
Trembling, I handed the seven bells over to him. "If you can, take these in my place. Just don’t let their loving families lose all hope."
He looked at me as if wanting to speak. Then, taking the bells with him, he turned and ran.
As his figure became smaller and smaller, it was eventually washed away by the rain.
I tried calling his name but couldn’t form the words. If I managed to speak, I might make the mistake of telling him something I could never say.
As I thought about how the cold rain would sweep away the fire along with my soul, I thought of the last person who’d considered me family.
I may not have been the one they loved, but I certainly loved the warm and gentle hands that touched me.
I lied and desecrated the dead, all for my revenge. And yet here I was, crying.
Here, on the brink of death, I’d come closest to those girls and could finally, truly cry for them. After all, you know how it is.
You must know, right?
All you wanted…was to live.
The rain washed the mountainside grey, draining the light from everything. I was cloaked in darkness and rain.
Then I heard the faint sound of a bell ringing.
At least I could tell that my ears were still working.
I focused my senses on the source. Then, just behind the sound, I heard footsteps and voices approaching.
"C’mon, Anri!"
I thought I was hearing things. It had to just be a memory enclosed inside that bell. After all, no one would call for me.
"Fleur!"
"Silvia!"
It can’t be… My eyelids fluttered.
Why…?
From beyond the falling ash, I could make out figures.
They circled around me.
The boy, the boss, Mama…
"Lotte!"
"Bisque!"
"Chris!"
No. The children…and the teacher.
The master writer, and Grandmother!
"No!" I tried to scream but failed.
No, don’t look at me!
You’ll see through my lies!
Don’t hate me! I was never the girls that all of you loved.
"We already knew that." was the reply from the one who used the seven bells to gather everyone here.
You snuggled close to me as I was wrapped in a warm towel. As you kept me warm, you dropped the seven bells.
"Heh heh. We already knew that. All along." He sounded on the verge of tears as he kissed my cheek.
"Don’t you see? The ones we loved weren’t the ghosts from the past.” His words forgave me.
"We all know you made up those lies to try and help us. No one else but you could have made us feel so good, could bring us so much joy.
"It was all thanks to you and your seven bells.”
I closed my eyes, the tears still streaming.
I thought my life was just one lie after another.
But no longer.
I finally understood it now.
My name will be the seven-colored Bell. A name given to me by my loving family and friends.
I am Bell.
Carrying my seven colors, I was the most loved in town.
I am Bell.
And I was the luckiest cat in the world for having seven names.
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smokeybrand · 7 months ago
Text
OVHOE
I’m a Black kid who grew up in the ghetto during the Eighties and Nineties. Rap and Hip Hop culture informed the bulk of my musical taste. My horizons were broader than most in my neighborhood, my grandma made sure I understood the value of Classical, Grand Ole Opery, and other genres frowned upon by the more street of my peers, but. Ultimately, I was inundated with Gangster Rap. I’m from California so of course I was. It was weird watching my experiences being sold to white suburbia and seeing how violent their reactions were toward it. Straight Outta Compton was my life. To Live and Die in LA was lived experience. Brenda Got a Baby happened to my next door neighbor. Those stories weren’t just thug lyrics on a record for people who looked like me, lived like I did. That was life for us, so Rap music, and Hip Hop at large, is intrinsically Black but it’s not exclusively so. White people have been tied to Hip Hop since its inception. Rick Rubin was the in-house Producer for Def Jam, way back when. That White boy crafted the sound of LL Cool J, The Beastie Boys, and Run DMC; pioneers of the genre. To this day, he is an honored member of the community, even if he works with artists from other genres. Mans produced Hurt by Johnny Cash. Rubin took that record to Cash and pleaded for him to make it. The Man in Black obliged and delivered one of the most powerful records ever pressed to wax. Decades later, Rubin was still making classics and consulting on others. You can’t f*ck with that guy because he is authentic in how he does his thing and that’s what makes Rap music so unique, its authenticity. So when a White boy boy like Vanilla Ice comes along, the community shows you what happens when you are not.
Rob van Winkle is a joke. A punchline. He saw what MC Hammer was doing and just copied his whole vibe. He was very successful at it. He made tons of loot doing just that. Vanilla Ice was everything Rap to a lot of Nineties Boomer Karens who wanted the edges softened on the music. Mr. Winkle played a character, went Hollywood, and got upset when Black people turned on him. Rob was a fan who knew nothing about the life he heard on wax, but wanted to know that world from a safe distance. Vanilla Ice is a culture Vulture who stole the aesthetic of Hip Hop, bleached it of all its Blackness, and repacked that sh*t in the most white bread way possible. Dude was Kids Bop before Kids Bop and made millions. Vanilla Ice is a phony. The life and experiences he rapped about, were never his own. It was something he heard or made up because it sounded dope. Studio Gangster but with none of the Gangster. MC Hammer was definitely about that life. His entourage was about that life. Hammer chose not to portray that sh*t in his rhymes too often because of marketing but Hammer will bust your ass if you press him. Genie pants be damned, he was authentic as f*ck. Vanilla Ice was not. It took damn near a decade before another White boy was taken seriously in Rap and, in my opinion, he’s one of the greatest to ever do it.
Eminem is a beast. He came into this game having the burden of proving White people deserve a place in Hip Hop. Vanilla Ice ruined it for and entire race of people but Marshall was able to re-open those doors. Cats heard Em for the first time and immediately gave him the pass. It helped tremendously he had the West Coast co-sign. I’m talking Dre, Snoop, and the entirety of Interscope had his back. He didn’t disappoint. The Slim Shady LP wasn’t my flavor but the Marshall Mathers LP definitely was. The first time I heard Till I Collapse, I knew the White Boy was The One. The flow, wordplay, passion, and vulnerability spoke true to HIS story. Em wasn’t on that record trying to convince me he was this drug kingpin or that he was going to beat your ass in the street. He spoke of his insecurities, his life in the trailer park on 8 Mile, and the struggle to be recognized as more than a novelty. He spilled his guts about his abusive mom, promiscuous ex-wife, and love of family. Em gave you exactly who he was, for better or worse, on those first two records and it hit hard. That authenticity. The respect for Hip Hop. The love of Rap. He never tried to be more than who he was and I respected the f*ck out of that. It’s why I loved Big. That’s why I loved Pac. That’s why we loved the rise of those Louisiana boys from Cash Money and the ST. Lunatics. Authenticity. Game recognize game. Struggle sees struggle, even if it looks different. Black Rap accepted Eminem because of how real that cat was, is, and that lack of realness is why we stopped f*cking with Aubrey Drake Graham.
K. Dot has made it his life’s mission to destroy Drake and i am here for all of it. I’ve never liked Wheelchair Jimmy. I’ve always thought he’s corny. Just so goddamn fake. The first record of his I ever heard was Best I Ever Had. It was the softest, most simp sh*t I had ever heard in my life and yet, somehow, that sh*t as hot in the streets? See, by the time that h*t dropped, I was a grown ass man. I had moved passed, matured away from, most of the gangster sh*t. I didn’t care about Lil Wayne or whatever the f*ck was going on in Rap back then. I vibe hard with College Trilogy Kanye and Kid Cudi. Drake was mad Lightskin energy and I couldn’t f*ck with it, so imagine my surprise when Weezy F. Baby decided to sign that goofy ass Degrassi Alum to Young Money. The second Drake record I remember? F*cking Bedrock. That is who Drake was to me. As time went on and more stories came out about dude, there was no way I could respect that Canadian. Ghostwriters, stealing entire albums from his label artists, chasing after girls of questionable age; Drake was gross. He doesn’t have his own sound or identity, just kind of stealing whatever is hot at the time. Mans came in sounding like Lil Wayne. Now, he sounds like Young Thug. What Kendrick say? He’s not a colleague, he’s a colonizer. Which is exactly how I’ve felt since I found out Take Care was a whole ass Weeknd album!
Take Care was supposed to be Abel’s major studio debut but Drake just stole the record, recorded his vocals over the Weeknd’s, and dropped that sh*t. He got beat up by Puff Daddy for doing that same sh*t to him. Kendrick is exposing everything Drake has been accused of over the years, putting it in one place so we can all hear it, and letting us make our own decisions about dude. It’s insane because, that bar about A-Minor, is some sh*t I’ve been screaming about at the top of my lungs for years. He f*cking and a dinner date with a teenage Millie Bobby Brown in Australia, where the age of consent is a soft sixteen years old! How about the time he was on stage and kissed a seventeen year old, on stage, at one of his concerts? After saying, out loud, he could go to jail for doing that exact sh*t? What about that time Billie Eilish openly admitted to having a texting relationship with Mr. Graham, long before she was anywhere near of legal consenting age? K. Dot referenced at least two cats in his inner circle who have a penchant for the little kiddies, one of which is convicted, so why does this creep Drake get a pass? This is more about a rap beef, it’s about the measure of your character. Drake is a mixed race kid, raised by his white mother and grandmother, in upper middle class Toronto. He listened to the same records I did growing up and fell in love with the image of Hip Hop. He wanted that for himself, to be legitimized by the Black culture with which he held a tenuous bond. Rap was his way of being Black but he had nary a one true Back experience. So he faked it. He faked it until he made it. And for the last decade, he’s built this house of cards which afforded him millions, access to real Blackness but never the respect of Blackness, and an open buffet of questionable relationship with questionably aged girls, while absolutely ruining Rap music along the way. Mans is Vanilla Ice Returned. I hate Drake, bro. He’s the phoniest mother*cker to ever make it in Hip Hop and I’m glad Kendrick has decided to knock over that house cards. It’s well overdue.
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acupofbullshit · 10 months ago
Text
The ugly, ugly truth of a stone to the heart.
“Even on my worst days, did I deserve babe, all the hell you gave me? Because I loved you… I swore I’d love you until my dying day.”
Ladies, theybies, gentlemen and kinfolk alike gather round, Gather round!
For I have quite the tale to tell you.
It’s a cautionary true tale of tragedy, heart ache, heart break, love, loss, kindness and a lesson in why empathy isn’t always the best policy.
Our story spans the better part of a decade and… none of it’s enjoyable.
The people in this story are extremely real and is based entirely on fact, truth and genuine circumstance; that being said please do not take it upon yourself to absorb this traumatic situation to make it your own or to use this as a shield to hide behind your own feelings for the situation and the people involved.
If you care too greatly for those involved and you simply want to stay away from the details or would rather live a Schrödinger’s lifestyle I implore you to back out now, stop reading and call it a night… that’s enough social media for tonight.
If not, please read on.
To start I’ll answer some questions as I usually do.
Q. Why are you doing this?
A. I’ve been hounded relentlessly for it on NGL and there’s a character limit there so I figured if you really wanna know so bad? here we are.
Q. Why do you feel the need to do this?
A. Two reasons
1. He’s gonna say I’m crazy and hide the truth so might as well actually be crazy and spill the beans
2. I’ve accidentally opened a door to social media where some of you feel genuinely entitled to the details of my personal relationships and the damage is done.
Q. Will you share your life openly on social media in the future?
A. Maybe… maybe not.
If this experience has taught me anything it’s you really cannot trust the people around you and sometimes you need to trust that the universe knows details you don’t and hears conversations you can’t.
If the circle needs to close, let it close.
It doesn’t matter how much you love them or how badly you want things to change.
Q. Does the other party know you’re sharing these details?
A. Probs not, hey? But I also don’t care?
Not once did that man think about me or our children at any point through his indiscretions… so… 🤷‍♀️
Q. What happens if your kids read this in the future?
A. I’m extremely honest with my girls and they’re already aware of the important details and this is a lived experience for us all.
I’m not sharing aaaaaaaaalllll the traumatic shit because… I don’t want to relive that? Just the relative need to knows.
trigger warnings in effect for infidelity, abuse, anger, sadness, depression, miscarriage and everything else that feels like anguish.
Are you ready kids?
Because it’s gonna be a bumpy ride…
“I didn’t have it in myself to go with grace”
Let’s take you back 10 years. It’s 2014, MH370 Is missing, Ebolas a problem, Vine is popping off and Fancy by Iggy Azalea and Charli XCX is taking the world by storm.
I’m a newly single 21 year with 2 kids under 3 and my friends are trying to set me up with a cute boy they knew who, I was CERTAIN wasn’t interested in me.
The boy could barely look at me without frowning and when I tried to speak to him he always looked like he was in pain. There was no way he liked me… and yet he was asking me on a date.
He was a little younger, lots of fun and very handsome… and also NINETEEN. And he didn’t have kids of his own. And liked to party. And he didn’t finish school. And he couldn’t drive and he didn’t have any responsibilities and he had his whole life ahead of him… why on earth would this man chain himself to a woman with 2 young children?
Trading in Kesha and Skrillex in dark rooms overflowing with booze and dimly lit with lasers for Peppa pig and Disney movies on the couch illuminated with a nightlight and a 3 years olds giggle… not the most ideal trade for a young man and yet still, he promised he wanted it.
He wanted a family, a life, a house full of love and children of his own someday.
“Even if it does work out and he actually likes me it’s a recipe for disaster … this is a bad idea” I thought to myself.
10 years later I kick myself for not trusting my instincts and hate the fact that, like always, I was right.
Ok I’m not always right.
Once I thought there were 100 seconds in a minute and 60 centimetres in a metre... yeah yeah, I know. I KNOW.
But I am always right about PEOPLE. who they are, how they act as their true selves and their core motivations.
When you’ve been through enough trauma to madden a small army you get pretty good at seeing things for what they are… and even better at delusionally pretending you can’t and especially so when love is involved.
Back to the story.
Time wore on and we were happy... Mostly.
Or at least we were right up until our first major hurdle as a couple… infidelity.
The genius accidentally showed me someone’s nude photographs on his computer while trying to open an anime for us to watch.
How was it handled?
He said I planted it there to make him look bad and that I was trying to set him up.
Listen, I’m crazy… but I’m not INSANE.
I dye my hair pink on a whim and drive interstate for a meal. I’ll laugh so hard at a seal screaming at a traffic cone I’ll accidentally trigger a panic attack.
See? Crazy, but not insane.
Naturally I rebutted and refuted his claims but he doubled down which is when he learned gaslighting was an effective tool to weaponise against someone with admitted lapses in memory.
Yes, you can start cringing now. It only gets worse from here.
We hadn’t even hit our first anniversary before the cracks were well and truly embedded and they ran DEEP.
And I stayed. Stupidly, because I thought somehow I DID somehow plant them there or it WAS somehow my fault.
What if it WAS an old photo that he just happened to have saved to his desktop that he forgot about? Benefit of the doubt right?
Wrong. WRONG.
I look back on that poor young gullible woman and I’m filled with rage. He’s nice, sure but he’s not worth the thousands of dollars in therapy and the years of happiness lost.
Stacey, you should have run. Got out clean! Dodged a bullet!
It doesn’t matter if there was another failed relationship, this wasn’t on your hands you don’t have to prove you can outlast something out of spite anymore.
BUT I DIGRESS.
we move on, things change.
We put in some work together, I change jobs he goes back to school to get his apprenticeship… things are going kinda great! (Aside from my medical mishaps and me losing my job that is)
…And then we got new neighbours.
That’s when the real trouble began.
Within a year of them moving in he had made friends, destroyed a marriage, broke up two families and forced us to move.
Why? Because he just had to try and (maybe) succeed in fucking his best friends fiancée (our next door neighbours).
That one was hard.
I had just endured a miscarriage and was undergoing a likely cancer diagnosis… I’d spent the day before having holes poked into my cervix to remove suspicious cells and I was worn out and exhausted.
After a long ass day of being in pain and raising girls I had just put dinner on the table and felt ready to cry. He tried to cheer me up and show me a “a funny meme” at the table. What he ended up showing me was my very pregnant next door neighbour masturbating in a towel.
I didn’t laugh at the hilarious portrait. He wasn’t laughing when I threw him out of my house and slammed the door. The neighbours saw, they whispered “see, he said she was insane”
I didn’t care.
He deleted the evidence of the affair and tried to convince me I didn’t actually see anything and i had just made it up. She got ahead of the curve and told her partner I was just an awful woman with an axe to grind.
“It’s the stress of the situation, it’s because you’re sick. You’ve just lost your job. You need me”
I could scream now.
Therapy made me believe I was somehow responsible for this adult child’s inability to regulate his impulses
“He has adhd… and addiction issues… relapses will happen but you love each other. He can’t be fully held accountable for his actions you’re going to have to learn to work around these problems”.
“You both want to work on this right?”
Right?
It’s not like you have a lot going for you anyway…
One more shot… just one more.
And then while we were in the thick of working on our relationship to each other he left for work again and lived in Newcastle 5 days to 7 days a week for 6 months.
I stayed here, trying to work full time, raise 2 kids and wrap up a custody battle.. he forgot I even existed. He’d forget to call… forget to message… forget to tell the girls good night…
You can guess what happened.
Of course you can, you see the pattern. You’re not blinded.
And you know what? I definitely saw it too.
Except now? He’s adored by my girls and were newly engaged I can’t just back out now.. I can’t take away their parent.
It’s not their fault he does these things and he’s mostly so good to them… maybe I could just learn to live with this….
Maybe if I just lost the weight or tried harder to be a better wife or was more demure and less abrasive… maybe I needed to change my hair or my style or my entire personality… maybe tattoos might help.
Maybe if I changed everything about myself it might make it easier for him to want to love me…
Stacey you fucking Brussel Sprout you’re TRAUMATISED.
He didn’t need to gaslight me anymore. I was doing it to myself FOR him.
Can you believe we haven’t even hit the half way point yet.
The next ones though… these were DOOZYS.
It’s now 2019. We’re supposed to be getting married in 3 months. Guess who’s texting pictures of his dick to women on the internet again? SPOILER ALERT: It wasn’t me.
The wedding is off. We’re just living together at this point out of sheer necessity.
And that’s when things really took a turn.
I won’t get into the details because.. this bit is really REALLY sad but the highlight reel runs: a broken hand from punching a hole through the floor, a trip to the emergency mental health unit for one, $30,000.00 in debt and three of us in crisis accomodation over Christmas in a hostel later I’m now free… and he was in the local gatts bed the day I left.
Moving forwards I have my own place, I’m feeling better, I worked on myself and I was feeling great about life again.
He and I are still friends trying to maintain a friendship for the girls who still adore him. They don’t know any different and I don’t have the heart to tell them.
And then covid happened.
And he started staying more and more frequently… and he’s changed and he’d worked on himself and things were different this time…
I wanna puke I’m so dumb. DUMMMMBB.
For a while though, things actually were great. We were working together as a team, the girls were thriving and things were going well…
So why won’t he commit to long term goals?
The tension was palpable. Our friends were CONFUSED. I was devastated.
From the very beginning all I had ever asked for was for him to love me and the girls unconditionally and that we’d get married and grow our family together.
This was only ever expanded to include “and to not cheat on me”.
He swore these goals were shared. Promised these were things he wanted too and that he definitely wanted them.
So why, after 7 years of back and forth would he not ask me to marry him and make things official? He’s asked before right? Why won’t he ask again?
Why after 7 years did we have no savings, no shared major assets and no real plan to expand our family? Why did we not have a 5 year goal?
Because he didn’t want too in the first place.
I begged.
Cried.
Pleaded.
“What can I do?” I’d lament.
“Why is this just not working” I’d whisper between sobs. And he’d comfort me. Reassure me it’s not me, things are just tough… the excuses were endless.
“Why am I not enough?” I was torturing myself.
We were in the throws of twice weekly couples therapy that I’m paying a shit tonne for.
I’m doing the homework, I’m working on my communication, I’m engaging in the sessions and baring all because I’m committed to making this work.
Him?
“It’s hard for me, you know I don’t like reading. Talking about myself makes me uncomfortable, I lost the homework binders, I hate doing these exercises they’re dumb and they do nothing”.
And then guess who unexpectedly fell pregnant? Me. It was me.
I was thrilled. He was mad.
I don’t think he actually expected this to happen, I mean I know he didn’t because he accused me of cheating on him for it to have happened. I didn’t, by the way.
No matter though, a routine check up revealed this little angel wasn’t proceeding.
I spent my New Year’s Eve in a hospital alone and scared having the news confirmed to me that the child I had longed for hadn’t made it and it was time to proceed with the next steps… and then we went to a pool party so he could ignore me.
“We can’t let our friends down Stacey, they’re expecting us. It might do you some good.”
My mind was elsewhere. I was a shell. On another astral realm while my body just robotically moved on the physical plane.
He? Was on an inflatable unicorn in the pool living his best life.
Splashing and smiling and laughing like nothing was wrong.
Was I wrong? Was I wrong to feel this way? It had only been 10 weeks maybe he’s right and maybe I was just too attached to an idea…
A few days later I proceeded to endure the most traumatic medical procedure of my life. After bleeding uncontrollably for hours at home I attended the emergency department where they completed a bedside extraction without pain relief because all the ORs were contaminated with covid patients.
A 24 year old nurse named Bethany who confessed earlier she was so overwhelmed and wanted to leave the profession held my hand and let me cry into her shoulder while another nurse held my legs apart so the doctor could do what he needed to do.
He stayed home and played Spider-Man to pass the time. Granted it was during covid and it was suggested he wait outside, I didn’t expect him to go home brag about finishing the game.
Y U C K
Then there was the incident at our best friends wedding… l wasn’t myself again yet after losing the baby the month prior but it was our friends wedding and I wanted to be there.
We booked a hotel room on the premises, I wanted to make it special. I put in some EFFORT to look as hot as I could… it didn’t work.
He got trashed and threw up in a garden because he didn’t want to spend time with me. I wanted to sit next to each other and dance on the dance floor and feel the love in the room…
He staggered to the hotel room.
I stayed a little longer because it was our best friends wedding? And I wanted to enjoy it?
I danced with my friends mum.
Hopped in the Photo Booth with some friends, ate some cake and then my social battery ran dry.
Exhausted, it was my turn to stumble back to the hotel room. My swollen feet rubbing in my heels, a little tipsy from the wine and lost because the room numbers didn’t make sense.
I find my way back and he’s passed out on the bed, fully suited, shoes still on and phone in hand.
Silly man. I thought. Had too much fun.
“I’ll get his shoes off for a start.. now I’ll put his phone on charge for him…” it was still unlocked. Messages open. He was sexting our old neighbour again.
I dropped the phone. Stifled my cry.
I sat cross legged in the bottom of the shower and sobbed for hours.
The usual.
I was embarrassed and ashamed.
My friends can never know… at their wedding?!
He’d be dead by morning.
I kept it to myself. I mean I confronted him when he found me in the shower but that one I wanted to keep to myself.
I wish I didn’t.
It wasn’t long after that he went away for work AGAIN. our entire life was him disappearing for weeks to months at a time for work. This time it wasn’t too far away and it was a short trip to Bathurst for a few days but I had a hunch…
Sigh.
This is just a joke now.
Cycle repeats. There’s another woman, there are photos, there are messages and I feel sick except this time there’s an ultimatum. Do it again and this time I’ll burn your life to the ground.
He promises and I do too. He promised he’d do the right thing, I promised I’d set fire to everything we’d built together just to watch the flames cleanse and scorch the earth between us.
He went straight back to love bombing and I’d just checked out at this point, going through the motions of life waiting for the inevitable error.
Because I knew it was coming.
It could take a week, it could be 5 years but I knew it would come…. And boy oh boy did it come.
The wheels well and truly fell off the wagon when he forgot my 30th birthday and said I was dramatic for expecting him to know he had to plan something.
… what.
It’s your significant others birthday… a milestone one… you didn’t have to build me a palace dude I just wanted a fuckin’ card and maybe for you to plan something with the kids.
I was biding my time. I knew our relationship was over.
We were now approaching 10 years of …. This… and there was still no ring on my finger. No love in our house and no children running free.
25 May 2024, the break up date was set in my mind.
I was waiting it out when again… 2 little pink lines came up in August.
I didn’t want to allow myself to be hopeful but I did.
The more time went on the more excited I got and the more distant he became.
“It’s just nerves after what happened last time”
*pterodactyl screech*
NO IT’S NOOOOOTTTTT.
The Second trimester rolls around, we’re starting to tell everyone... I’m jazzed. I feel like my life’s falling into a disjointed step and things are looking relatively good… that deadlines looking really silly now. Maybe I was wrong? I wanted so BADLY to be proven wrong. I had HOPED I was wrong.
The only thing that stopped me from announcing our news to everyone we knew? We were waiting on our harmony test to confirm a gender before I told my parents who I knew would be over the fuckin’ moon.
A 15 week routine check up confirmed our daughter Emery lost her heartbeat sometime that week.
I was devastated.
Gutted.
Drowned in grief.
And I felt so alone.
I felt like I was mourning this loss and a bit more on my own and I couldn’t understand why. I knew my daughter was gone but I couldn’t understand what else I was grieving.
Subconsciously I think I knew.
Like another cruel twist of fate I woke up in the middle of the night in excruciating pain. No waves of rolling pain it was just ow. It’s labour but it’s wrong.
In the middle of the night I drove myself to the hospital and delivered my little girl on my own. The staff were incredible and concerned I was alone.
They dosed me up on morphine and I silently wept for hours.
By the time he arrived to the hospital to “support me” I was ready to go home.
I drove myself home to cry my eyes out and get our kids ready for school and he went to work like it was another normal day.
Weeks go by and I’m lost; spiraling into a deep depression and I can’t anchor myself to anything to slow the decent.
I’m stuck somewhere between sorrow and anger and a weird dissociative state that I can’t shake.
I’m trying to run my household, turn up for work, parent my children, look after myself and be a good friend and an attentive partner but I’m falling short at every turn. Everything I touch becomes sick with melancholy.
Everything I’m trying isn’t working.
And then it hits me. I’m grieving alone.
I am GRIEVING alone.
I am doing it ALL by myself. All the household chores, all the errands, all the things required to maintain a family and a relationship. I’m going to my appointments alone. I’m going through the motions alone. I’m crying alone. I’m awake at night with my heart in pieces alone. I’m reading the books alone, I’m trying to cope alone and I’m trying to love again alone.
Our intimacy disappeared as soon as he knew we were expecting and it just didn’t come back.
He was always so angry at me because I couldn’t get it together and he’s constantly on his phone… I know what this is…. I’ve seen this movie before and I know how it ends.
My heart sank.
Dread seeps in.
The insidious feeling creeps into the back of my mind and I cannot shake it.
So I did the cardinal Cardi B sin.. I went through his phone that night and I found some things I definitely didn’t like.
He was cheating the entire way through our pregnancy, loss and afterwards.
Including the night I delivered.
Who is she? Some girl i met on TikTok. How long has it been going on for? Not long, a few months.
I saw red.
I cut sick.
I went feral.
You don’t need me to tell you why.
I was definitely done this time. The ick was severe.
I screamed in agony. Ugly hot tears spewing from my eyes with pure unbridled rage. How dare you. How very fucking dare you.
I threw what I could get my hands on, clawed at my own skin to try and hold onto the pieces of my soul that were so desperately trying to escape my body… I had descended into madness.
I spat words laced with venom from a place of hurt, building and bubbling over the last 10 years all coming out like an unstoppable crescendo.
My body in a state of shock didn’t know whether to turn my brain off as a response to trauma, have a panic attack or violently grieve through the pain I felt. Somehow, it did all three.
I’m not proud of the woman I was that night… not the nights immediately after.
Grief on grief on grief on grief… I had already lost so much it had just compounded into this hideous snowball.
My best friend, my child and now my love.. what could possibly be next?
Things became extremely uncomfortable when I confirmed to him I was definitely done this time. I couldn’t look at him and feel comfort and I couldn’t find solace in his eyes anymore. All I felt was a burning hot rage and bitter, BITTER betrayal and I wanted to rip down the walls of the house we built together.
He kept telling me we could make it work that it was a mistake and he was regretful and he was committed to change this time around.
Too late bro.
The little part of me that still loved you died the second I read you had called HER the day I delivered a corpse but you couldn’t call me to check on me?
Vile.
I had always thought that I wasn’t a prize, that I wasn’t worth shit and that nobody would love me and I should be grateful for the small bits of love and the bare minimum I got.
I thought that the love and affection I had so desperately tried to cultivate just wasn’t real and only existed to serve as a plot device in fairytales.
I thought that if I left him my life would be over and the walls would collapse in. That I couldn’t live without him in my life… like I didn’t know how. I wasn’t ready to let go or maybe I didn’t want too.
Our shared trauma bonds didn’t allow me to see what a life without toxicity could be.
It was awful and tumultuous but it was familiar and it was safe.
I was terrified of starting over and petrified of being alone.
That I would somehow be judged for not being able to make this work and that somehow it would be me to blame that I couldn’t keep his eyes from wandering. That my daughters would somehow hate me for taking away their father figure.
Stupid, I know.
That night was the greatest thing to ever happen to me. As soon as I verbalised to myself and to him that whatever this was was… whatever the last decade was… was done it was like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders and the dark rain cloud drowning me had dissipated.
I began to feel free.
The person I thought I lost slowly began creeping back in… I felt more and more like myself everyday.
We made the decision to run the lease out and still live together for the time being. It was only a few months. It was achievable… right?
I hated the animosity I still felt but I loved the person I was rebecoming. I thought I could do it.
I am an idiot and I was wrong.
I hadn’t told anyone about what was happening except my 6 closest friends who have supported me through this like absolute legends. If you were anywhere near my socials you would have guessed something was up but I didn’t really elaborate to anyone outside the 6.
I was happy and coping as best I could. But I wasn’t immune. Crying fits, bouts of anger and just real mean shit wasn’t uncommon… it was quickly becoming apparent this was terrible for my mental health and couldn’t be sustainable.
I can’t live with looking at the face of my trauma and he can’t live with me wanting to rip his throat out of his body any time I see an exposed neck.
Something has to give.
Flash forwards to New Year’s Eve. Some time had passed and a very nice man who had been checking in on me as a friend messaged me nicely on Instagram to wish me a happy new year and said that they were grateful to know me and was excited for us to be excellent friends in 2024.
I echoed the sentiment.
He then replied to a photo I had posted to my story to say I looked very good and that the picture itself was Lock Screen worthy.
A little cheeky, a little flirty… but I liked it.
But just like anything in this story, it’s not quite that simple because even though he was a third party with limited knowledge of the state of my personal affairs except for the fact I was vaguely single and based of that information decided to compliment a girl on the internet… he unknowingly and unwittingly set off an uncomfortable chain reaction resulting in me learning exactly who my ex lover really was and what they were actually capable of… and this poor man was unfairly caught in the crossfires of someone else’s mistakes.
And that’s something I’ll be regretful for, for the rest of my life.
Unbeknownst to me, while I was reading the nice message of appreciation for my friendship and a cheeky compliment that had my self confidence on the rise so too, was my ex partner.
Reading over my shoulder in a veiled attempt to pry into my personal life.
He was big mad.
Mad someone had the audacity to be kind to me. Mad someone had the gumption to think I was pretty. Mad someone had the gaul to tell me so. Mad someone had the hide to appreciate my friendship and what I could offer.
He was MAD mad.
I promise you, if you saw a screen shot from this extremely tame and respectful interaction you’d sit there and think … “is that it?”
No grand display of love or devotion, no vulgar sexting, no big feelings and nothing even remotely derogatory towards my ex partner. Just two pals saying “happy new year and hey, you look cute tonight by the way”.
Until that very moment when he dropped a cheeky flirt it had only ever been platonic between us…Except for the night we met 2 years ago but that’s a story for another time haha.
So why… why was this man reacting like I’d tipped his mother’s ashes down the sink? Like he was somehow still entitled to me and the love I want to give and receive?
He stormed out of the room and disappeared for hours to sulk… I was confused. We weren’t together, it’s not my place to pry into his personal life and whatever’s got him upset… I guess I’ll let him go…
until I get a message from the nice man that read something like:
“Hey, uh I don’t want to start shit but I’m a little concerned… who is this guy and why is he liking my photos from years ago?”
… what.
The screenshots came in.
They didn’t know each other. I was their only mutual friend. I hadn’t mentioned this man by name. He doesn’t go by his legal name on the internet let alone his Instagram handle… How did he know who he was?
“I’m so sorry I’ll handle it”.
We duke it out. Not my best choice to do it infront of a giant glass window.
Our new years guests couldn’t hear what was happening but they sure could see…
I was in protective mode for a man I barely knew but why should this man be a victim of intensive cyber stalking for complimenting me? Why should his privacy be invaded like that because my ex couldn’t get his shit together and fumbled the bag?
None of that is this nice man’s fault.
Besides, WE WEREN’T EVEN TOGETHER. WHY DID IT MATTER SOMEONE ELSE WAS NICE TO ME.
More venom fell out.
“There’s been a line behind you waiting for an opportunity this entire time, you only held your place at the front because I left that place open for you”
Not my best work, but definitely a pivotal moment for my own self confidence because… there WAS a line. I AM desirable. I AM wanted. I CAN be loved and I don’t need to torture myself by staying with someone who can’t offer basic respect let alone something more.
I’ve got goals. I’ve got places I wanna be. I have achievements I wanna tick off and I don’t want to be held back anymore by an emotionally deficient fuck boy.
And I realised I can live my best life with my good Judy’s by my side, my girls by my side and my family by my side.
I mean it would be nice right to have someone love you and see you and love your kids unconditionally and have the same shared interests or goals… but I’m the master of my own destiny and fuck anyone that gets in the way of that.
Anyway, he flipped it.
So much so he did the unthinkable.
Now I understand being upset. I understand acting on impulse and I understand hitting someone where it hurts when they’ve wronged you if it’s deserved.
WHEN it’s deserved.
Over 10 years of knowing someone you come to learn quite a bit about them and what really gets them excited and in turn what really upsets them.
He absorbed my secrets, my fears and my insecurities just to weaponise them against me.
Cheating on me is one thing.
Lying to me is another.
Taking one of the worst parts of my life and making me relive it for your own entertainment and manipulation? NEW LEVEL OF FUCKERY UNLOCKED.
Over the next few days I started to receive some pretty nasty anonymous messages… some I posted to my story some I didn’t.
Most were targeted at me and my appearance, some were targeted at the man that was messaging me to spread rumour, some at my kids and some were targeted at my ex partner.
I’ve been the victim of a hate campaign before so these messages were admittedly quite triggering. They preyed on the most insidious thoughts that live in the back of my mind.
Who was this person? Why would they say these things to me? The only people sending me these messages are people I already know and I can’t imagine these people saying such awful things…
My mental health took a slight sidestep and I went full undercover operative.
I set up my own little investigation. No one was more surprised when it lead me to him.
No.. I must be wrong it couldn’t be…
Until it was with out a doubt confirmed when he stupidly dropped the nice man’s legal name in an anonymous message.
There were only 4 people who knew we were talking to each other let alone his name and I definitely didn’t send the message… neither did the nice man… my best friend certainly wouldn’t have done it so it left only one option.
I paid for premium access to the NGL app. Got the clues I needed about the sender of the messages and confronted him.
He lied.
He always does.
Even when confronted with the truth.
Tried to gaslight his way out of it. Again. But it wouldn’t work this time.
The proof was right in front of us. I had the very compelling evidence. It couldn’t be disputed.
After trying to lie for a 4th time he confessed it was true and he did send some of those nasty ass messages in an attempt to manipulate my self confidence, sow the seeds of deceit between the nice man and I so I wouldn’t want to talk to him anymore and to make me feel sorry for him for all the hate he was getting online.
Again, like a bull charging at a waving flag I saw RED.
“You have a month. Get out of my house. Never speak to me again.”
This was a new low. A real ugly point. I had never cheated on him. I’d never betrayed his trust. I’d never been intentionally mean like this.
Why…
W H Y .
I immediately unfriended him off what I could. What I couldn’t, I blocked.
We weren’t friends. We never truly were. Friends don’t hurt each other like that. Friends don’t do shit like that. That’s enemy behaviour.
Only someone who despises you would do those things, any of those things let alone all of those things over a prolonged period of time.
I didn’t think this could get any worse and yet there I was… publicly bullied by my ex on the internet for his own enjoyment.
It’s time. It’s time to tell everyone. My parents… my siblings… our wider network of friends… my girls.
My girls….
Sitting the girls down was tough… an activity I never want to do again.
A conversation I thought we would have with them together to tell them we couldn’t make it work and their stepdad would be leaving - the last little honourable thing he could do… apologise to them… be honest with them… love them… and let them go gently ended up with me in tears telling them on my own that everything had fallen apart and mum was sorry.
My best friend holding one daughter while I held the other. And we all cried.
My best friend was the one helping me to explain everything to our daughters and work through the complex emotions we were all feeling. Drying tears, answering questions and reminding them this isn’t their fault…
They were devastated. My eldest fumed and my youngest sobbed in pain… their first real heartbreaks.
I’m grateful for her everyday. I’m grateful for her kindness, her love and her support but this wasn’t heartbreak she had to endure. This wasn’t her responsibility to step in… it was his.
He aimlessly folded the same piece of washing and watched the conversation unfold.
He didn’t say a word.
If I had felt guilty before asking him to leave, putting my girls first or leaning into the nice man’s advances I definitely didn’t now.
… And I still don’t.
“2nd of Feb dude, you gotta be outta here. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have anywhere else I won’t put us all through this anymore you need to make your arrangements and your exit from stage left”
I’m in my healing era. My lover girl era. My ‘be a better friend’ era. My ‘be an excellent mum’ era. My stand up for myself era. My evolution era.
And I will not lie, romance has indeed found me along the way.
And I’m so okay with that.
It’s unconventional. It’s different. It’s kind and respectful. It’s considerate and tender. It’s FUN. it’s goofy and it’s pure…
I’m pretty sure it feels like it’s supposed to.
It’s not a fight to the death every day. It’s not a struggle. It’s not nights crying myself to sleep wondering where I went wrong (it was most nights that we were together… I won’t lie). It’s not toxic fights that have me worried about what’s going to be broken this time.
I don’t need to wonder if this man actually likes me, he makes sure I know.
It’s honest and supportive and REAL…
and it’s a steep learning curve.
I have a lot of unlearning to do and behaviours to quash to be a better version of myself… not just for myself but for everyone in my orbit but for the first time in a long time I’m excited for what happens next.
The next few months will be hard financially, emotionally and physically.
But I have a kick ass gang of friends, 2 amazing daughters who under the circumstances are thriving, a fantastic therapist (shout out gabz the big dawg) and someone I can invest all my extra love into and is more than happy to send it right back.
I’m going for surgery in a week, I have a plan in place to correct my health and I’m pushing myself to be the best possible version of myself not just for me or for them… but for you too, dear reader.
Given so much of my life was shared openly and then used against me to hurt me by people I trusted and loved I can’t say for certain this level of openness will remain.
Some aspects of my life will be kept just for me, my girls lives will still stay off the internet until they’re ready (occasional happy snaps and tidbits will still flow freely don’t worry about that), I’ll still share the cool shit I’m up to with work, the dumb shit my friends and I get amongst and life events with my new significant other will be shared when and if I find one.
But only if and when I want too.
And I won’t use social media to cover up my extreme unhappiness.
Not everything you see on the internet is real and I too have played a part in that.
Relationships are complex, no one has the perfect one and keeping up appearances only gives you more heartache than what it’s worth.
So if there’s any wisdom I can impart on you it’s this:
💜 You are more than your relationships.
💜 Fuck the haters, they’re gonna chat shit anyway you might as well give them something to talk about.
💜 You are precious and deserve to be protected and loved and to be happy.
💜 don’t settle because you’re expected to.
💜 You can cut parts of yourself down but no matter how far you trim you’ll never fit into the box you think you should be in.
If you don’t fit, get a bigger box.
💜 Nothing on the internet is real.
💜 Sometimes letting go is necessary to heal.
💜 Love will find you in the most unexpected of ways and in the most unexpected places.
💜 Listen to your friend that gets the weird vibes, they’re usually right.
💜 The NSW healthcare system both sucks and is excellent at the same time.
💜 Do what you want, it’s not too late to start over. You’re gonna die eventually… live the life you want.
💜 Live in the now and the future. The past is a place we can visit but you cannot live there.
💜 Just because you’re happy sometimes it doesn’t outweigh the heartache all the time.
💜 Don’t sacrifice yourself. For anyone.
💜 People will understand eventually.
💜 Just because you can do everything on your own doesn’t mean you have too
💜 You shouldn’t suffer in silence or alone.
💜 HABITUAL CHEATERS WON’T CHANGE
And thus ends a 10 year tale of a strong AF girlie who is owning a new, better phase of HER life.
She rescued herself from the damn tower, set her daughters free, reacquainted herself with her besties and picked up a cutie on the way out to get Starbucks.
I’m writing new pages in a book I thought I’d finished and I’m excited to see the life that’s out there waiting for me. I’m excited to reacquaint myself with myself again. I’m excited for new experiences, better relationships with everyone around me and not having to wear shoes inside to avoid the broken egg shells and bits of ego on the floor.
And him? Feeling sorry for himself I guess. Or not. I’m not sure and I don’t think I care to find out.
Maybe he’s realised what he’s lost, maybe he’s awake in the middle of the night languishing in pain, maybe he’s grieving or maybe he’s just fine and couldn’t care less.
Either way, my thoughts don’t live there anymore, they live with me.
“You had to kill me, but it killed you just the same cursing my name, wishing I stayed… You turned into your worst fears…
And you're tossing out blame, drunk on this pain and crossing out the good years… and you're cursing my name, wishing I stayed… Look at how my tears ricochet” - Taylor Swift
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iron-touch · 10 months ago
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Author's Notes: Chapter 34 (Evacuate the Dancefloor, part 2)
Kept you waiting, huh?
Yeah, so, as I said earlier, my life got hectic since I posted the last chapter and Iron Touch kinda fell to the wayside. But we’re back now! And chapter 35 should be coming soon, too. More on that in a bit.
Since it’s been such a long time since I’ve written for Iron Touch, I initially struggled to get back in my character’s mindsets. I think I managed to get the hang of it, but some of that early dialogue ended up being retooled a couple of times.
While I’m sure that this is just a common phrase in different circles of the JoJo fandom, the term “Stand-off” comes from a channel in the JoJo’s Bizarre Fanworks Discord server (@jjbafanworks) which hosted a MASSIVE spreadsheet that categorized matchups between all of our different OC Stands. I was hoping that name dropping it in the chapter would help revive it, but apparently the spreadsheet is so broken beyond belief now due to its sheer size that it’s basically unusable. Oh well. Gote, I don’t know if you’re reading this, but if you are, hats off to you for the whole thing and my sincerest apologies for being as dismissive of it as I was when I first joined the server.
At one point while writing the chapter, I considered giving the fight an “announcer” around the point where Michelle requests a referee. Someone like Speedwagon to commentate the fight as it happens and had a Stand that could let him closely observe the fight while staying out of harm’s way. Part of the reason I had been avoiding this chapter for as long as I had was because fight scenes are not my strong suit, so I began to look into more experimental ways to handle combat prose. That’s what I came up with. I mean, hey, JoJo already does it a ton, right? I ended up scrapping the idea both because I couldn’t come up with a Stand for him and because I had already drafted a generous chunk of the chapter by then and didn’t want to have to go back and rewrite it. He joins the racist Belgium chef in the unused characters corner.
The prose surrounding the clothing damage was something I treaded very, very carefully on. On one hand, it’s realistic that Michelle’s bathing suit would get torn to shreds when placed in the situation she was in, but on the other, clothing damage is a staple of horny animeisms and I do not want to sexualize Michelle. In situations like that, your wording is everything, and I made sure I emphasized her injuries more than her exposed skin.
Even before I decided on having Michelle fight an OC at this point in the story, I always knew that I wanted this fight to end with Michelle using Iron Maiden to drop something heavy on her opponent. Back when the fight was going to be against Midler, I would’ve had her transform High Priestess into a chainsaw while Michelle was backed into a small palm tree, have her cut the tree without realizing, then have Michelle drop the tree on her after freezing it with Iron Maiden. Given the new setting of a stage, I actually struggled to think of something to drop on Cascada. My mind went to sets or backdrops, but I ultimately settled on the stage light because I thought it was more representative of her hubris.
I had two drafts for the ending: the final one that was published where Michelle tries to keep the stage light from falling on Cascada, and another where Michelle intentionally drops it on her in order to win the fight. I really liked some of the dialogue in the latter, but I opted to go with what’s in the chapter now because it felt more applicable to her character development.
This is yet another chapter that has been cut in two! Originally, I was planning on adding more post-fight dialogue, but the chapter ended up getting too long (imagine that) so I decided to move the bulk of it to the next chapter. That’s why I said chapter 35 should be coming out soon—it’s already fully outlined. And you’d better expect some serious tea to start spilling then.
Music references:
None this time!
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bratty-metalhead · 2 years ago
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Chapter 13 - The Light Behind Your Eyes
Chapter 13 is available on AO3! You can read it here:
Chapter 13
Also, please check out the Official The Light Behind Your Eyes Book Playlist, and the Chapter 13 playlist on Spotify!
This book is HEAVILY influenced by music (especially Ghost). If you check out the playlists, you’ll see what I listen to while I’m writing, and the lyrics that inspired these characters and this story.
You can also find me at:
TikTok: brattymetalhead
AO3: brattymetalhead
Preview below the cut! We’re into the smut now. VERY NSFW. Preview below the cut.
TC/CW: mentions of abuse; mentions of self-harm; discussion of suicide and suicidal ideation; scenes involved abuse or discussions of abuse (physical, mental, emotional, sexual assault); anxiety; depression; mentions and scenes involve domestic violence; budding romance (separate from DV situation); abuse behavior; abuse recovery; heavy metal music, themes, and imagery; Italian-to-English translations
Chapter 13
– Aubrey –
            Inside the bar, Brittany and I stood a few feet from the doorway, scanning the crowd for another familiar face. Addison Murano, or Addie as we called her, and I hadn’t seen each other in years. We talked, but this was another friendship I’d needed to keep under wraps when I was with Dylan. She didn’t have Brittany’s confidence in standing up to him and I couldn’t blame her. When things ended between Dylan and I, she was one of the first people I reached out to. She had the weekend free like we did and decided tonight was the perfect night for all of us to catch up.
            And oh, how much I had to catch her up on. She had no idea what was happening in my life now. I figured it was easier to explain it all in person since the story itself was a little too involved for just a phone call. I felt a little bad for keeping the post-breakup details quiet, but it seemed necessary considering how things had been going. We had the whole night in front of us, and all I had to do was find a subtle way to let her in on the secret I was harboring. Hopefully, it would serve as enough of a distraction that I could chase the lingering anxiety from my mind. I’d been shaking in the car the whole way over here and now the only thing I wanted was to get a drink in my hand and talk to my friends.
            While I stood at the bar waiting for our order, Brittany scanned the rest of the room. Then she perked up and waved to a far corner. “She’s over there,” Brittany said, tapping my arm.
            I took the drinks and followed her across the room. It felt so strange to be in a bar again, simultaneously exposed and claustrophobic. I felt endlessly grateful that Brittany chose a place like Bryant’s, because of the laid-back atmosphere. The bar was busy tonight, but not overcrowded and chaotic like some of the bars on Water Street or downtown can get. We’d still be able to talk here without having to scream over some obnoxiously loud music or worry about being hit on by frat guys. I had to work hard, as we moved through the sea of people, to push aside the idea that others were looking at me. I was out here to have fun, and I didn’t want any of those memories of my old life getting in the way of that.
            “Aubrey!” Addie called, rocketing from her seat. She pounced on me hard enough that I almost spilled my drink. She looked wonderful, her chocolate brown hair pulled into a low bun, in a red A-line dress that fit her beautifully and brought out her glowing, tan skin. “It’s so good to see you, honey! How are you?”
            “I’m good,” I said, and I was surprised by how honest and easy the words felt coming out of my mouth.
            “Are you okay?” she asked, taking a step back while still holding my hands. “You’re shaking.”
            “I’m fine,” I said, sitting down. “How are you doing? I’m so sorry we haven’t been able to get together until now—”
            “Don’t apologize,” she said. “You’re being ridiculous. None of this was your fault. I’m just glad you got out of that mess. I’m sorry I wasn’t around…”
            “There’s nothing you could have done,” I sighed. “Don’t blame yourself.”
            “I tried,” Brittany confirmed. “I’m glad you never really got the chance to know him, Addie. He’s a piece of shit.”
            “Sounds like it,” she grumbled.
            “Anyway, that’s over now,” I said quickly, trying to shake off the disturbed shiver threatening to run up my spine. “It was really bad… Really bad. But I’m moving on with my life and… Trying not to focus on it too much.”
            As I spoke, I could see Addie’s eyes wandering over my skin. She knew that I used to cut. We’d been friends in high school, so she’d been there for the thick of that. But now, even in the low light, I knew she could make out traces of the newer scars. Some of them weren’t completely faded yet and left pale pink lines across my flesh. She was trying to make it less obvious that she was staring, but I can’t say I really blame her for doing so. They’re shocking, especially the first time you see them. Sometimes, I still shocked myself looking at them in the mirror, disbelieving they really were part of my body forever.
            I met her eyes. “I could tell you the stories, if you wanted to hear them, but they’re intense.” I pointed to each as I gave her the bullet-point version of what happened. “This one was from when he pushed me into a wall.” I moved my hand to my arm. “This one, I fell on glass—no, he pushed me onto glass.” My hand moved to my neck. “This one was when he choked me…”
            Addie shook her head and swallowed hard. “Aubs, really, I am so sorry.”
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turnpage · 3 years ago
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send me a ✐ for a random sentence starter from my muse (1-1500) — tw: profanity, mild nsfw, long list
generator here quotes compiled from here inspired by
feel free to change to fit your preferences as need.
❨1❩ ❛ They are dreams, but I’m too out of control, I lose myself in them, and I’ve already lost too much to let them take over. ❜
 ❨2❩ ❛ Sometimes human places create inhuman monsters. ❜ ❨3❩ ❛ I'm not gonna hurt ya. I'm just going to bash your brains in. ❜ ❨4❩ ❛ Monsters are real. Ghosts are too. They live inside of us, and sometimes, they win. ❜ ❨5❩ ❛ The world's a hard place. It doesn't care. It doesn't hate you and me, but it doesn't love us, either. ❜ ❨6❩ ❛ The tears that heal are also the tears that scald and scourge. ❜ ❨7❩ ❛ Pull your act together and just go on. ❜ ❨8❩ ❛ I had never dreamed there could be so much pain in a life when there is nothing physically wrong. I hurt all the time. ❜ ❨9❩ ❛ Tough old world, baby. If you're not bolted together tightly, you're gonna shake, rattle, and roll before you turn thirty. ❜ ❨10❩ ❛ Are you sure self-pity is a luxury you can afford? ❜ ❨11❩ ❛ Truth comes out. In the end it always comes out. ❜ ❨12❩ ❛ Living by your wits is always knowing where the wasps are. ❜ ❨13❩ ❛ No matter where you go, the same asshole gets off the plane. ❜ ❨14❩ ❛ We sometimes need to create unreal monsters and bogies to stand in for all the things we fear in our real lives. ❜ ❨15❩ ❛ That’s your job in this hard world, to keep your love alive and see that you get on, no matter what. ❜ ❨16❩ ❛ Human nature, baby. Grab it and growl. ❜ ❨17❩ ❛ God wiped snot out of his nose and that was you. ❜ ❨18❩ ❛ Run away. Quick. And remember how much I love you. ❜ ❨19❩ ❛ How many times, over how many years, have I—a grown adult—asked for the mercy of another chance? ❜ ❨20❩ ❛ I was suddenly so sick of myself, so revolted. ❜ ❨21❩ ❛ You listen to me. I’m going to talk to you about it this once and never again this same way. ❜ ❨22❩ ❛ But those pieces, they’ll never fit just the same way again. Never in this world. ❜ ❨23❩ ❛ Dying is a part of living. You have to keep tuning in to that if you expect to be a whole person. ❜ ❨24❩ ❛ Officious little prick. ❜ ❨25❩ ❛ I’ve been sleepwalking again, my dear. — The plants are moving under the rug. ❜ ❨26❩ ❛ How I wish you were fear. ❜ ❨27❩ ❛ But it was a dreadful kind of curiosity, the kind that makes you peek through your fingers during the scariest parts of a scary movie. ❜ ❨28❩ ❛ All we have is time, you know. An eternity of time. Or shall we end it? Might as well. After all, we're missing the party. ❜ ❨29❩ ❛ We all remember our pleasant dreams more clearly than the scary ones. ❜ ❨30❩ ❛ The way things should be and the way things are hardly ever get together. ❜ ❨31❩ ❛ Got to be regular if you want to be happy. ❜ ❨32❩ ❛ But in a solitary life, there are rare moments when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth. ❜ ❨33❩ ❛ He showed me his scars, and in return he let me pretend that I had none. ❜ ❨34❩ ❛ Humbling women seems to me a chief pastime of poets. As if there can be no story unless we crawl and weep. ❜ ❨35❩ ❛ It is a common saying that women are delicate creatures, flowers, eggs, anything that may be crushed in a moment's carelessness.  ❜ ❨36❩ ❛ If I had ever believed it, I no longer do. ❜ ❨37❩ ❛ I thought once that gods are the opposite of death, but I see now they are more dead than anything, for they are unchanging, and can hold nothing in their hands. ❜ ❨38❩ ❛ I cannot bear this world a moment longer. ❜ ❨39❩ ❛ I have a better idea. I will do as I please. ❜ ❨40❩ ❛ All my life has been murk and depths, but I am not a part of that dark water. I am a creature within it. ❜ ❨41❩ ❛ You cannot know how frightened gods are of pain. There is nothing more foreign to them, and so nothing they ache more deeply to see. ❜ ❨42❩ ❛ When we are young, we think ourselves the first to have each feeling in the world. ❜ ❨43❩ ❛ When I was born, the word for what I was did not exist. ❜ ❨44❩ ❛ But perhaps no parent can truly see their child. When we look we see only the mirror of our own faults. ❜ ❨45❩ ❛ I will not be like a bird bred in a cage, too dull to fly even when the door stands open. ❜ ❨46❩ ❛ This is what it means to swim in the tide, to walk the earth and feel it touch your feet. This is what it means to be alive. ❜ ❨47❩ ❛ You threw me to the crows, but it turns out I prefer them to you. ❜ ❨48❩ ❛ Yet because I knew nothing, nothing was beneath me. ❜ ❨49❩ ❛ If now I am wise, it is only because I have been fool enough for a hundred lifetimes. ❜ ❨50❩ ❛ You can teach a viper to eat from your hands, but you cannot take away how much it likes to bite. ❜ ❨51❩ ❛ Give me the blade. Some things are worth spilling blood for. ❜ ❨52❩ ❛ I have been old and stern for so long, carved with regrets and years like a monolith. But that is only a shape I’ve been poured into. I do not have to keep it. ❜ ❨53❩ ❛ I wake sometimes in the dark terrified by my life's precariousness, its thready breath. ❜ ❨54❩ ❛ Understanding the world is a matter of keeping very still and showing no emotions, leaving room for others to reveal themselves. ❜ ❨55❩ ❛ Beneath the smooth, familiar face of things is another that waits to tear the world in two. ❜ ❨56❩ ❛ The truth is, men make terrible pigs. ❜ ❨57❩ ❛ My father has never been able to imagine the world without himself in it. ❜ ❨58❩ ❛ This is the grief that makes our kind choose to be stones and trees rather than flesh. ❜ ❨59❩ ❛ Witches are not so delicate. ❜ ❨60❩ ❛ Those who fight against prophecy only draw it more tightly around their throats. ❜ ❨61❩ ❛ I learned that I could bend the world to my will, as a bow is bent for an arrow. I would have done that toil a thousand times to keep such power in my hands. ❜ ❨62❩ ❛ There's the story, then there's the real story, then there's the story of how the story came to be told. Then there's what you leave out of the story. Which is part of the story too. ❜ ❨63❩ ❛ The best way of being kind to bears is not to be very close to them. ❜ ❨64❩ ❛ Life is warped. I'm just in sync. ❜ ❨65❩ ❛ Now it's a whisper from the past. ❜ ❨66❩ ❛ But hatred and viciousness are addictive. You can get high on them. Once you've had a little, you start shaking if you don't get more. ❜ ❨67❩ ❛ Why is it always such a surprise? The moon. Even though we know it's coming. Every time we see it, it makes us pause, and hush. ❜ ❨68❩ ❛ Perfection exacts a price, but it's the imperfect who pay it. ❜ ❨69❩ ❛ What is 'belief' but a willingness to suspend the negatives?  ❜ ❨70❩ ❛ I have scars, inside me. ❜ ❨71❩ ❛ The dead are not entirely dead but are alive in a different way; a paler way admittedly, and somewhat darker. ❜ ❨72❩ ❛ However dark, a darkness with voices in it is better than a silent void. ❜ ❨73❩ ❛ Amazing how quickly the past becomes idyllic. ❜ ❨74❩ ❛ It is another way of saying tough luck. To people you aren’t going to help out. ❜ ❨75❩ ❛ I'm waiting, far off in the future. ❜ ❨76❩ ❛ The only sure camouflage is unpredictability. ❜ ❨77❩ ❛ There are so many of them, and each one of them is doing part of the killing, whether they know it or not. ❜ ❨78❩ ❛ First rule: limit bloodshed by making sure that none of your own gets spilled. ❜ ❨79❩ ❛ I long to swim in liquid moonlight. ❜ ❨80❩ ❛ That's right, I don’t like to be summoned on trivial matters. ❜ ❨81❩ ❛ The part that really made me happy was that you wanted me to be happy. ❜ ❨82❩ ❛ Cut that part out of us: the grinning, elemental malice. Begin us anew. ❜ ❨83❩ ❛ Where there are wars, there will be crows, the carrion-fanciers. And ravens too, the warbirds, the eyeball gourmands. And vultures, the holy birds of yore, old connoisseurs of rot. ❜ ❨84❩ ❛ At last. It's you. ❜ ❨85❩ ❛ No, you will not be cooked on a fire when you die. Because you are not a fish. ❜ ❨86❩ ❛ Take what the moment offers. Don’t close doors. Be thankful. ❜ ❨87❩ ❛ How many others have stood in this place? Left behind, with all gone, all swept away. ❜ ❨88❩ ❛ Is it disapproval or extreme lust? With some men it’s hard to tell the difference. ❜ ❨89❩ ❛ My hair was driving me crazy, but then … I died. ❜ ❨90❩ ❛ Seek and ye shall find, eventually. And you found. You’re right, I don’t dispute that. Sorry. ❜ ❨91❩ ❛ Everything digests, and is digested. ❜ ❨92❩ ❛ My head was once a filing cabinet. Now it’s a flurry of papers, floating on a draft. ❜ ❨93❩ ❛ You cannot keep bumping your head against reality and saying it is not there. ❜ ❨94❩ ❛ I have a feeling that inside you somewhere, there’s something nobody knows about. ❜ ❨95❩ ❛ And if I don’t want to die, I’ve got to start living. ❜ ❨96❩ ❛ The world is a beautiful place. Don’t forget that. And don’t miss it. ❜ ❨97❩ ❛ I was fighting for my life. So I must not want to die. ❜ ❨98❩ ❛ Something’s happening to me, through me, something dangerous and new. ❜ ❨99❩ ❛ It’s taken root, a poison tree; it’s grown, fanning out, vines winding round my gut, my lungs, my heart. ❜ ❨100❩ ❛ We’re interpreters. We’re translators. ❜ ❨101❩ ❛ You’ll notice I’m not asking what made you this way. ❜ ❨102❩ ❛ No family, happy or unhappy, is quite like any other. Tolstoy was chock-fullo’shit. Remember that. ❜ ❨103❩ ❛ We lived in monochrome those nights. ❜ ❨104❩ ❛ You live in a dream. You’re a sleepwalker, blind. How do you know what the world is like? ❜ ❨105❩ ❛ Do you know, if you rip off the fronts of houses, you’d find swine? ❜ ❨106❩ ❛ I stand here in the dark: cold, utterly alone, full of fear and something that feels like longing. ❜ ❨107❩ ❛ The definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results. ❜ ❨108❩ ❛ Not to warm the flesh, but solely to please the eye. ❜ ❨109❩ ❛ Selective emotional detachment. ❜ ❨110❩ ❛ Not for me, or at least not today. ❜ ❨111❩ ❛ Dead but not gone, watching life surge forward around me, powerless to intervene. ❜ ❨112❩ ❛ Do I sound like a hillbilly saying that? ❜ ❨113❩ ❛ Remember, you’ve got your secret weapon. ❜ ❨114❩ ❛ The dream drains away like water. The memory, really. I try to scoop it up in my palms, but it’s gone. ❜ ❨115❩ ❛ My shadow stretches along the carpet, as though trying to detach itself from me. ❜ ❨116❩ ❛ It curls away from me, like blood in water. ❜ ❨117❩ ❛ It’s been so long since I felt the rain. Or wind—the caress of wind. ❜ ❨118❩ ❛ But snow I never want to feel again. ❜ ❨119❩ ❛ Through adversity to the stars. ❜ ❨120❩ ❛ No hero. No sleuth. I am locked in. I am locked out. ❜ ❨121❩ ❛ Thinking hasn't gotten me anywhere so far. ❜ ❨122❩ ❛ The face you give the world tells the world how to treat you. ❜ ❨123❩ ❛ Sometimes I think illness sits inside every woman, waiting for the right moment to bloom. ❜ ❨124❩ ❛ Women get consumed. ❜ ❨125❩ ❛ Sometimes if you let people do things to you, you're really doing it to them. ❜ ❨126❩ ❛ A child weaned on poison considers harm a comfort. ❜ ❨127❩ ❛ Safer to be feared than loved. ❜ ❨128❩ ❛ I ached once, hard, like a period typed at the end of a sentence. ❜ ❨129❩ ❛ It's impossible to compete with the dead. I wish I could stop trying. ❜ ❨130❩ ❛ I always feel sad for the girl that I was. ❜ ❨131❩ ❛ Every time people said I was pretty, I thought of everything ugly swarming beneath my clothes. ❜ ❨132❩ ❛ How do you keep safe when your whole day is as wide and empty as the sky? Anything could happen. ❜ ❨133❩ ❛ See, there I am. I told you I lived. I told you I was. ❜ ❨134❩ ❛ Sometimes I think I won't ever feel safe until I can count my last days on one hand. ❜ ❨135❩ ❛ To refuse has so many more consequences than submitting. ❜ ❨136❩ ❛ I'm here. I don't usually feel that I am. ❜ ❨137❩ ❛ I'm tired of dying. ❜ ❨138❩ ❛ What if you hurt because it feels so good? ❜ ❨139❩ ❛ How confusing to live in the shadow of a shadow. ❜ ❨140❩ ❛ Do you ever feel like bad things are going to happen, and you can’t stop them? You can’t do anything, you just have to wait? ❜ ❨141❩ ❛ Sometimes my scars have a mind of their own. ❜ ❨142❩ ❛ Everyone has their own version of a memory. ❜ ❨143❩ ❛ Isn’t a smile a girl’s best weapon? ❜ ❨144❩ ❛ My sense of weightlessness, I think, comes from the fact that I know so little about my past. ❜ ❨145❩ ❛ Do what I want; I might like you. ❜ ❨146❩ ❛ I feel sorry for Persephone because even when she’s back with the living, people are afraid of her because of where’s she’s been. ❜ ❨147❩ ❛ She has never told me she loved me, and I never assumed she did. ❜ ❨148❩ ❛ The sight of it actually does something to you, makes you less human. ❜ ❨149❩ ❛ It infects you. It ruined me. ❜ ❨150❩ ❛ Your health is not a debt you just cancel. The body collects. ❜ ❨151❩ ❛ Men love to put things inside women, don’t they? ❜ ❨152❩ ❛ We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom. ❜ ❨153❩ ❛ Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the company of intelligent women. ❜ ❨154❩ ❛ The strongest of all warriors are these two — time and patience. ❜ ❨155❩ ❛ If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war. ❜ ❨156❩ ❛ There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth. ❜ ❨157❩ ❛ The whole world is divided for me into two parts: one is she, and there is all happiness, hope, light; the other is where she is not, and there is dejection and darkness. ❜ ❨158❩ ❛ Let the dead bury the dead, but while I'm alive, I must live and be happy. ❜ ❨159❩ ❛ It's not given to people to judge what's right or wrong. People have eternally been mistaken and will be mistaken, and in nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong. ❜ ❨160❩ ❛ You can love a person dear to you with a human love, but an enemy can only be loved with divine love. ❜ ❨161❩ ❛ If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, then all possibility of life is destroyed. ❜ ❨162❩ ❛ We are asleep until we fall in love! ❜ ❨163❩ ❛ I simply want to live; to cause no evil to anyone but myself. ❜ ❨164❩ ❛ Everything I know, I know because of love. ❜ ❨165❩ ❛ Man cannot possess anything as long as he fears death. But to him who does not fear it, everything belongs. ❜ ❨166❩ ❛ If there was no suffering, man would not know his limits, would not know himself. ❜ ❨167❩ ❛ Yes, love, but not the love that loves for something, to gain something, or because of something, but that love that I felt for the first time, when dying, I saw my enemy and yet loved him. ❜ ❨168❩ ❛ How can one be well...when one suffers morally? ❜ ❨169❩ ❛ Kings are the slaves of history. ❜ ❨170❩ ❛ God is the same everywhere. ❜ ❨171❩ ❛ Pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy. ❜ ❨172❩ ❛ One must be cunning and wicked in this world. ❜ ❨173❩ ❛ We love people not so much for the good they've done us, as for the good we've done them. ❜ ❨174❩ ❛ When one's head is gone one doesn't weep over one's hair! ❜ ❨175❩ ❛ For what, for whom, must I kill and be killed? ❜ ❨176❩ ❛ He did what heroes do after their work is accomplished; he died. ❜ ❨177❩ ❛ Life is too long to say anything definitely; always say perhaps. ❜ ❨178❩ ❛ Everything ends in death, everything. Death is terrible. ❜ ❨179❩ ❛ The distant and impossible suddenly became near, possible, and inevitable. ❜ ❨180❩ ❛ How often we sin, how much we deceive, and all for what? ❜ ❨181❩ ❛ The wolves should be fed and the sheep kept safe. ❜ ❨182❩ ❛ When I was a child, adults would tell me not to make things up, warning me of what would happen if I did. ❜ ❨183❩ ❛ My memory is a patchwork of occurrences, of discontinuous events roughly sewn together: the parts I remember, I remember precisely, whilst other sections seem to have vanished completely. ❜ ❨184❩ ❛ Would it be worse to love someone who is no longer there, or not to love someone who is? ❜ ❨185❩ ❛ Like mirrors stories prepare us for the day to come. They distract us from the things in darkness. ❜ ❨186❩ ❛ It is not that I was credulous, simply that I believed in all things dark and dangerous. ❜ ❨187❩ ❛ Sometimes you do things you regret, but there's nothing you can do about them. Times change. Doors close behind you. You move on. ❜ ❨188❩ ❛ Love will be an impulse that will inspire and ruin in equal measure. ❜ ❨189❩ ❛ He died alone. It don't matter a rat's ass whether there was anyone with him or not. He died alone. ❜ ❨190❩ ❛ It was love, I knew, and it tasted like champagne in my mind. ❜ ❨191❩ ❛ The end of the world is a strange concept. The world is always ending, and the end is always being averted, by love or foolishness or just plain old dumb luck. ❜ ❨192❩ ❛ She was my dream; and if you touch a dream it vanishes, like a soap bubble. ❜ ❨193❩ ❛ Daylight is always safe. ❜ ❨194❩ ❛ If not for death, they'd be content to simply exist, but with death, well, their lives will have meaning. ❜ ❨195❩ ❛ You want to know the future, love? Then wait. ❜ ❨196❩ ❛ There are things in the darkness beneath us that wish us harm. ❜ ❨197❩ ❛ Fairy tales are more than true. Not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be defeated ❜ ❨198❩ ❛ But sometimes you leave blood on your instruments. ❜ ❨199❩ ❛ I'd like to be a wolf. Not all the time. Just sometimes. In the dark. I would run through the forests. ❜ ❨200❩ ❛ You've seen them. They have mouths that twitch, and eyes that stare, and they babble and they mewl and they whimper. ❜ ❨201❩ ❛ They are not mad, or rather, the loss of their sanity is the lesser of their problems. ❜ ❨202❩ ❛ Good a reason for writing as I know: releasing demons, letting them fly. ❜ ❨203❩ ❛ That miserable state in which everything seems flat and of equal importance; when nothing matters, and in which reality seems scraped thin and threadbare. ❜ ❨204❩ ❛ Someone had scrawled graffiti in black marker on the metal: JUST DIE, it said. Like it is easy. ❜ ❨205❩ ❛ Winter started today. The sky turned grey and the snow began to fall and it did not stop falling until well after dark. ❜ ❨206❩ ❛ Memory is the great deceiver. ❜ ❨207❩ ❛ Silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way. ❜ ❨208❩ ❛ I may have lost my heart, but not my self-control.  ❜ ❨209❩ ❛ If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more. ❜ ❨210❩ ❛ I always deserve the best treatment because I never put up with any other. ❜ ❨211❩ ❛ But you know what I am. You hear nothing but truth from me. ❜ ❨212❩ ❛ I have blamed you, and lectured you, and you have borne it as no other would have borne it. ❜ ❨213❩ ❛ There are people, who the more you do for them, the less they will do for themselves. ❜ ❨214❩ ❛ One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other. ❜ ❨215❩ ❛ Better be without sense than misapply it as you do. ❜ ❨216❩ ❛ You must be the best judge of your own happiness. ❜ ❨217❩ ❛ Were I to fall in love, indeed, it would be a different thing ; but I have never been in love ; it is not my way, or my nature ; and I do not think I ever shall. ❜ ❨218❩ ❛ Indeed, I am very sorry to be right in this instance. I would much rather have been merry than wise. ❜ ❨219❩ ❛ If I have not spoken, it is because I am afraid I will awaken myself from this dream. ❜ ❨220❩ ❛ If a woman doubts as to whether she should accept a man or not, she certainly ought to refuse him. ❜ ❨221❩ ❛ Faultless in spite of all her faults. ❜ ❨222❩ ❛ A heroine whom no one but myself will much like. ❜ ❨223❩ ❛ There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart. ❜ ❨224❩ ❛ Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, and waste its fragrance on the desert air. ❜ ❨225❩ ❛ I pity you. I thought you cleverer. ❜ ❨226❩ ❛ Evil to some is always good to others. ❜ ❨227❩ ❛ I certainly will not persuade myself to feel more than I do. ❜ ❨228❩ ❛ She is loveliness itself. ❜ ❨229❩ ❛ Time does not compose me. ❜ ❨230❩ ❛ A man always imagines a woman to be ready for anybody who asks her. ❜ ❨231❩ ❛ I do not find myself making any use of the word sacrifice. ❜ ❨232❩ ❛ I am quite enough in love. I should be sorry to be any more. ❜ ❨233❩ ❛ I must tell you what you will not ask, though I may wish it unsaid the next moment. ❜ ❨234❩ ❛ I examined my own heart. And there you were. Never, I fear, to be removed. ❜ ❨235❩ ❛ With all your little faults, you are an excellent creature. ❜ ❨236❩ ❛ You have another long walk before you. ❜ ❨237❩ ❛ The child's laughter is pure until he first laughs at a clown. ❜ ❨238❩ ❛ What is marriage but prostitution to one man instead of many? ❜ ❨239❩ ❛ Out of the frying pan into the fire! ❜ ❨240❩ ❛ We must all make do with the rags of love we find flapping on the scarecrow of humanity. ❜ ❨241❩ ❛ She sleeps. And now she wakes each day a little less. ❜ ❨242❩ ❛ And, oh, God . . . how frequently I weep! ❜ ❨243❩ ❛ From the coffin of your madness there is no escape. ❜ ❨244❩ ❛ I am feeling supernatural tonight. I want to eat diamonds. ❜ ❨245❩ ❛ All the same there is a chance that if we keep on shaking our chains, one day, some day, the clasps upon the shackles will part. ❜ ❨246❩ ❛ It was sad music fit to make you cut your throat. ❜ ❨247❩ ❛ Nothing is more boring than being forced to play. ❜ ❨248❩ ❛ Amongst the monsters, I am well hidden; who looks for a leaf in a forest? ❜ ❨249❩ ❛ Wherein does a woman’s honour reside? In her vagina or in her spirit? ❜ ❨250❩ ❛ Perhaps...I could not be content with mere contentment! ❜ ❨251❩ ❛ Have you ever stared stark failure in the face? The trick is to outstare it. ❜ ❨252❩ ❛ Sometimes it seems that the faces exist of themselves, in a disembodied somewhere, waiting for the one who will wear them, who will bring them to life. ❜ ❨253❩ ❛ I have the febrile gaiety of a being without a past, without a present, yet I exist. ❜ ❨254❩ ❛ I felt myself turning, willy-nilly, from a woman into an idea. ❜ ❨255❩ ❛ She looks wonderful, but she doesn't look right. ❜ ❨256❩ ❛ The one-eyed man will be King in the country of the blind. ❜ ❨257❩ ❛ I raised you up to fly to the heavens, not to brood over a clutch of eggs! ❜ ❨258❩ ❛ I love to hear my bones rattle. That’s how I know I’m alive. ❜ ❨259❩ ❛ I learnt, first, as the birds do, from the birds. ❜ ❨260❩ ❛ Inside and outside match exactly, but both are badly wrong. ❜ ❨261❩ ❛ During the less-than-blink of time it took the last chime to die, there came a vertiginous sensation. ❜ ❨262❩ ❛ I fear a wound not of the body but the soul, an irreconcilable division between myself and the rest of humankind. ❜ ❨263❩ ❛ I fear the proof of my own singularity. ❜ ❨264❩ ❛ Still nothing could calm the fearful storm in my erupting skin. ❜ ❨265❩ ❛ Petersburg, loveliest of all hallucinations. ❜ ❨266❩ ❛ A breathless second between black forest and the frozen sea. ❜ ❨267❩ ❛ I'm beginning to feel totally cut off from the world. ❜ ❨268❩ ❛ What does this all mean? Where are we? ❜ ❨269❩ ❛ Sometimes I bleed. ❜ ❨270❩ ❛ If you see a ghost, you say "hello". ❜ ❨271❩ ❛ The war is not over. ❜ ❨272❩ ❛ You're not going. You left us once already. ❜ ❨273❩ ❛ You can’t go! ❜ ❨274❩ ❛ I loved you, but that wasn't enough, was it? ❜ ❨275❩ ❛ If you're dead, then leave me in peace. ❜ ❨276❩ ❛ The only thing that moves here is the light, but it changes everything. ❜ ❨277❩ ❛ I won't ask for forgiveness for something I didn't do! ❜ ❨278❩ ❛ Sometimes the world of the living gets mixed up with the world of the dead. ❜ ❨279❩ ❛ Death of a loved one can lead people to do the strangest things. ❜ ❨280❩ ❛ Sooner or later, they will find you. ❜ ❨281❩ ❛ They're everywhere - they say this house is theirs. ❜ ❨282❩ ❛ You're always teasing me, and telling lies. I'm sick of it. ❜ ❨283❩ ❛ Others will come. Sometimes we'll sense them. Other times, we won't. ❜ ❨284❩ ❛ No crying now. No crying. Stop that. Here. Look what an awful face you've got when you cry. ❜ ❨285❩ ❛ You listen to me. I've seen them too. ❜ ❨286❩ ❛ You'll see. There are going to be some big surprises. There are going to be... changes. ❜ ❨287❩ ❛ Why did you go and fight that stupid war that had nothing to do with us? Why didn't you stay like the others did? ❜ ❨288❩ ❛ Your place was here with your family. ❜ ❨289❩ ❛ So you say you know this house well? ❜ ❨290❩ ❛ I wasn't expecting you so soon. ❜ ❨291❩ ❛ What's the matter? Has the cat got your tongue? ❜ ❨292❩ ❛ You mean they just vanished? Into thin air? ❜ ❨293❩ ❛ No door must be opened without the previous one being closed first. ❜ ❨294❩ ❛ Here, most of the time, you can hardly see your way. ❜ ❨295❩ ❛ Whatever you do, don't open the curtains. ❜ ❨296❩ ❛ Now, come on. Eyes closed. ❜ ❨297❩ ❛ We start off with high hopes, then we bottle it. We realise that we’re all going to die, without really finding out the big answers. ❜ ❨298❩ ❛ By definition, you have to live until you die. Better to make that life as complete and enjoyable an experience as possible, in case death is shite, which I suspect it will be. ❜ ❨299❩ ❛ I chose not to choose life. I chose somethin’ else. ❜ ❨300❩ ❛ And the reasons? There are no reasons. ❜ ❨301❩ ❛ Love does not exist, it's like religion, made to control you. ❜ ❨302❩ ❛ After all, we're not fucking stupid. At least, we're not that fucking stupid. ❜ ❨303❩ ❛ You fucking knew that fucking cunt would fuck some cunt. ❜ ❨304❩ ❛ Everything in the street today seems soft focus. ❜ ❨305❩ ❛ What does that make us? The lowest of the low. ❜ ❨306❩ ❛ Take your best orgasm, multiply the feeling by twenty, and you're still fuckin’ miles off the pace. ❜ ❨307❩ ❛ It’s as if everything is a copy of what you knew before, similar, yet somehow lacking in its usual qualities, a bit like the way things are in a dream. ❜ ❨308❩ ❛ It’s all okay, it’s all beautiful; but I fear that this internal sea is going to subside soon, leaving this poisonous shite washed up, stranded up in my body. ❜ ❨309❩ ❛ It cuts me up. It confuses me. ❜ ❨310❩ ❛ It's not funny laughter. This is lynch mob laughter. ❜ ❨311❩ ❛ Protect me from those who wish to help us. ❜ ❨312❩ ❛ They mean well, and they mean well to me, but there's no way under the sun that they can appreciate what I feel, what I need. ❜ ❨313❩ ❛ The pit of melancholy is a bottomless one, and I am descending fast. ❜ ❨314❩ ❛ Living like this is a full-time business. ❜ ❨315❩ ❛ I’ll stand or fall alone. ❜ ❨316❩ ❛ We are no wiser now than at the start. ❜ ❨317❩ ❛ This is pathetic, and fucking boring. ❜ ❨318❩ ❛ Death is usually a process, rather than an event. ❜ ❨319❩ ❛ We're ruled by effete arseholes. What does that make us? ❜ ❨320❩ ❛ We are all acquaintances now. ❜ ❨321❩ ❛ The problem is that this beautiful ocean carries with it loads of poisonous flotsam and jetsam. ❜ ❨322❩ ❛ Life is beautiful. I'm going to enjoy it, and I'm going to have a long life. ❜ ❨323❩ ❛ The grim reality of impending death can be talked away by trying to invest in the present reality of life. ❜ ❨324❩ ❛ There must be more to life than this. ❜ ❨325❩ ❛ We all see what we want to see. ❜ ❨326❩ ❛ Statistically speaking, you're more likely to be killed by a member of your own family or a close friend, than by anyone else. ❜ ❨327❩ ❛ What am I living for and what am I dying for are the same question. ❜ ❨328❩ ❛ Maybe that's what love is: it's being pissed off. ❜ ❨329❩ ❛ You can forget who you are if you're alone too much. ❜ ❨330❩ ❛ Any religion is a shadow of God. But the shadows of God are not God. ❜ ❨331❩ ❛ Human understanding is fallible, and we see through a glass, darkly.  ❜ ❨332❩ ❛ We must be a beacon of hope, because if you tell people there's nothing they can do, they will do worse than nothing. ❜ ❨333❩ ❛ Everyone wants to feel like a princess, and princesses are selfish and overbearing. ❜ ❨334❩ ❛ We shouldn't have been so scornful; we should have had compassion. But compassion takes work, and we were young. ❜ ❨335❩ ❛ How easy it is, treachery. You just slide into it. ❜ ❨336❩ ❛ Amazing how the heart clutches at anything familiar, whimpering: Mine! Mine! ❜ ❨337❩ ❛ All creatures know that some must die ; that all the rest may take and eat. ❜ ❨338❩ ❛ Is this the image of a god? My tooth for yours, your eye for mine? ❜ ❨339❩ ❛ Without the light, no chance; without the dark, no dance. ❜ ❨340❩ ❛ Why are we designed to see the world as supremely beautiful just as we're about to be snuffed? Do rabbits feel the same as the fox teeth bite down on their necks? Is it mercy? ❜ ❨341❩ ❛ Love is useless, it leads you into dumb exchanges in which you give too much away, and then you get bitter and mean. ❜ ❨342❩ ❛ Maybe sadness is a kind of hunger. Maybe the two go together. ❜ ❨343❩ ❛ Now I can see how that can happen. You can fall in love with anybody -- a fool, a criminal, a nothing. There are no good rules. ❜ ❨344❩ ❛ If you really want to stay the same age you are now forever and ever, try jumping off the roof: death's a sure-fire method for stopping time. ❜ ❨345❩ ❛ You couldn’t leave words lying around where our enemies might find them. ❜ ❨346❩ ❛ I'm fine, for the moment. And the moment is the only time we can be fine in. ❜ ❨347❩ ❛ Because if you can't wish, why bother? ❜ ❨348❩ ❛ It's better to hope than mope! ❜ ❨349❩ ❛ Reality has too much darkness in it. Too many crows. ❜ ❨350❩ ❛ In any case, time is not a thing that passes, it’s a sea on which you float. ❜ ❨351❩ ❛ I know I’m deceiving myself, but I prefer to deceive myself. I desperately need to believe such pure joy is still possible. ❜ ❨352❩ ❛ Too much God and you overdose. God needs to be filtered. ❜ ❨353❩ ❛ Behind my eyelids I saw an animal. It was golden colour, with gentle green eyes and canine teeth, and curly wool instead of fur. It opened its mouth, but it did not speak. Instead, it yawned. ❜ ❨354❩ ❛ ‘Why can't I believe?’ I asked the darkness. ❜ ❨355❩ ❛ Everyone’s too sad for everything. ❜ ❨356❩ ❛ If you can’t stop the waves, go sailing. ❜ ❨357❩ ❛ I would like to be the air that inhabits you for a moment only. I would like to be that unnoticed and that necessary. ❜ ❨358❩ ❛ Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them. ❜ ❨359❩ ❛ In the end, we'll all become stories. ❜ ❨360❩ ❛ I am inadequate and stupid, without worth. I might as well be dead. ❜ ❨361❩ ❛ If you knew what was going to happen, if you knew everything that was going to happen next—if you knew in advance the consequences of your own actions—you'd be doomed. You'd be ruined as God. ❜ ❨362❩ ❛ If you can't go through an obstacle, go around it. ❜ ❨363❩ ❛ Stupidity is the same as evil if you judge by the results. ❜ ❨364❩ ❛ Time in dreams is frozen. You can never get away from where you've been. ❜ ❨365❩ ❛ Male fantasies, male fantasies, is everything run by male fantasies? ❜ ❨366❩ ❛ We still think of a powerful man as a born leader and a powerful woman as an anomaly. ❜ ❨367❩ ❛ If I love you, is that a fact or a weapon? ❜ ❨368❩ ❛ You fit into me like a hook into an eye. ❜ ❨369❩ ❛ Knowing too much about other people puts you in their power, they have a claim on you, you are forced to understand their reasons for doing things and then you are weakened. ❜ ❨370❩ ❛ Farewells can be shattering, but returns are surely worse. ❜ ❨371❩ ❛ Women have curious ways of hurting someone else. ❜ ❨372❩ ❛ This is the one song everyone would like to learn: the song that is irresistible: the song that forces men to leap overboard in squadrons. ❜ ❨373❩ ❛ Get rid of death. Make it be spring. ❜ ❨374❩ ❛ You are innocent as a bathtub full of bullets. ❜ ❨375❩ ❛ I am the space you desecrate as you pass through. ❜ ❨376❩ ❛ Favour me and give me riches, destroy my enemies. Save me from death. ❜ ❨377❩ ❛ She is a raw voice loose in the rooms beneath me. ❜ ❨378❩ ❛ Isn't the moon warm enough for you, why do you need the blanket of another body? ❜ ❨379❩ ❛ This is a torch song. Touch me and you'll burn. ❜ ❨380❩ ❛ If you look long enough eventually you will see me. ❜ ❨381❩ ❛ I would like to sleep with you, to enter your sleep as its smooth dark wave slides over my head. ❜ ❨382❩ ❛ I would like to give you the silver branch, the small white flower, the one word that will protect you from the grief. ❜ ❨383❩ ❛ But some people can't tell where it hurts. They can't calm down. They can't ever stop howling. ❜ ❨384❩ ❛ How else can we live, these days, except in the midst of ruin? ❜ ❨385❩ ❛ What am I living for and what am I dying for are the same question. ❜ ❨386❩ ❛ Gods always come in handy, they justify almost anything. ❜ ❨387❩ ❛ We loved with a love that was more than love. ❜ ❨388❩ ❛ Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. ❜ ❨389❩ ❛ The boundaries which divide life from death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins? ❜ ❨390❩ ❛ There is no exquisite beauty without some strangeness in the proportion. ❜ ❨391❩ ❛ Never to suffer would never to have been blessed. ❜ ❨392❩ ❛ Believe only half of what you see and nothing that you hear. ❜ ❨393❩ ❛ And all I loved, I loved alone. ❜ ❨394❩ ❛ Years of love have been forgot, in the hatred of a minute. ❜ ❨395❩ ❛ The best things in life make you sweaty. ❜ ❨396❩ ❛ There are some secrets which do not permit themselves to be told. ❜ ❨397❩ ❛ Anything is better than this agony. ❜ ❨398❩ ❛ You fancy me mad. ❜ ❨399❩ ❛ I hear all things in the heaven and in the earth. ❜ ❨400❩ ❛ Who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery? ❜ ❨401❩ ❛ Leave my loneliness unbroken! ❜ ❨402❩ ❛ A more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrills every fibre of my frame. ❜ ❨403❩ ❛ The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. ❜ ❨404❩ ❛ Let my heart be still a moment. ❜ ❨405❩ ❛ You call it hope —  It is but agony of desire. ❜ ❨406❩ ❛ Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or silly action for no other reason than because he knows he should not? ❜ ❨407❩ ❛ To die laughing must be the most glorious of all glorious deaths! ❜ ❨408❩ ❛ The beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage. ❜ ❨409❩ ❛ Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive. ❜ ❨410❩ ❛ I have been happy, though in a dream. ❜ ❨411❩ ❛ Nevermore. ❜ ❨412❩ ❛ The truth is, I am heartily sick of this life. ❜ ❨413❩ ❛ I am convinced that every thing is going wrong. ❜ ❨414❩ ❛ The scariest monsters are the ones that lurk within our souls. ❜ ❨415❩ ❛ And if I died, at least I will have died for you! ❜ ❨416❩ ❛ It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night. ❜ ❨417❩ ❛ Hurt and humiliation — But this, I can not take. ❜ ❨418❩ ❛ The walls in there have ears. ❜ ❨419❩ ❛ This is for your ears only. ❜ ❨420❩ ❛ What is it? You have me scared. ❜ ❨421❩ ❛ Whoever isn’t for us, is against us. ❜ ❨422❩ ❛ You are just a body; to be dumped, disposed of like a carcass, left out for the birds to feed on. ❜ ❨423❩ ❛ The dead will have to forgive me. ❜ ❨424❩ ❛ From now on and no matter how your mind may I change, I will not accept your help. ❜ ❨425❩ ❛ If death comes, so be it. There will be glory in it. ❜ ❨426❩ ❛ Live, then; and live with your choice. ❜ ❨427❩ ❛ I am doing what has to be done. ❜ ❨428❩ ❛ Nothing is going to stop the ones that love you from keeping on loving you. ❜ ❨429❩ ❛ Worst is the man who has all the good advice, and then because his nerve fails, fails to act in accordance with it, as a leader should. ❜ ❨430❩ ❛ Only a loony would walk himself into this. ❜ ❨431❩ ❛ Why do you need such fences and defences? ❜ ❨432❩ ❛ Enough. Do not anger me. ❜ ❨433❩ ❛ The gods, you think, will side with the likes of him? ❜ ❨434❩ ❛ Watch it. You are over stepping. ❜ ❨435❩ ❛ I warn you. You should keep a civil tongue. ❜ ❨436❩ ❛ There is no such thing as an oath the can not be broken. ❜ ❨437❩ ❛ Every now and then, the things you’d hardly let yourself imagine, actually happen. ❜ ❨438❩ ❛ And you stand over this? This is the truth? ❜ ❨439❩ ❛ The bigger the resistance, the bigger the collapse. ❜ ❨440❩ ❛ Iron that’s forged the hardest, snaps the quickest. ❜ ❨441❩ ❛ Even the wildest horses come to heel when they are reined & bitted right. ❜ ❨442❩ ❛ That’s how guilt affects some people. They break and everything comes out. ❜ ❨443❩ ❛ Will it be enough for you? To see me executed? ❜ ❨444❩ ❛ So you know something no one else knows? ❜ ❨445❩ ❛ They know it too. They are just too afraid to say it. ❜ ❨446❩ ❛ If you die, how will I keep on living? ❜ ❨447❩ ❛ There was a star riding through clouds one night, & I said to the star, 'Consume me'. ❜ ❨448❩ ❛ How much better to sit by myself like the solitary sea-bird that opens its wings on the stake. ❜ ❨449❩ ❛ Alone, I often fall down into nothingness. I have to bang my head against some hard door to call myself back to the body. ❜ ❨450❩ ❛ I am made and remade continually. Different people draw different words from me. ❜ ❨451❩ ❛ For this moment, this one moment, we are together.  ❜ ❨452❩ ❛ Come, pain, feed on me. Bury your fangs in my flesh. Tear me asunder. ❜ ❨453❩ ❛ I am as neat as a cat in my habits. ❜ ❨454❩ ❛ Everything falls in a tremendous shower, dissolving me. ❜ ❨455❩ ❛ I am the foam that sweeps and fills the uttermost rims of the rocks with whiteness; I am also a girl, here in this room. ❜ ❨456❩ ❛ We are cut, we are fallen. We are become part of that unfeeling universe ❨457❩ that sleeps when we are at our quickest and burns red when we lie ❨458❩ asleep. ❜ ❨459❩ ❛ These moments of escape are not to be despised. They come too seldom. ❜ ❨460❩ ❛ Up here my eyes are green leaves, unseeing. ❜ ❨461❩ ❛ The moment is all; the moment is enough. ❜ ❨462❩ ❛ I do not want to be admired. I want to give, to be given. ❜ ❨463❩ ❛ I am not one and simple, but complex and many. ❜ ❨464❩ ❛ And if you are dead, I shall weep. ❜ ❨465❩ ❛ But beauty must be broken daily to remain beautiful. ❜ ❨466❩ ❛ But our hatred is almost indistinguishable from our love. ❜ ❨467❩ ❛ I desired always to stretch the night and fill it fuller and fuller with dreams. ❜ ❨468❩ ❛ Life is a dream surely. ❜ ❨469❩ ❛ I think sometimes I am not a woman, but the light that falls on this gate, on this ground. I am the seasons, I think sometimes, January, May, November; the mud, the mist, the dawn. ❜ ❨470❩ ❛ Oh, I am in love with life! ❜ ❨471❩ ❛ I have been knotted; I have been torn apart. ❜ ❨472❩ ❛ There was no freedom in life, and certainly there was none in death. ❜ ❨473❩ ❛ I do not know. I do not know myself sometimes, or how to measure and name and count out the grains that make me what I am. ❜ ❨474❩ ❛ I ride rough waters, and shall sink with no one to save me. ❜ ❨475❩ ❛ I am above the earth now. I am no longer upright, to be knocked against and damaged. ❜ ❨476❩ ❛ I see it all. I feel it all. ❜ ❨477❩ ❛ Death is woven in with the violets. Death and again death. ❜ ❨478❩ ❛ We have been walking for hours it seems. But where? I cannot remember. ❜ ❨479❩ ❛ If we were all on trial for our thoughts, we would all be hanged. ❜ ❨480❩ ❛ When you are in the middle of a story it isn't a story at all, but only a confusion; a dark roaring, a blindness, a wreckage of shattered glass. ❜ ❨481❩ ❛ Murderess is a strong word to have attached to you. It has a smell to it, that word; - musky and oppressive, like dead flowers in a vase.  ❜ ❨482❩ ❛ Sometimes at night I whisper it over to myself: Murderess, murderess. It rustles, like a taffeta skirt across the floor. ❜ ❨483❩ ❛ If the world treats you well, you come to believe you are deserving of it. ❜ ❨484❩ ❛ If I am good enough and quiet enough, perhaps after all they will let me go. ❜ ❨485❩ ❛ It’s not easy being quiet and good, it’s like hanging on to the edge of a bridge when you’ve already fallen over; you don’t seem to be moving, just dangling there, and yet it is taking all your strength. ❜ ❨486❩ ❛ There is no fool like an educated fool. ❜ ❨487❩ ❛ There are many dangerous things that may take place in a bed. ❜ ❨488❩ ❛ I am afraid of falling into hopeless despair, over my wasted life, and I am still not sure how it happened. ❜ ❨489❩ ❛ Underneath it all is another feeling, a feeling of being wide-eyed awake and watchful. ❜ ❨490❩ ❛ And underneath all that is another feeling still, a feeling like being torn open; not like a body of flesh, it is not painful as such, but like a peach; and not even torn open, but ripe and splitting open of its own accord.  ❜ ❨491❩ ❛ The small details of life often hide a great significance. ❜ ❨492❩ ❛ Guilt comes to you not from the things you've done, but from the things that others have done to you. ❜ ❨493❩ ❛ I wonder, how can I be all of these different things at once? ❜ ❨494❩ ❛ It is always a mistake to curse back openly at those who are stronger than you unless there is a fence between. ❜ ❨495❩ ❛ Some call this "Eve's curse," but I think that is stupid because the real curse of Eve was having to put up with the nonsense of Adam. ❜ ❨496❩ ❛ I don't know why they are all so eager to be remembered. What good will it do them? There are some things that should be forgotten by everyone, and never spoken of again. ❜ ❨497❩ ❛ I would never blame a human creature for feeling lonely. ❜ ❨498❩ ❛ If they want a monster so badly they ought to be provided by one. ❜ ❨499❩ ❛ It’s as if I never existed, because no trace of me remains, I have left no marks. And that way I cannot be followed. It is almost the same as being innocent. ❜ ❨500❩ ❛ Today you wear your habitual expression of strained anxiety; you smell of violets. ❜ ❨501❩ ❛ Of course you have always been an idealist, and filled with your optimistic dreams; but reality must at some time obtrude. ❜ ❨502❩ ❛ I wonder what would become of me, and comfort myself that in a hundred years I will be dead and at peace. ❜ ❨503❩ ❛ For it is not always the one that strikes the blow that is the actual murderer. ❜ ❨504❩ ❛ There is a “do this” or “do that” with God, but not any “because”. ❜ ❨505❩ ❛ If you have a need and they find it out, they will use it against you. The best way is to stop from wanting anything. ❜ ❨506❩ ❛ They say, why don’t you ever smile or laugh, we never see you smiling, and I say I suppose I have gotten out of the way of it, my face won’t bend in that direction any more. ❜ ❨507❩ ❛ I was shut up inside that doll of myself, and my true voice could not get out. ❜ ❨508❩ ❛ I see what you’re after. You are a collector. You think all you have to do is give me an apple, and then you can collect me. ❜ ❨509❩ ❛ If you want to be an asshole, it's a free country. Millions before you have made the same life choice. ❜ ❨510❩ ❛ Then there's the future. Sheer vertigo. ❜ ❨511❩ ❛ Nature is to zoos as God is to churches. ❜ ❨512❩ ❛ After everything that's happened, how can the world still be so beautiful? ❜ ❨513❩ ❛ There's something to be said for hunger: at least it lets you know you're still alive. ❜ ❨514❩ ❛ These things sneak up on me for no reason, these flashes of irrational happiness. It's probably a vitamin deficiency. ❜ ❨515❩ ❛ Toast cannot be explained by any rational means. Toast is me. I am toast. ❜ ❨516❩ ❛ You can’t buy it, but it has a price. Everything has a price. ❜ ❨517❩ ❛ As a species were doomed by hope, then? You could call it hope. That, or desperation. ❜ ❨518❩ ❛ I am not my childhood. ❜ ❨519❩ ❛ Human beings hope they can stick their souls into someone else and live on forever. ❜ ❨520❩ ❛ “I'll make you mine”, lovers said in old books. They never said, “I'll make you me.” ❜ ❨521❩ ❛ How much is too much, how far is too far? ❜ ❨522❩ ❛ Expectation isn't the same as desire. ❜ ❨523❩ ❛ Why not cut to the chase? ❜ ❨524❩ ❛ Maybe there aren't any solutions. Human society, corpses and rubble. ❜ ❨525❩ ❛ I thought you didn’t believe in God. ❜ ❨526❩ ❛ I need at least the illusion of being understood. ❜ ❨527❩ ❛ What change would have altered the course of events? In the big picture, nothing. In the small picture, so much. ❜ ❨528❩ ❛ You are only looking at the dirt under your feet. It's not good for you. ❜ ❨529❩ ❛ I like to keep only the bright side of myself turned towards you.  ❜ ❨530❩ ❛ Grief in the face of inevitable death. The wish to stop time. The human condition. ❜ ❨531❩ ❛ So many crucial events take place behind people’s backs, when they aren’t in a position to watch: birth and death, for instance. ❜ ❨532❩ ❛ Would you kill someone you loved to spare them pain? ❜ ❨533❩ ❛ When the water’s moving faster than the boat, you can’t control a thing. ❜ ❨534❩ ❛ Don't be so fucking sentimental. ❜ ❨535❩ ❛ Wrong, as usual. ❜ ❨536❩ ❛ Why do you want to talk about ugly things? ❜ ❨537❩ ❛ I understand why serial killers send helpful clues to the police. ❜ ❨538❩ ❛ Take your time, leave mine alone. ❜ ❨539❩ ❛ You will hear thunder and remember me. ❜ ❨540❩ ❛ If you were music, I would listen to you ceaselessly. ❜ ❨541❩ ❛ I seem to myself an accidental guest in this dreadful body. ❜ ❨542❩ ❛ Call me a sinner, mock me maliciously. ❜ ❨543❩ ❛ I, from the very beginning, seemed to myself like someone's dream or delirium. Or a reflection in someone else's mirror. Without flesh, without meaning, without a name. ❜ ❨544❩ ❛ I knew the list of crimes that I was destined to commit. ❜ ❨545❩ ❛ The future ripens in the past, so the past rots in the future. ❜ ❨546❩ ❛ You are untranslatable into any one tongue. ❜ ❨547❩ ❛ I was hoping my silence would fit yours. ❜ ❨548❩ ❛ See, we were never about butterflies. All about us is unearthly and radiant. ❜ ❨549❩ ❛ You do not know just what you've been forgiven. ❜ ❨550❩ ❛ I need to slaughter my memory.  ❜ ❨551❩ ❛ Forgive me that I appeared to you in waking dreams. ❜ ❨552❩ ❛ I will condemn, I will forget, I will give comfort to the enemy. ❜ ❨553❩ ❛ I know beginnings, I know endings too, and life-in-death. ❜ ❨554❩ ❛ Wild honey smells of freedom. But gold smells of nothing. ❜ ❨555❩ ❛ You are three times more beautiful than angels. ❜ ❨556❩ ❛ I will kill you without spilling your blood on the ground, not touching you with my hand, not giving you one glance. ❜ ❨557❩ ❛ You invented me. There is no such earthly being. ❜ ❨558❩ ❛ You’re late. Way too late. I’m glad to see you, nonetheless. ❜ ❨559❩ ❛ Forgive me that I felt forsaken. Forgive me that I kept mistaking too many others for you. ❜ ❨560❩ ❛ Real tenderness can’t be confused, it’s quiet and can’t be heard. ❜ ❨561❩ ❛ What else lived in that house besides us? ❜ ❨562❩ ❛ How unhappy we are together! ❜ ❨563❩ ❛ I defend not my voice, but my silence. ❜ ❨564❩ ❛ Without love, I'm more at ease, I'm sure. ❜ ❨565❩ ❛ I've got no more tears or explanations. ❜ ❨566❩ ❛ I’m not complaining. Happiness is not for me. ❜ ❨567❩ ❛ Are you not the only tie between good and evil, earthly pits and paradise? ❜ ❨568❩ ❛ In the morning we shall find out who has died in the night. ❜ ❨569❩ ❛ I was not a lovable child, and I've grown into a deeply unlovable adult. ❜ ❨570❩ ❛ The truly frightening flaw in humanity is our capacity for cruelty - we all have it. ❜ ❨571❩ ❛ I have a meanness inside me, real as an organ. Slit me at my belly and it might slide out, meaty and dark. ❜ ❨572❩ ❛ I am not angry or sad or happy to see you. I could not give a shit. You don't even ripple. ❜ ❨573❩ ❛ I was raised feral, and I mostly stayed that way. ❜ ❨574❩ ❛ I can feel a better version of me somewhere in there - hidden behind a liver or attached to a bit of spleen. But the meanness usually wins out. ❜ ❨575❩ ❛ I felt something loosen in me, that shouldn't have loosened. A stitch come undone. ❜ ❨576❩ ❛ Everyone who keeps a secret, itches to tell it. ❜ ❨577❩ ❛ Coffee goes great with sudden death. ❜ ❨578❩ ❛ I should just listen to my gut and then do the opposite. ❜ ❨579❩ ❛ “Smile, it can't be that bad!” Yeah, actually, it can, jackwad. ❜ ❨580❩ ❛ Everything bad in the world already did happen. ❜ ❨581❩ ❛ You’re going to find peace? Like knowing is somehow going to fix you? ❜ ❨582❩ ❛ Instead of asking yourself what happened, just accept that it happened. ❜ ❨583❩ ❛ Homesick for a place I've never been. ❜ ❨584❩ ❛ Worries find you easily enough without inviting them. ❜ ❨585❩ ❛ It is always consoling to think of suicide. It's what gets one through many a bad night. ❜ ❨586❩ ❛ Do you understand this is serious? ❜ ❨587❩ ❛ Sometimes it feels good to fuck with something. Instead of always being fucked with. ❜ ❨588❩ ❛ How could you kill something you cared enough to name? ❜ ❨589❩ ❛ Draw a picture of my soul, and it’d be a scribble with fangs. ❜ ❨590❩ ❛ We have the same chemicals in our blood: shame, anger, greed. Unjustified nostalgia. ❜ ❨591❩ ❛ I appreciate a straightforward apology the way a tone-deaf person enjoys a fine piece of music. ❜ ❨592❩ ❛ The phrase fuck you may not rest on the tip of my tongue, but it’s near. Midtongue. ❜ ❨593❩ ❛ Nothing to it but to do it. ❜ ❨594❩ ❛ There are a lot of people who deserve a lesson, deserve to really understand, that nothing comes easy, that most things are going to go sour. ❜ ❨595❩ ❛ If ifs and buts were candies and nuts we’d all have a very Merry Christmas. ❜ ❨596❩ ❛ Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. ❜ ❨597❩ ❛ What does it do to a girl who knows her mother is a murderer? ❜ ❨598❩ ❛ That mean old bitch across the street bit it. ❜ ❨599❩ ❛ Survival is a talent. ❜ ❨600❩ ❛ Crazy isn't being broken or swallowing a dark secret. It’s you or me amplified. If you ever told a lie and enjoyed it. If you ever wished you could be a child forever. ❜ ❨601❩ ❛ Who has the courage to burn themselves? ❜ ❨602❩ ❛ Is insanity just a matter of dropping the act? ❜ ❨603❩ ❛ Have you ever confused a dream with life? Or stolen something when you have the cash? Have you ever been blue? Or thought your train moving while sitting still? ❜ ❨604❩ ❛ You need to be well fed, clothed, and housed to have time for this much self-pity. ❜ ❨605❩ ❛ When I am supposed to be awake, I am asleep; when I am supposed to speak, I am silent. When a pleasure offers itself to me, I avoid it. ❜ ❨606❩ ❛ There is thought, and then there is thinking about thoughts, and they don't feel the same. ❜ ❨607❩ ❛ In a strange way we are free. We've reached the end of the line. We have nothing more to lose. ❜ ❨608❩ ❛ The world won’t stop because we aren’t in it anymore. ❜ ❨609❩ ❛ I can't answer the real question. All I can tell you is, it's easy. ❜ ❨610❩ ❛ I am lighter, airier than I’ve been in years. ❜ ❨611❩ ❛ I am not dead, yet something in me definitely is. ❜ ❨612❩ ❛ You meant that as an insult but I am taking it as a compliment. ❜ ❨613❩ ❛ What life can recover from that? ❜ ❨614❩ ❛ It's a fairly accurate portrait of me. It's accurate but it isn't profound. ❜ ❨615❩ ❛ Pull yourself together! There's nothing wrong with you. ❜ ❨616❩ ❛ It's quiet. It's like― I don't know. It's like falling off a cliff. ❜ ❨617❩ ❛ Once you start parsing a face, it's a peculiar item: squishy, pointy, with lots of air vents and wet spots. ❜ ❨618❩ ❛ I lost him. I did it on purpose. ❜ ❨619❩ ❛ It’s a mean world. There’s nobody to take care of you out there. ❜ ❨620❩ ❛ Reality is getting too dense. ❜ ❨621❩ ❛ I'm ambivalent. In fact that's my new favourite word. ❜ ❨622❩ ❛ I can't come up with reassuring answers to the terrible questions you raise. ❜ ❨623❩ ❛ A spring day, the sort that gives people hope: all soft winds and delicate smells of warm earth. Suicide weather. ❜ ❨624❩ ❛ Twenty-five chocolate chip cookies would be the perfect dinner. ❜ ❨625❩ ❛ A thought is a hard thing to control. ❜ ❨626❩ ❛ Life demands skills I don’t have. ❜ ❨627❩ ❛ Light like this does not exist, but we wish it did. We wish the sun could make us young and beautiful. Most of all, we wish that everyone we knew could be brightened simply by our looking at them. ❜ ❨628❩ ❛ It never stops, even at night, it’s my lullaby. ❜ ❨629❩ ❛ Love blurs your vision; but after it recedes, you can see more clearly than ever. ❜ ❨630❩ ❛ This is the kind of thing you see if you sit in the darkness with open eyes. ❜ ❨631❩ ❛ I have done something wrong, something so huge I can't even see it, something that's drowning me. ❜ ❨632❩ ❛ Whatever is happening to me is my own fault. ❜ ❨633❩ ❛ Hatred is easier. Hatred is clear, metallic, one-handed, unwavering; unlike love. ❜ ❨634❩ ❛ Potential has a shelf life. ❜ ❨635❩ ❛ Don’t move. Stay like that, let me have that. ❜ ❨636❩ ❛ I have come to the edge, of the land. I could get pushed over. ❜ ❨637❩ ❛ Never pray for justice, because you might get some. ❜ ❨638❩ ❛ It disturbs me to learn I have hurt someone unintentionally. I want all my hurts to be intentional. ❜ ❨639❩ ❛ We have been shark to one another, but also lifeboat. That counts for something. ❜ ❨640❩ ❛ This is what I miss, not something that’s gone, but something that will never happen. ❜ ❨641❩ ❛ I am not good. I know too much to be good. I know myself. I know myself to be vengeful, greedy, secretive and sly. ❜ ❨642❩ ❛ You are amazing. Amazing and agonising and almost lethal. ❜ ❨643❩ ❛ In my dreams of this city I am always lost. ❜ ❨644❩ ❛ I don't know where these feelings have come from, I don’t know what I've done. ❜ ❨645❩ ❛ I am not the centre of your story, you are.  ❜ ❨646❩ ❛ I’m mad because you’re an asshole. ❜ ❨647❩ ❛ It's enormously pleasing to me, walking away. It's like being able to make people appear and vanish, at will. ❜ ❨648❩ ❛ There is never only one of anyone. ❜ ❨649❩ ❛ I can't do this without feeling I'm acting. ❜ ❨650❩ ❛ I am prepared for almost anything; except absence, except silence. ❜ ❨651❩ ❛ I’m losing my appetite for strangers. ❜ ❨652❩ ❛ You wear your cravings on the outside, like the suckers on a squid. You want it all. ❜ ❨653❩ ❛ Knowing too much about other people weakens you. You are forced to understand their reasons for doing things. ❜ ❨654❩ ❛ I have lost confidence: perhaps all I will ever be is what I am now. ❜ ❨655❩ ❛ Echoes of light, shining out of the midst of nothing. It's old light, and there's not much of it. But it's enough to see by. ❜ ❨656❩ ❛ Whoever cares the most will lose. ❜ ❨657❩ ❛ Young women need unfairness, it’s one of their few defences.  ❜ ❨658❩ ❛ Time has gone on without you. ❜ ❨659❩ ❛ Don't let the bastards grind you down. ❜ ❨660❩ ❛ Who can remember pain, once it’s over? Pain marks you, but too deep to see. Out of sight, out of mind. ❜ ❨661❩ ❛ Better never means better for everyone. It always means worse, for some. ❜ ❨662❩ ❛ There is more than one kind of freedom. Freedom to and freedom from. ❜ ❨663❩ ❛ Remember that forgiveness too is a power. ❜ ❨664❩ ❛ I am not your justification for existence. ❜ ❨665❩ ❛ I want to be valued, in ways that I am not; I want to be more than valuable. ❜ ❨666❩ ❛ If it's a story I'm telling, then I have control over the ending. ❜ ❨667❩ ❛ All you have to do is keep your mouth shut and look stupid. It shouldn't be that hard. ❜ ❨668❩ ❛ Truly amazing, what people can get used to, as long as there are a few compensations. ❜ ❨669❩ ❛ I want everything back, the way it was. ❜ ❨670❩ ❛ You can't help what you feel, but you can help how you behave. ❜ ❨671❩ ❛ Nothing changes instantaneously: in a gradually heating bathtub you'd be boiled to death before you knew it. ❜ ❨672❩ ❛ To want is to have a weakness. ❜ ❨673❩ ❛ There isn't even an enemy you could put your finger on. ❜ ❨674❩ ❛ The past is a great darkness, filled with echoes. ❜ ❨675❩ ❛ Ordinary is what you are used to. This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. It will become ordinary. ❜ ❨676❩ ❛ I wish this story were different. I wish it were more civilised. I wish it showed me in a better light. ❜ ❨677❩ ❛ The night is mine, my own time, to do with it as I will, as long as I am quiet. As long as I don't move. As long as I lie still. ❜ ❨678❩ ❛ By telling you anything at all I'm at least believing in you. ❜ ❨679❩ ❛ Whatever is silenced will clamour to be heard. ❜ ❨680❩ ❛ Don't worry about forgiving me right now. There are more important things. ❜ ❨681❩ ❛ Keep the others safe. Don't let them suffer too much. If they have to die, let it be fast. ❜ ❨682❩ ❛ The body is so easily damaged, so easily disposed of, water and chemicals is all it is, hardly more to it than a jellyfish, drying on sand. ❜ ❨683❩ ❛ The world is full of weapons if you're looking for them. ❜ ❨684❩ ❛ Nobody's heart is perfect. ❜ ❨685❩ ❛ One false move and I'm dead. ❜ ❨686❩ ❛ Watch out. I've got my eye on you. ❜ ❨687❩ ❛ Fear is a powerful stimulant. ❜ ❨688❩ ❛ I couldn't afford to lose you. ❜ ❨689❩ ❛ Name one hero who was happy. ---- You can’t. ❜ ❨690❩ ❛ I feel like I could eat the world raw. ❜ ❨691❩ ❛ We are like gods at the dawning of the world. ❜ ❨692❩ ❛ I could recognise him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world. ❜ ❨693❩ ❛ There are no bargains between lion and men. I will kill you and eat you raw. ❜ ❨694❩ ❛ You can use a spear as a walking stick, but that will not change its nature. ❜ ❨695❩ ❛ He is a weapon, a killer. Do not forget it. ❜ ❨696❩ ❛ Some men gain glory after they die, others fade. ❜ ❨697❩ ❛ I am made of memories. ❜ ❨698❩ ❛ Will you come with me? ❜ ❨699❩ ❛ I wish I had let you all die. ❜ ❨700❩ ❛ It is right to seek peace for the dead. You and I both know there is no peace for those who live after. ❜ ❨701❩ ❛ Bury us. Let us be free. ❜ ❨702❩ ❛ Go. He waits for you. ❜ ❨703❩ ❛ Nothing could eclipse the stain of this dirty, mortal mediocrity. ❜ ❨704❩ ❛ I know I have told you of this. ❜ ❨705❩ ❛ I don't know how you remember them all. I swear they look the same to me. ❜ ❨706❩ ❛ Perhaps you should get some new stories, so I don’t fucking kill myself of boredom. ❜ ❨707❩ ❛ I yearn for the darkness and silence of the underworld, where I can rest. ❜ ❨708❩ ❛ There is no honour in betraying your friends. ❜ ❨709❩ ❛ There is no answer. Whichever you choose, you are wrong. ❜ ❨710❩ ❛ Divine blood flows differently. ❜ ❨711❩ ❛ How is there glory in taking life? We die so easily. ❜ ❨712❩ ❛ This is what I will miss, I think. I will kill myself rather than miss it. ❜ ❨713❩ ❛ How long do we have? ❜ ❨714❩ ❛ Do you think we fight hopeless wars? ❜ ❨715❩ ❛ There is no law that gods must be fair. ❜ ❨716❩ ❛ I do not fear ridicule. I never have. ❜ ❨717❩ ❛ You were always better with words than I. ❜ ❨718❩ ❛ Who can be ashamed to lose to such beauty? ❜ ❨719❩ ❛ When you see beauty in desolation it changes something inside you. ❜ ❨720❩ ❛ That's how the madness of the world tries to colonise you: from the outside in, forcing you to live in its reality. ❜ ❨721❩ ❛ The shadows of the abyss are like the petals of a monstrous flower that shall blossom within the skull and expand the mind beyond what any man can bear. ❜ ❨722❩ ❛ Silence creates violence. ❜ ❨723❩ ❛ Some questions will ruin you if you are denied the answer long enough. ❜ ❨724❩ ❛ There are certain kinds of connections that are so deep that when broken you feel the snap of it inside you. ❜ ❨725❩ ❛ Nothing that ever lived and breathed was truly objective—even in a vacuum, even if all that possessed the brain was a self-immolating desire for the truth. ❜ ❨726❩ ❛ We all live in a kind of continuous dream. ❜ ❨727❩ ❛ You can either waste time worrying about a death that might not come or concentrate on what’s left to you. ❜ ❨728❩ ❛ What can you do when your five senses are not enough? ❜ ❨729❩ ❛ We will neither be what we had been nor what we would become once we reach our destination. ❜ ❨730❩ ❛ Perhaps my only real expertise, my only talent, is to endure beyond the endurable. ❜ ❨731❩ ❛ When you are too close to the centre of a mystery there is no way to pull back. ❜ ❨732❩ ❛ I long ago stopped believing in promises. Biological imperatives, yes. Environmental factors, yes. Promises, no. ❜ ❨733❩ ❛ I look not for shooting stars but for fixed ones, and I try to imagine what kind of life lives in those celestial tidal pools so far from us. ❜ ❨734❩ ❛ I hesitated for just a moment. Some part of me wanted to see the creature, I think. If so, it was a very small part. I ran. ❜ ❨735❩ ❛ I don’t require any of this to have a deeper meaning. ❜ ❨736❩ ❛ All of this speculation is incomplete, inexact, inaccurate, useless. ❜ ❨737❩ ❛ We don’t have real answers, because we still don’t know what questions to ask. Our instruments are useless, our methodology broken, our motivations selfish. ❜ ❨738❩ ❛ This part I will do alone. Don’t follow. ❜ ❨739❩ ❛ People my entire life have told me I am too much in control, but that has never been the case. I have never truly been in control. ❜ ❨740❩ ❛ Has there always been someone like me to bury the bodies, to have regrets, to carry on after everyone else was dead? ❜ ❨741❩ ❛ I loved them, but I didn’t need them, and I thought that was the way it was supposed to be. ❜ ❨742❩ ❛ Places can impress themselves upon me, and I can become part of them with ease. ❜ ❨743❩ ❛ There is no one with me. I am all by myself. ❜ ❨744❩ ❛ Pretending often leads to becoming a reasonable facsimile of what you mimic. ❜ ❨745❩ ❛ I think you're confusing suicide with self-destruction, and they're very different. Almost none of us commit suicide, whereas almost all of us self-destruct. ❜ ❨746❩ ❛ What did you eat? You had rations for only two weeks. You were there for nearly four months. ❜ ❨747❩ ❛ Something here is making giant waves in the gene pool. ❜ ❨748❩ ❛ I need to know what’s inside. ❜ ❨749❩ ❛ These aren't decisions. They're impulses ❜ ❨750❩ ❛ What do you think I do when you’re away? Do you think I’m out in the garden pinning, looking up at the sky? ❜ ❨751❩ ❛ If I know what’s happened I can save their life. ❜ ❨752❩ ❛ They either went crazy or something in here killed them. ❜ ❨753❩ ❛ Something is coming through the fence! ❜ ❨754❩ ❛ Nothing is written in the stars. Not these stars, nor any others. No one controls your destiny. ❜ ❨755❩ ❛ People who claim that they're evil are usually no worse than the rest of us. ❜ ❨756❩ ❛ Happy endings are still endings. ❜ ❨757❩ ❛ We believe in all sorts of things that aren't true; -- we call it history. ❜ ❨758❩ ❛ Does the devil ever struggle to be good again, or if so is he not a devil? ❜ ❨759❩ ❛ In the lives of children, pumpkins turn into coaches, mice and rats turn into men. When we grow up, we realise it is far more common for men to turn into rats. ❜ ❨760❩ ❛ Girls need cold anger. They need the cold simmer, the ceaseless grudge, the talent to avoid forgiveness, the side stepping of compromise.  ❜ ❨761❩ ❛ Love makes hunters of us all. ❜ ❨762❩ ❛ There is much to hate in this world and way too much to love. ❜ ❨763❩ ❛ You confuse not speaking with not listening. ❜ ❨764❩ ❛ As long as people are going to call you a lunatic anyway, why not get the benefit of it? It liberates you from convention. ❜ ❨765❩ ❛ The eye is always caught by light, but shadows have more to say. ❜ ❨766❩ ❛ Not everyone is born a witch or a saint. Not everyone is born talented, or crooked, or blessed; some are born definite in no particular at all. ❜ ❨767❩ ❛ We are a fountain of shimmering contradictions, most of us. ❜ ❨768❩ ❛ The wickedness of men is that their power breeds stupidity and blindness. ❜ ❨769❩ ❛ I know you don't want to hear this but someone has to say it! You are out of control! ❜ ❨770❩ ❛ Even at the very worst - there is always choice. ❜ ❨771❩ ❛ Maybe the definition of home is the place where you are never forgiven. So you may always belong there, bound by guilt. And maybe the cost of belonging is worth it. ❜ ❨772❩ ❛ Cross a man and you struggle, one of you wins, you adjust and go on -- or you lie there dead. Cross a woman and the entire universe is changed. ❜ ❨773❩ ❛ That was such a wonderful time, even in its strangeness and sadness. Life isn't the same now. It's wonderful, but it isn't the same. ❜ ❨774❩ ❛ I don't care for approval, and I don't mind doing without. ❜ ❨775❩ ❛ It's where I live. A permanent state of bereavement. This is nothing new. ❜ ❨776❩ ❛ Always the bridesmaid, never the bride. Always the godfather, never the god. ❜ ❨777❩ ❛ The world unwraps itself to you, again and again as soon as you are ready to see it anew. ❜ ❨778❩ ❛ Evil is an act, not an appetite. Everyone has the appetite. If you give in to it, that act is evil. The appetite is normal. ❜ ❨779❩ ❛ How many haven't wanted to slash the throat of some boor across the dining room table?  ❜ ❨780❩ ❛ Even God used silence as a strategy. ❜ ❨781❩ ❛ I learned failure early and mastered it. ❜ ❨782❩ ❛ It isn't whether you do it well or ill, it's that you do it all. ❜ ❨783❩ ❛ This is why you shouldn't fall in love, it blinds you. Love is a very wicked distraction. ❜ ❨784❩ ❛ Wisdom is not the understanding of mystery. Wisdom is accepting that mystery is beyond understanding. That's what makes it mystery. ❜ ❨785❩ ❛ Wrong takes an awful long time to be proven, in my experience. ❜ ❨786❩ ❛ Such brightness, as you know, decays brilliantly. ❜ ❨787❩ ❛ I take responsibility only for the future, not the past. The past can't hurt you the way the future can. ❜ ❨788❩ ❛ Tell me to mind my own business, tell me to go fuck myself, to piss off, go on, say it, but don’t tell me nothing’s wrong. ❜ ❨789❩ ❛ The truth isn't a thing of fact or reason. It is simply what everyone agrees on. ❜ ❨790❩ ❛ One can't make peace with another by force. ❜ ❨791❩ ❛ I am a forgettable leaf on a tree. ❜ ❨792❩ ❛ That's all I want; --- to do no harm. ❜ ❨793❩ ❛ I only believe in the opposite of luck, whatever that is. ❜ ❨794❩ ❛ Human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves. ❜ ❨795❩ ❛ You’re too young to know that the heart's memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good, and thanks to that we manage to endure the burden of the past. ❜ ❨796❩ ❛ Love, no matter what else it might be, is a natural talent. You are either born knowing how, or you never know. ❜ ❨797❩ ❛ Whatever you do, you will be sorry all the rest of your life. ❜ ❨798❩ ❛ There is no God worth worrying about. ❜ ❨799❩ ❛ The only regret I will have in dying is if it is not for love. ❜ ❨800❩ ❛ Wisdom comes to us when it can no longer do any good. ❜ ❨801❩ ❛ Think of love as a state of grace, not the means to anything, but the very end in itself. ❜ ❨802❩ ❛ Only God knows how much I love you. ❜ ❨803❩ ❛ There is no greater glory than to die for love. ❜ ❨804❩ ❛ Nothing resembles a person as much as the way he dies. ❜ ❨805❩ ❛ Take advantage of it now, while you are young, and suffer all you can, because these things don't last your whole life. ❜ ❨806❩ ❛ Today, when I saw you, I realised that what is between us is nothing more than an illusion. ❜ ❨807❩ ❛ I have waited for this opportunity for more than half a century. ❜ ❨808❩ ❛ I want to be myself again, to recover all that I was obliged to give up. ❜ ❨809❩ ❛ The only thing worse than bad health is a bad name. ❜ ❨810❩ ❛ This soup tastes like windows. ❜ ❨811❩ ❛ Why do you insist on talking about what does not exist? ❜ ❨812❩ ❛ One has to live a long time to know a man's true nature. ❜ ❨813❩ ❛ No, not rich, I am a poor man with money, which is not the same thing. ❜ ❨814❩ ❛ My heart has more rooms than a whorehouse. ❜ ❨815❩ ❛ That may be the reason he does so many things, so that he will not have to think. ❜ ❨816❩ ❛ Love if it exists, is something separate: another life. ❜ ❨817❩ ❛ Things did not go as badly for me as they would for you. ❜ ❨818❩ ❛ There are things you do only for love. ❜ ❨819❩ ❛ I’ll have plenty of time to rest when I die. ❜ ❨820❩ ❛ There is no innocence more dangerous than the innocence of age. ❜ ❨821❩ ❛ You treat me as if I were just anybody. ❜ ❨822❩ ❛ The symptoms of love are the same as those of cholera. ❜ ❨823❩ ❛ There is no law, human or divine, that you have not ignored. ❜ ❨824❩ ❛ Why is it that I feel I've known you so many years? ❜ ❨825❩ ❛ Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories. ❜ ❨826❩ ❛ It doesn't matter what you do, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away. ❜ ❨827❩ ❛ We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real? ❜ ❨828❩ ❛ There must be something, something we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don’t stay for nothing. ❜ ❨829❩ ❛ If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you'll never learn. ❜ ❨830❩ ❛ If you drown, at least die knowing you were heading for shore. ❜ ❨831❩ ❛ You can't make people listen. They have to come round in their own time, wondering what happened and why the world blew up around them. ❜ ❨832❩ ❛ It was a pleasure to burn. ❜ ❨833❩ ❛ I'm antisocial, they say. I don't mix. It's so strange. I'm very social indeed. It all depends on what you mean by social, doesn't it? ❜ ❨834❩ ❛ Being with people is nice. But I don't think it's social to get a bunch of people together and then not let them talk, do you? ❜ ❨835❩ ❛ Do you notice how people hurt each other nowadays? ❜ ❨836❩ ❛ Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man? ❜ ❨837❩ ❛ I don't talk things. I talk the meaning of things. ❜ ❨838❩ ❛ I'll hold on to the world tight some day. I've got one finger on it now; that's a beginning. ❜ ❨839❩ ❛ I just want someone to hear what I have to say. And maybe if I talk long enough it'll make sense. ❜ ❨840❩ ❛ That's the good part of dying; when you've nothing to lose, you run any risk you want. ❜ ❨841❩ ❛ Someday we'll build the biggest goddamn steamshovel in history and dig the biggest grave of all time and shove war in it and cover it up. ❜ ❨842❩ ❛ You're not like the others. I've seen a few; I know. When I talk, you look at me. ❜ ❨843❩ ❛ You're afraid of making mistakes. Don't be. Mistakes can be profited by. ❜ ❨844❩ ❛ When they give you lined paper, write the other way. ❜ ❨845❩ ❛ The sun burnt every day. It burnt time. ❜ ❨846❩ ❛ We have everything we need to be happy but we aren't happy. Something is missing. ❜ ❨847❩ ❛ I feel I'm doing what I should've done a lifetime ago. ❜ ❨848❩ ❛ I'm not afraid. Maybe it's because I'm doing the right thing at last. Maybe it's because I've done a rash thing and don't want to look the coward to you. ❜ ❨849❩ ❛ Good God, who were those men? I never saw them before in my life! ❜ ❨850❩ ❛ How do you get so empty? Who takes it out of you? ❜ ❨851❩ ❛ It must be right. It seems so right. ❜ ❨852❩ ❛ To everything there is a season. Yes. A time to break down, and a time to build up. A time to keep silence and a time to speak. ❜ ❨853❩ ❛ It's my game. And no one can help me. Not even you. ❜ ❨854❩ ❛ What makes earth feel like hell is our expectation that it should feel like heaven. Earth is earth. Dead is dead. You’ll find out for yourself soon enough. ❜ ❨855❩ ❛ Death is a long process. Your body is just the first part of you that croaks. Beyond that, your dreams have to die. Then your expectations. Your anger and memories must die. Your ego. Your pride and shame and ambition and hope. ❜ ❨856❩ ❛ Help me give up my addiction to hope. ❜ ❨857❩ ❛ Life is short, death is forever. ❜ ❨858❩ ❛ Hope is something really tough and tenacious you have to give up. It’s an addiction to break. ❜ ❨859❩ ❛ If the living are haunted by the dead, then the dead are haunted by their own mistakes. ❜ ❨860❩ ❛ We all wish to be pursued. We all long to be desired. ❜ ❨861❩ ❛ All the demons of hell formerly reigned as gods in previous cultures. No it's not fair, but one man's god is another man's devil. ❜ ❨862❩ ❛ I can become someone else, not out of pressure and desperation, but merely because a new life sounds fun or interesting or joyful. ❜ ❨863❩ ❛ It's my petty fear of personal rejection that allows so many true evils to exist. My cowardice enables atrocities. ❜ ❨864❩ ❛ You fucked up. Game over. So just relax. ❜ ❨865❩ ❛ The greatest weapon any warrior can carry into battle is absolute certainty of her eternal soul. ❜ ❨866❩ ❛ If killing you will end my existence as well, be it. Small loss. Such a life, as your puppet, is not worth living. ❜ ❨867❩ ❛ I might be a touch of a sadist and a little bit jejune but at least I'm not a victim, not any longer. I hope. ❜ ❨868❩ ❛ Dying seems like the greatest weakness, and in a world where people say you're lazy for not shaving your legs, then being dead seems like the ultimate character flaw. ❜ ❨869❩ ❛ Any concept of right versus wrong, is merely a cultural construct relative to one specific time and place. ❜ ❨870❩ ❛ To prove that I exist I must kill you. ❜ ❨871❩ ❛ I'd say that my life has been a way-too-long case history of chasing rainbows. ❜ ❨872❩ ❛ The world is a battle for attention, a war to be heard. ❜ ❨873❩ ❛ Every garden looks beautiful in May. ❜ ❨874❩ ❛ When we neglect to fear such brittle monstrosity, we render it powerless. ❜ ❨875❩ ❛ My taste for power continues to grow, as does my ability to accrue it. ❜ ❨876❩ ❛ Such language! Why don't you just take a dump in my ears? ❜ ❨877❩ ❛ You’d be foolish to count on people displaying high standards of honesty. ❜ ❨878❩ ❛ Depending on her mood, she can be more frightening than any demon or devil you might ever run across. ❜ ❨879❩ ❛ Cross your fingers! Maybe death won't happen to you. ❜ ❨880❩ ❛ Do not die while wearing cheap shoes. ❜ ❨881❩ ❛ Old habits die hard. ❜ ❨882❩ ❛ It's our attachments to a fixed identity that torture us. ❜ ❨883❩ ❛ What do I think I am? In a thousand words; I don't have a clue. ❨884❩ ❛ If I am to be saved it is because your love redeems me. ❜ ❨885❩ ❛ All I wanted was to be loved for myself. ❜ ❨886❩ ❛ I have tasted all the happiness the world can offer. ❜ ❨887❩ ❛ Shall we pity him? Shall we curse him? ❜ ❨888❩ ❛ You have a heart that can hold the entire empire of the world. ❜ ❨889❩ ❛ Look, I am not laughing now, crying, crying for you. ❜ ❨890❩ ❛ Tonight I gave you my soul, and I am dead. ❜ ❨891❩ ❛ You are afraid of me! And yet I am not really wicked. Love me and you shall see! ❜ ❨892❩ ❛ Are people so unhappy when they love? --- Yes, when they love and are not sure of being loved. ❜ ❨893❩ ❛ Your soul is a beautiful thing. No emperor received so fair a gift. The angels wept tonight. ❜ ❨894❩ ❛ Blood!...Blood!... That's a good thing! ❜ ❨895❩ ❛ Now I want to live like everybody else. I want to have a life like everybody else. ❜ ❨896❩ ❛ You will be the happiest of women. And we will sing, all by ourselves, till we swoon away with delight. ❜ ❨897❩ ❛ I should be as gentle as a lamb; and you could do anything with me that you pleased. ❜ ❨898❩ ❛ I am going to die of love, I am dying of love. That's how it is. I loved you so. I still love you so. ❜ ❨899❩ ❛ I am dying of love for her, I tell you! If only you knew how beautiful she was when she let me kiss her. ❜ ❨900❩ ❛ He fills me with horror but I do not hate him. How can I hate him? ❜ ❨901❩ ❛ Holy angel, in Heaven blessed, my spirit longs with thee to rest. ❜ ❨902❩ ❛ Nothing is colder or more dead than my heart. ❜ ❨903❩ ❛ I had loved an angel and now I despise a woman. ❜ ❨904❩ ❛ Our lives are one masked ball. ❜ ❨905❩ ❛ Why do you condemn a man whom you have never met, whom no one knows and about whom even you yourself know nothing? ❜ ❨906❩ ❛ He would commit murder for me. ❜ ❨907❩ ❛ If I don't save her from the hands of that humbug, she is lost. But I shall save her. ❜ ❨908❩ ❛ We will go from here together or die together. ❜ ❨909❩ ❛ Your fear, your terror, all of that is just love and love of the most exquisite kind, the kind which people do not admit even to themselves. The kind that gives you a thrill, when you think of it. ❜ ❨910❩ ❛ Destiny has chained you to me forever. ❜ ❨911❩ ❛ You must never ask me that. ❜ ❨912❩ ❛ Are you afraid that you will change your mind? ❜ ❨913❩ ❛ You must come and fetch me in my dressing room at midnight exactly. ❜ ❨914❩ ❛ The holes in your life are permanent. You have to grow around them, like tree roots around concrete; you mould yourself through the gaps. ❜ ❨915❩ ❛ I have never understood how people can blithely disregard the damage they do by following their hearts. ❜ ❨916❩ ❛ There’s something comforting about the sight of strangers safe at home. ❜ ❨917❩ ❛ I have lost control over everything, even the places in my head. ❜ ❨918❩ ❛ It’s possible to miss what you’ve never had, to even mourn for it. ❜ ❨919❩ ❛ There’s nothing so painful, so corrosive, as suspicion. ❜ ❨920❩ ❛ When did you become so weak? ❜ ❨921❩ ❛ I don’t know where that strength went, I don’t remember losing it. I think that over time it got chipped away, bit by bit, by life, by the living of it. ❜ ❨922❩ ❛ Let’s be honest: women are still only really valued for two things—their looks and their role as mothers. ❜ ❨923❩ ❛ Sadness gets boring after a while, for the sad person and for everyone around them. ❜ ❨924❩ ❛ I’m playing at real life instead of actually living it. ❜ ❨925❩ ❛ I’ve just got to let myself feel the pain, because if I don’t, if I keep numbing it, it’ll never really go away. ❜ ❨926❩ ❛ I am not the girl I used to be. I am no longer desirable, I’m off-putting in some way. It’s as if people can see the damage written all over me, can see it in my face, the way I hold myself, the way I move. ❜ ❨927❩ ❛ Who was it that said following your heart is a good thing? It is pure egotism, a selfishness to conquer all. ❜ ❨928❩ ❛ It’s impossible to resist the kindness of strangers. ❜ ❨929❩ ❛ Sometimes I catch myself trying to remember the last time I had meaningful physical contact with another person, just a hug or a heartfelt squeeze of my hand, and my heart twitches. ❜ ❨930❩ ❛ I have to find a way of making myself happy, I have to stop looking for happiness elsewhere. ❜ ❨931❩ ❛ How did I find myself here? I wonder where it started, my decline; I wonder at what point I could have halted it. Where did I take the wrong turn? ❜ ❨932❩ ❛ Now look -- Now look what you made me do. ❜ ❨933❩ ❛ It’s okay, whatever you did, whatever you’ve done: you suffered, you hurt, you deserve forgiveness. ❜ ❨934❩ ❛ They’re what I lost, they’re everything I want to be. ❜ ❨935❩ ❛ You broke me and I broke us. ❜ ❨936❩ ❛ I’ve been the fool. If he does it with you, he’ll do it to you. ❜ ❨937❩ ❛ I’d never realised, not until now, how shameful it is to be pitied. ❜ ❨938❩ ❛ Sometimes, I don’t want to go anywhere, I think I’ll be happy if I never have to set foot outside the house again. ❜ ❨939❩ ❛ I don’t believe in soul mates, but there’s an understanding between us that I just haven’t felt before, or at least, not for a long time. ❜ ❨940❩ ❛ There can be no greater agony, nothing can be more painful than the not knowing, which will never end. ❜ ❨941❩ ❛ Being the other woman is a huge turn-on, there’s no point in denying it: you’re the one he can’t help but betray his wife for, even though he loves her. That’s just how irresistible you are. ❜ ❨942❩ ❛ I feel a rush of gratitude so strong, it feels almost like love. ❜ ❨943❩ ❛ You don’t know how determined I can be. Once I’ve made my mind up, I’m a force to be reckoned with. ❜ ❨944❩ ❛ The more I want to be oblivious, the less I can be. Life and light will not let me be. ❜ ❨945❩ ❛ You don’t have to be afraid of being alone. It’s not the worst thing, is it? ❜ ❨946❩ ❛ I have felt this way before. On a larger scale, to a more intense degree, of course, but I remember the quality of the pain. You don’t forget it. ❜ ❨947❩ ❛ If he thinks I’m going to sit around crying, he’s got another thing coming. ❜ ❨948❩ ❛ I don’t like to lose. It’s not like me. None of this is like me. I don’t get rejected. I’m the one who walks away. ❜ ❨949❩ ❛ I don’t remember anger, raging fury. I remember fear. ❜ ❨950❩ ❛ I can’t sleep. I haven’t slept in days. I hate it, hate insomnia more than anything, just lying there, brain going round, tick, tick, tick, tick. ❜ ❨951❩ ❛ Maybe the courage I need has nothing to do with telling the truth and everything to do with walking away. ❜ ❨952❩ ❛ I’m not beautiful, and I can’t have kids, so what does that make me? Worthless. ❜ ❨953❩ ❛ Failure cloaked me like a mantle, it overwhelmed me, dragged me under and I gave up hope. ❜ ❨954❩ ❛ It’s an odd thing to say, but I think this all the time; I don’t feel bad enough. ❜ ❨955❩ ❛ Some battles aren’t worth fighting. ❜ ❨956❩ ❛ I never felt guilty. I pretended I did. I had to. ❜ ❨957❩ ❛ I never meant for any of this to happen, we fell in love, what could we do? ❜ ❨958❩ ❛ What bothers me most is that I haven’t got to the end of my story, and I can’t start over with someone else, it’s too hard. ❜ ❨959❩ ❛ A person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn and not easily mended. ❜ ❨960❩ ❛ It isn’t only wickedness and scheming that make people unhappy, it is confusion and misunderstanding. ❜ ❨961❩ ❛ Falling in love can be achieved in a single word—a glance. ❜ ❨962❩ ❛ Though you think the world is at your feet, it can rise up and tread on you. ❜ ❨963❩ ❛ I’ve never had a moment’s doubt. I love you. I believe in you completely. You are my dearest one. My reason for life. ❜ ❨964❩ ❛ It might hurt, it is horribly inconvenient, no good might come of it, but it is what it is to be in love. ❜ ❨965❩ ❛ It was always an impossible task, and that was precisely the point. ❜ ❨966❩ ❛ Come back, come back to me. ❜ ❨967❩ ❛ In my thoughts I make love to you all day long. ❜ ❨968❩ ❛ The truth is I feel rather light headed and foolish in your presence and I don’t think I can blame the heat. ❜ ❨969❩ ❛ Beauty occupies a narrow band. Ugliness, on the other hand, has infinite variation. ❜ ❨970❩ ❛ Is there any meaning in my life that the inevitable death awaiting me does not destroy? ❜ ❨971❩ ❛ However, withered, I still feel myself to be exactly the same person I’ve always been. ❜ ❨972❩ ❛ Hate is a feeling as pure as love, but dispassionate and icily rational. ❜ ❨973❩ ❛ I’m going mad. Let me not be mad. ❜ ❨974❩ ❛ Is everyone really as alive as I am? ❜ ❨975❩ ❛ Every now and then, quite unintentionally, someone teaches you something about yourself. ❜ ❨976❩ ❛ Something has happened, hasn’t it? ❜ ❨977❩ ❛ I like to think that it isn’t weakness or evasion, but a final act of kindness. ❜ ❨978❩ ❛ Is it possible that I am, in the modern term, in denial? ❜ ❨979❩ ❛ How could anyone presume to know the world through the eyes of an insect? ❜ ❨980❩ ❛ Not everything has a cause. Some things are simply so. ❜ ❨981❩ ❛ I’ll be quite honest with you. I’m torn between breaking your neck here and throwing you down the stairs. ❜ ❨982❩ ❛ How old do you have to be before you know the difference between right and wrong? ❜ ❨983❩ ❛ It was never meant to be read. ❜ ❨984❩ ❛ If I fell in the river, would you save me? ❜ ❨985❩ ❛ That was an incredibly bloody stupid thing to do. ❜ ❨986❩ ❛ I want to thank you for saving my life. I’ll be eternally grateful to you. ❜ ❨987❩ ❛ I’m very, very sorry for the terrible distress that I have caused. I’m very, very sorry. ❜ ❨988❩ ❛ Don’t call me that! – Please don’t call me that. ❜ ❨989❩ ❛ It may be the wrong decision, but fuck it, it’s mine. ❜ ❨990❩ ❛ Like patience, passion comes from the same Latin root: pati. It does not mean to flow with exuberance. It means to suffer. ❜ ❨991❩ ❛ No one ever really gets used to nightmares. ❜ ❨992❩ ❛ I still get nightmares. In fact, I get them so often I should be used to them by now. I’m not. ❜ ❨993❩ ❛ Sublime is something you choke on after a shot of tequila. ❜ ❨994❩ ❛ Some people reflect light, some deflect it, you by some miracle, seem to collect it. ❜ ❨995❩ ❛ Beautiful women are always drawn to men they think will keep them beautiful. ❜ ❨996❩ ❛ The ruminations are mine, let the world be yours. ❜ ❨997❩ ❛ You will fulfil a promise I made years ago but failed to keep. ❜ ❨998❩ ❛ Darkness never satisfies. Especially if it takes something away which it almost always invariably does. ❜ ❨999❩ ❛ I want something else. I’m not even sure what to call it anymore. ❜ ❨1000❩ ❛ What can I say, I’m a sucker for abandoned stuff, misplaced stuff, forgotten stuff, any old stuff. ❜ ❨1001❩ ❛ Is it possible to love something so much, you imagine it wants to destroy you only because it has denied you? ❜ ❨1002❩ ❛ It’s just silent, no sound at all. It’s like something’s waiting. ❜ ❨1003❩ ❛ I guess I’m hoping the weapons will make me feel better, grant me some kind of fucking control. ❜ ❨1004❩ ❛ Oh and something else: – Fuck you. ❜ ❨1005❩ ❛ God I’ve never been afraid like this. ❜ ❨1006❩ ❛ I miss you. I love you. There’s no second I’ve lived that you can’t call your own. ❜ ❨1007❩ ❛ I’m so tired. Sleep’s been stalking me for too long to remember. Inevitable I suppose. ❜ ❨1008❩ ❛ Not seeing the rip doesn’t mean you automatically get to keep clear of the Hey-I’m-Bleeding part. ❜ ❨1009❩ ❛ These days fantasies flourish and die like summer flies. ❜ ❨1010❩ ❛ Yeah I know, I know. This shit’s getting ridiculous. ❜ ❨1011❩ ❛ ‘Fuck’ and 'fall for’ have very different meanings. The first one you do as much as you can. The second one you never ever, ever do. ❜ ❨1012❩ ❛ It’s a nice idea but it reeks of hope. False hope. ❜ ❨1013❩ ❛ It’s, well…one thing in two words: fucked up…very fucked up. Okay three words, four words, who the hell cares…very very fucked up. ❜ ❨1014❩ ❛ Do you think I could spend the night at your place?  ❜ ❨1015❩ ❛ Any fool can pray. ❜ ❨1016❩ ❛ I feel like I haven’t slept in months. My neighbours are scared of me. ❜ ❨1017❩ ❛ I’ve lost my mind? Maybe, maybe, maybe. Maybe I’m just really drunk. ❜ ❨1018❩ ❛ Perhaps by cleaning out my system I’ll come to a clearing where I can ease myself into peace. ❜ ❨1019❩ ❛ I should be dead. Why am I still here? ❜ ❨1020❩ ❛ Fuck if I know. Your guess is as good as mine. ❜ ❨1021❩ ❛ You are my flesh. You are my bones. I know you too well. I read you too perfectly. ❜ ❨1022❩ ❛ Not all complex problems have easy solutions. ❜ ❨1023❩ ❛ Do you believe in God? I don’t think I ever asked you that one. ❜ ❨1024❩ ❛ We all create stories to protect ourselves. ❜ ❨1025❩ ❛ Are you kidding me? This place is scary. ❜ ❨1026❩ ❛ These days the only thing that gets me outside is when I say: Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck you. Fuck me. Fuck this. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. ❜ ❨1027❩ ❛ You like that crap because it reminds you of you. ❜ ❨1028❩ ❛ You may suddenly realise things are not how you perceived them to be at all. ❜ ❨1029❩ ❛ The two hardest tests are the patience to wait for the right moment and the courage not to be disappointed with what we encounter. ❜ ❨1030❩ ❛ People never learn anything by being told, they have to find out for themselves. ❜ ❨1031❩ ❛ Be crazy! But learn how to be crazy without being the center of attention. Be brave enough to live different. ❜ ❨1032❩ ❛ You are someone who is different, but who wants to be the same as everyone else. And that in my view is a serious illness. ❜ ❨1033❩ ❛ God chose you to be different. ❜ ❨1034❩ ❛ Why are you disappointing God with this kind of attitude? ❜ ❨1035❩ ❛ You have two choices, to control your mind or to let your mind control you. ❜ ❨1036❩ ❛ Everyone is indeed crazy, but the craziest are the ones who don't know they're crazy; they just keep repeating what others tell them to. ❜ ❨1037❩ ❛ Haven't you learned anything, not even with the approach of death?  ❜ ❨1038❩ ❛ If people don't like it, they can complain. And if they don't have the courage to complain, that's their problem. ❜ ❨1039❩ ❛ Nothing in this world happens by chance. ❜ ❨1040❩ ❛ I want to continue living my life the way I dream it, and not the way the other people want it to be. ❜ ❨1041❩ ❛ Be like the fountain that overflows, not like the cistern that merely contains. ❜ ❨1042❩ ❛ Collective madness is called sanity. ❜ ❨1043❩ ❛ Consider each day a miracle - which indeed it is, when you consider the number of unexpected things that could happen in each second of our fragile existences. ❜ ❨1044❩ ❛ You say they create their own reality, but what is reality? ❜ ❨1045❩ ❛ Many people don't allow themselves to love because there are a lot of things at risk. A lot of future and a lot of past. ❜ ❨1046❩ ❛ Death frees from the fear of dying. ❜ ❨1047❩ ❛ The danger of an adventure is worth a thousand days of ease and comfort. ❜ ❨1048❩ ❛ The happier people can be, the unhappier they are. ❜ ❨1049❩ ❛ Life is always a matter of waiting for the right moment to act. ❜ ❨1050❩ ❛ It's best to accept life as it really is and not as you imagined it to be. ❜ ❨1051❩ ❛ You don't seem mad at all. ❜ ❨1052❩ ❛ We’re allowed to make a lot of mistakes in our lives, except the mistake that destroys us. ❜ ❨1053❩ ❛ You’re what you are, not what others make of you. ❜ ❨1054❩ ❛ Am I cured? ❜ ❨1055❩ ❛ Real love changes and grows with time and discovers new ways of expressing itself. ❜ ❨1056❩ ❛ A lot of people think something is right, and so that thing becomes right. Is that it? ❜ ❨1057❩ ❛ They think they're normal, because they all do the same thing. ❜ ❨1058❩ ❛ I didn't know that other ‘me’s existed inside me, ‘Me’s that I could love. ❜ ❨1059❩ ❛ I have no idea what's awaiting me. ❜ ❨1060❩ ❛ What will happen when this all ends? ❜ ❨1061❩ ❛ I know that you are capable of great deeds. ❜ ❨1062❩ ❛ A loveless world is a dead world, and always there comes an hour when one is weary of prisons, of one's work, and of devotion to duty, and all one craves for is a loved face, the warmth and wonder of a loving heart. ❜ ❨1063❩ ❛ The truth is that everyone is bored. ❜ ❨1064❩ ❛ I feel more fellowship with the defeated than with saints. Heroism and sanctity don't really appeal to me, I imagine. ❜ ❨1065❩ ❛ If there is one thing one can always yearn for, and sometimes attain, it is human love. ❜ ❨1066❩ ❛ Who would dare to assert that eternal happiness can compensate for even a single moment's suffering? ❜ ❨1067❩ ❛ It's not easy. I've been thinking it over for years. ❜ ❨1068❩ ❛ While we loved each other we didn't need words to make ourselves understood. ❜ ❨1069❩ ❛ People are more often bad than good. ❜ ❨1070❩ ❛ I don't believe in heroism; I know it's easy and I've learned that it can be murderous. ❜ ❨1071❩ ❛ What interests me is living and dying for what one loves. ❜ ❨1072❩ ❛ In fact, nobody is capable of really thinking about anyone, even in the worst calamity. ❜ ❨1073❩ ❛ Nothing in the world is worth turning one's back on what one loves. ❜ ❨1074❩ ❛ Again and again there comes a time in history when the man who dares to say that two and two make four is punished with death. ❜ ❨1075❩ ❛ There are more things to admire in men then to despise. ❜ ❨1076❩ ❛ It is in the thick of calamity that one gets hardened to the truth - in other words, to silence. ❜ ❨1077❩ ❛ What on earth prompted you to take a hand in this? ❜ ❨1078❩ ❛ Your code of morals? What code, if I may ask? ❜ ❨1079❩ ❛ I'm fumbling in the dark, struggling to make something out. But I've long ceased finding anything. ❜ ❨1080❩ ❛ No doubt our love is still there, but quite simply it is unusable, heavy to carry, inert inside of us, sterile as crime or condemnation. ❜ ❨1081❩ ❛ I’m not happy to go, but one needn't be happy to make another start. ❜ ❨1082❩ ❛ I am incapable of suffering for a long time, or being happy for a long time. Which means that I am incapable of anything really worth while. ❜ ❨1083❩ ❛ I should have found the words to keep her with me. ❜ ❨1084❩ ❛ We can't stir a finger in this world without the risk of bringing death to somebody. ❜ ❨1085❩ ❛ The evil that is in the world comes out of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding. ❜ ❨1086❩ ❛ There are always flies and itches. That’s why life is difficult to live. ❜ ❨1087❩ ❛ The best protection against anything is a good bottle of wine. ❜ ❨1088❩ ❛ There is no peace without hope. ❜ ❨1089❩ ❛ It's enough for me to be sure that you and I exist at this moment. ❜ ❨1090❩ ❛ There is always something left to love. ❜ ❨1091❩ ❛ A person doesn’t die when he should but when he can. ❜ ❨1092❩ ❛ Things have a life of their own. It's simply a matter of waking up their souls. ❜ ❨1093❩ ❛ Tell me something: why are you fighting? ❜ ❨1094❩ ❛ I've come to realise only just now that I'm fighting because of pride. ❜ ❨1095❩ ❛ One minute of reconciliation is worth more than a whole life of friendship. ❜ ❨1096❩ ❛ It's better than not knowing why you're fighting. Or fighting, like you, for something that doesn't have any meaning for anyone. ❜ ❨1097❩ ❛ Holy Mother of God! ❜ ❨1098❩ ❛ A person does not belong to a place until there is someone dead under the ground. ❜ ❨1099❩ ❛ I was born a son of a bitch and I'm going to die a son of a bitch. ❜ ❨1100❩ ❛ Bad luck doesn't have any chinks in it. ❜ ❨1101❩ ❛ I plead youth as a mitigating circumstance. ❜ ❨1102❩ ❛ Get those bad thoughts out of your head. You're going to be happy. ❜ ❨1103❩ ❛ Children inherit their parents' madness. ❜ ❨1104❩ ❛ I'll turn to ashes in here but I won't give this miserable town the pleasure of seeing me weep. ❜ ❨1105❩ ❛ You would be good in a war. Where you put your eye, you put your bullet. ❜ ❨1106❩ ❛ Men demand much more than you think. ❜ ❨1107❩ ❛ Even the craziest and most persistent love is just a temporary truth. ❜ ❨1108❩ ❛ If we’re alone you can whisper in my ear any crap you can think of. ❜ ❨1109❩ ❛ You have taken this horrible game very seriously and you have done well because you are doing your duty. ❜ ❨1110❩ ❛ We have the right to pull down your pants and give you a whipping at the first sign of disrespect. ❜ ❨1111❩ ❛ What worries me is not your shooting me, because after all, for people like us it's a natural death. ❜ ❨1112❩ ❛ What worries me is that you've ended up as bad as they are. ❜ ❨1113❩ ❛ It is characteristic of men to deny hunger once their appetites are satisfied. ❜ ❨1114❩ ❛ Dying is much more difficult than one imagines. ❜ ❨1115❩ ❛ If you have to go crazy, please go crazy all by yourself! ❜ ❨1116❩ ❛ We have still not had a death. ❜ ❨1117❩ ❛ How awful, the way time passes. ❜ ❨1118❩ ❛ You may be in command of your war, but I'm in command of my house. ❜ ❨1119❩ ❛ I missed you every hour. ❜ ❨1120❩ ❛ You know what the worst part was? It caught me completely by surprise. ❜ ❨1121❩ ❛ I’ve risked my life for you. ❜ ❨1122❩ ❛ The problem with wanting is that it makes us weak. ❜ ❨1123❩ ❛ I love you, even the part of you that loved him. ❜ ❨1124❩ ❛ I’m sorry it took me so long to see you. ❜ ❨1125❩ ❛ I never really belonged anywhere. ❜ ❨1126❩ ❛ Thanks for being my best friend and making my life bearable.  ❜ ❨1127❩ ❛ Thanks for finding me. ❜ ❨1128❩ ❛ You and I are going to change the world. ❜ ❨1129❩ ❛ I’ve been waiting for you a long time. ❜ ❨1130❩ ❛ I’m not used to people trying to kill me. ❜ ❨1131❩ ❛ You’re shaking. ❜ ❨1132❩ ❛ There's nothing wrong with being a lizard. Unless you were born to be a hawk. ❜ ❨1133❩ ❛ Make me your villain. ❜ ❨1134❩ ❛ Just you and me. It’s always just you and me. ❜ ❨1135❩ ❛ Do you blame me for every mistake I made? For every dumb thing I’ve said? ❜ ❨1136❩ ❛ Well, if it gets too bad, give me a signal. ❜ ❨1137❩ ❛ Did you tell him what I showed you in the dark? ❜ ❨1138❩ ❛ Did you miss me when you were gone? ❜ ❨1139❩ ❛ What is infinite? The universe and the greed of men. ❜ ❨1140❩ ❛ You’re interfering with my plan. ❜ ❨1141❩ ❛ Too much champagne? ❜ ❨1142❩ ❛ I hope you don’t expect fairness from me. It isn’t one of my specialties. ❜ ❨1143❩ ❛ There is something more powerful than any army. Something strong enough to topple kings. Faith. ❜ ❨1144❩ ❛ All you said was that I had to kill you. You didn’t say how. ❜ ❨1145❩ ❛ What is she? She’s everything, you dumb son of a bitch. ❜ ❨1146❩ ❛ She’s an ugly little thing. No child should look like that. Pale and sour, like a glass of milk that’s turned. ❜ ❨1147❩ ❛ I wouldn’t make that mistake again. ❜ ❨1148❩ ❛ It’s a great honor, to save a life. You saved many. ❜ ❨1149❩ ❛ In this world, there are things you can only do alone. ❜ ❨1150❩ ❛ What seems like a reasonable distance to one person might feel too far to somebody else. ❜ ❨1151❩ ❛ If you really want to know something, you have to be willing to pay the price. ❜ ❨1152❩ ❛ Why should you be interested in me? ❜ ❨1153❩ ❛ I have been told I've got a darkish personality. A few times. ❜ ❨1154❩ ❛ It's not as if our lives are divided simply into light and dark. There's shadowy middle ground. ❜ ❨1155❩ ❛ I'll write to you. A super-long letter, like in an old-fashioned novel. ❜ ❨1156❩ ❛ The spotlight doesn't suit me. I'm more of a side dish. ❜ ❨1157❩ ❛ The ground we stand on looks solid enough, but if something happens it can drop right out from under you.  ❜ ❨1158❩ ❛ So once you're dead there's just nothing? ❜ ❨1159❩ ❛ If only I could fall sound asleep and wake up in my old reality. ❜ ❨1160❩ ❛ Is action merely the incidental product of thought, or is thought the consequential product of action? ❜ ❨1161❩ ❛ Nobody can shake off their own shadow. ❜ ❨1162❩ ❛ The silence is so deep it hurts. ❜ ❨1163❩ ❛ I may not look it, but I can be a very patient guy. ❜ ❨1164❩ ❛ Killing time is one of my specialities. ❜ ❨1165❩ ❛ You can't fight it. ❜ ❨1166❩ ❛ Tell me something,—do you believe in reincarnation? ❜ ❨1167❩ ❛ I can’t understand nothingness. I can’t understand it and I can’t imagine it. ❜ ❨1168❩ ❛ I can hardly breathe, and my whole body wants to shrink into a corner.  ❜ ❨1169❩ ❛ I do have a few things wrong with me, but those are strictly problems I keep inside. ❜ ❨1170❩ ❛ I can't take it any more, I can't go on any more. ❜ ❨1171❩ ❛ You don't really have it together. ❜ ❨1172❩ ❛ Is it against the law for me to know it? ❜ ❨1173❩ ❛ I keep having the same dream. ❜ ❨1174❩ ❛ Are you asking because you really want an answer? ❜ ❨1175❩ ❛ I hate this! I don't want to be changed this way! ❜ ❨1176❩ ❛ No contradictions, no irony. They do everything according to numerical formulas. ❜ ❨1177❩ ❛ Want to hear the rest? If you’re not interested, I can stop. ❜ ❨1178❩ ❛ If I didn’t have these memories inside me, I would’ve snapped a long time ago. I would’ve curled up in a ditch somewhere and died. ❜ ❨1179❩ ❛ I don’t know what you’re feeling. I won’t even pretend. ❜ ❨1180❩ ❛ What are you doing here, honey? ❜ ❨1181❩ ❛ You're not even old enough to know how bad life gets. ❜ ❨1182❩ ❛ You don't understand me. ❜ ❨1183❩ ❛ All wisdom ends in paradox. ❜ ❨1184❩ ❛ It is love that overthrows empire. Love that binds two hearts together, come hellfire & brimstone. ❜ ❨1185❩ ❛ I have lost my gift. ❜ ❨1186❩ ❛ Winter is the season of alcoholism and despair. ❜ ❨1187❩ ❛ The seeds of death get lost in the mess that God made us. ❜ ❨1188❩ ❛ They're just memories now. It’s time to forget. ❜ ❨1189❩ ❛ The time has to be right and the heart willing. ❜ ❨1190❩ ❛ The world, a tired performer, offers us another half-assed season. ❜ ❨1191❩ ❛ Capitalism has resulted in material well-being but spiritual bankruptcy. ❜ ❨1192❩ ❛ Grief is natural, overcoming it is a matter of choice. ❜ ❨1193❩ ❛ I want out of that decorating scheme. ❜ ❨1194❩ ❛ With most people suicide is like Russian roulette. Only one chamber has a bullet. ❜ ❨1195❩ ❛ You never get over it but you get where it doesn't bother you so much. ❜ ❨1196❩ ❛ Don't waste your time on life. ❜ ❨1197❩ ❛ I'm a teenager. I've got problems! ❜ ❨1198❩ ❛ Adolescents tend to seek love where they can find it. ❜ ❨1199❩ ❛ Obviously, you've never been a thirteen-year-old girl. ❜ ❨1200❩ ❛ It was a mistake. ❜ ❨1201❩ ❛ It seemed like we were supposed to feel sorry for everything that ever happened, ever. ❜ ❨1202❩ ❛ Buffeted but not broken. ❜ ❨1203❩ ❛ Shit. What have kids got to be worried about now? ❜ ❨1204❩ ❛ If they want trouble, they should go live in Bangladesh. ❜ ❨1205❩ ❛ I can't wait until I get out of here. ❜ ❨1206❩ ❛ When she jumped she probably thought she’d fly. ❜ ❨1207❩ ❛ I do not think the patient truly meant to end her life. Her act was a cry for help. ❜ ❨1208❩ ❛ You're a stone fox. ❜ ❨1209❩ ❛ It was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever and ever sight. ❜ ❨1210❩ ❛ Light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. ❜ ❨1211❩ ❛ He broke my heart. You merely broke my life. ❜ ❨1212❩ ❛ I'm sorry to have deceived you so much, but that's how life is. ❜ ❨1213❩ ❛ Words without experience are meaningless. ❜ ❨1214❩ ❛ I loved you. I was a monster, but I loved you. ❜ ❨1215❩ ❛ Come just as you are. ❜ ❨1216❩ ❛ If a violin string could ache, i would be that string. ❜ ❨1217❩ ❛ Perhaps, somewhere, some day, at a less miserable time, we may see each other again. ❜ ❨1218❩ ❛ What's so dreadful about dying is that you are completely on your own. ❜ ❨1219❩ ❛ Don't touch me; I'll die if you touch me. ❜ ❨1220❩ ❛ You took advantage of my disadvantage. ❜ ❨1221❩ ❛ I walk in a maze I cannot get out of. ❜ ❨1222❩ ❛ Life is just one small piece of light between two eternal darknesses. ❜ ❨1223❩ ❛ Imagine me; I shall not exist if you do not imagine me. ❜ ❨1224❩ ❛ There is no harm in smiling. ❜ ❨1225❩ ❛ There is no point in staying here. There is no point in staying anywhere. ❜ ❨1226❩ ❛ There is nothing more atrociously cruel than an adored child. ❜ ❨1227❩ ❛ I am so tired of being cynical. ❜ ❨1228❩ ❛ Come to live with me, and die with me, and everything with me. ❜ ❨1229❩ ❛ This is the only immortality that you and I may share. ❜ ❨1230❩ ❛ I loved her more than anything I had ever seen or imagined on earth, or hoped for anywhere else. ❜ ❨1231❩ ❛ I was despicable and brutal, and turpid, and everything, mais je t’aimais, je t’aimais! ❜ ❨1232❩ ❛ Years of secret suffering has taught me superhuman self-control. ❜ ❨1233❩ ❛ Solitude is corrupting me. I need company and care. ❜ ❨1234❩ ❛ I've missed you terribly. ❜ ❨1235❩ ❛ I've been revoltingly unfaithful to you. ❜ ❨1236❩ ❛ It doesn't matter a bit, because you've stopped caring anyway. ❜ ❨1237❩ ❛ What makes you say I've stopped caring for you? ❜ ❨1238❩ ❛ Nowadays you have to be a scientist if you want to be a killer. ❜ ❨1239❩ ❛ The sun climbs high in the sky, then starts down. People come, then go. ❜ ❨1240❩ ❛ Tell me, have you ever thought of killing me? ❜ ❨1241❩ ❛ I can not believe you are the same human being. ❜ ❨1242❩ ❛ Just how urgent is it? ❜ ❨1243❩ ❛ It is time for you to be going. ❜ ❨1244❩ ❛ How is it you know something like that? ❜ ❨1245❩ ❛ I don’t mind. Your mess is my mess. ❜ ❨1246❩ ❛ Everybody has one thing they do not want to lose. ❜ ❨1247❩ ❛ I’ll be late tonight, so don’t wait up for me. ❜ ❨1248❩ ❛ Nothing I’ve tried to do by myself has ever come off. ❜ ❨1249❩ ❛ I am not catching you in the middle of anything important, am I? ❜ ❨1250❩ ❛ Some things are forgotten, some things disappear, some things die. ❜ ❨1251❩ ❛ My biggest fault is that the faults I was born with grow bigger each year. ❜ ❨1252❩ ❛ To get irritated is to lose our way in life. ❜ ❨1253❩ ❛ A friend to kill time is a friend sublime. ❜ ❨1254❩ ❛ I don't really know if it's the right thing to do. ❜ ❨1255❩ ❛ Faster cars and more cats run over? Who needs it? ❜ ❨1256❩ ❛ Most of everything you think you know about me is nothing more than memories. ❜ ❨1257❩ ❛ Your fate is and will always be the fate of a dreamer. ❜ ❨1258❩ ❛ You’re loads better than you think you are. ❜ ❨1259❩ ❛ You’re only half-living, the other half is still untapped somewhere. ❜ ❨1260❩ ❛ The song is over. But the melody lingers on. ❜ ❨1261❩ ❛ You are extraordinary. ❜ ❨1262❩ ❛ We tend to fool ourselves into thinking that time is our size, but it really goes on and on. ❜ ❨1263❩ ❛ It could be five years or ten years or one month. It's all the same. ❜ ❨1264❩ ❛ I’m forever realising things too late. ❜ ❨1265❩ ❛ I’m not complaining when I say my life is boring. ❜ ❨1266❩ ❛ Weakness is something that rots in the body. ❜ ❨1267❩ ❛ Coming from your mouth, it has the ring of truth, but I doubt anyone would believe me if I told them. ❜ ❨1268❩ ❛ You can't expect something unreal to last anyway, can you? ❜ ❨1269❩ ❛ A wise man does not step betwixt the beast and his meat. ❜ ❨1270❩ ❛ So, kill me. Tell the others I attacked you so you killed me. ❜ ❨1271❩ ❛ Should never have come here. ❜ ❨1272❩ ❛ Hard to guess my tastes. ❜ ❨1273❩ ❛ Can’t it wait until the morning? ❜ ❨1274❩ ❛ You’ll find temper tantrums won’t help you here. ❜ ❨1275❩ ❛ It must have taken courage to return. ❜ ❨1276❩ ❛ It all sounds grimly dystopian. ❜ ❨1277❩ ❛ I am not afraid of you! ❜ ❨1278❩ ❛ All this could be avoided! ❜ ❨1279❩ ❛ You consider me a murderer? ❜ ❨1280❩ ❛ Gross way to die. ❜ ❨1281❩ ❛ What sparks wars? The will to power, the backbone of human nature. ❜ ❨1282❩ ❛ My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops? ❜ ❨1283❩ ❛ Our lives are not our own. We are bound to others. ❜ ❨1284❩ ❛ I believe there is another world waiting for us. A better world. And I'll be waiting for you there. ❜ ❨1285❩ ❛ You are allowed to feel messed up and inside out. It doesn't mean you're defective - it just means you're human. ❜ ❨1286❩ ❛ Power, time, gravity, love. The forces that really kick ass are all invisible. ❜ ❨1287❩ ❛ Unlimited power in the hands of limited people always leads to cruelty. ❜ ❨1288❩ ❛ Truth is singular. Its 'versions' are mistruths. ❜ ❨1289❩ ❛ Dreams are all I have ever truly owned. ❜ ❨1290❩ ❛ Your version of the truth is the only thing that matters. ❜ ❨1291❩ ❛ I believe death is only a door. One closes, and another opens. ❜ ❨1292❩ ❛ By each crime and every kindness, we birth our future. ❜ ❨1293❩ ❛ The healthy can't understand the emptied, the broken. ❜ ❨1294❩ ❛ Lying's wrong, but when the world spins backwards, a small wrong may be a big right. ❜ ❨1295❩ ❛ The weak are meat the strong do eat. ❜ ❨1296❩ ❛ Do whatever you can't not do. ❜ ❨1297❩ ❛ What precipitates outcomes? Vicious acts & virtuous acts. ❜ ❨1298❩ ❛ I remain thankful to God for all his mercies. ❜ ❨1299❩ ❛ You can maintain power over people, as long as you give them something. Rob a man of everything, and that man will no longer be in your power. ❜ ❨1300❩ ❛ Power. The ability to determine another man's luck. ❜ ❨1301❩ ❛ Pain is strong, aye - but friends' eyes, more strong. ❜ ❨1302❩ ❛ Perhaps those deprived of beauty perceive it most instinctively. ❜ ❨1303❩ ❛ Why ask a question whose answer would demand ten more questions? ❜ ❨1304❩ ❛ You can’t lie to your soul. ❜ ❨1305❩ ❛ Why would I want to do a thing like that? ❜ ❨1306❩ ❛ We start off with high hopes, then we bottle it. ❜ ❨1307❩ ❛ Better to make life as complete and enjoyable an experience as possible, in case death is shite, which I suspect it will be. ❜ ❨1308❩ ❛ I’m not running away, I’m moving on. ❜ ❨1309❩ ❛ The reasons? There are no reasons. ❜ ❨1310❩ ❛ Some people are easier to love when you don’t have to be around them. ❜ ❨1311❩ ❛ Love does not exist. ❜ ❨1312❩ ❛ Fuck that ‘regrets’ bullshit. ❜ ❨1313❩ ❛ How does it make you feel? ❜ ❨1314❩ ❛ It’s horrible how we always die alone, but no worse than living alone. ❜ ❨1315❩ ❛ Choose us. Choose life. ❜ ❨1316❩ ❛ You fucking knew that fucking cunt would fuck some cunt. ❜ ❨1317❩ ❛ I’m more of a warrior than you’ll ever be. ❜ ❨1318❩ ❛ What does that make us? The lowest of the low, the scum of the earth. ❜ ❨1319❩ ❛ You don’t have to run away.  ❜ ❨1320❩ ❛ I tried to stop because it was only causing pain. I couldn’t. ❜ ❨1321❩ ❛ I’m not going to get crushed. ❜ ❨1322❩ ❛ I love doubt in a woman. It’s nearly as sexy as determination. ❜ ❨1323❩ ❛ Take your best orgasm, multiply the feeling by twenty. ❜ ❨1324❩ ❛ You’re a mess. ❜ ❨1325❩ ❛ I know that it’s never left you alone. ❜ ❨1326❩ ❛ Are you asking me or telling me? ❜ ❨1327❩ ❛ You just get used to all the shit. ❜ ❨1328❩ ❛ You can’t afford a conscience in this life. ❜ ❨1329❩ ❛ None of us are saints and scapegoats are always handy. ❜ ❨1330❩ ❛ Doing things doesn’t hurt you; you get hurt by avoiding them. ❜ ❨1331❩ ❛ What was that? ❜ ❨1332❩ ❛ Protect me from those who wish to help us. ❜ ❨1333❩ ❛ You can’t love yourself if you want to hurt things like that. ❜ ❨1334❩ ❛ What happens when people open their hearts? ❜ ❨1335❩ ❛ Nobody likes being alone that much. ❜ ❨1336❩ ❛ I don’t go out of my way to make friends, that’s all. It just leads to disappointment.” ❨1337❩ ❛ Don’t feel sorry for yourself. Only assholes do that. ❜ ❨1338❩ ❛ You need to grab whatever chance you have of happiness where you find it, and not worry about other people too much. ❜ ❨1339❩ ❛ I want you always to remember me. ❜ ❨1340❩ ❛ Despite your best efforts, people are going to be hurt when it’s time for them to be hurt. ❜ ❨1341❩ ❛ What stays in your heart will stay; keep them, and what vanishes will vanish. ❜ ❨1342❩ ❛ All I want in this world is you. ❜ ❨1343❩ ❛ I want the two of us to begin everything from the beginning. ❜ ❨1344❩ ❛ No truth can cure the sorrow we feel from losing a loved one. ❜ ❨1345❩ ❛ What a terrible thing it is to wound someone you really care for and to do it so unconsciously. ❜ ❨1346❩ ❛ If you’re in pitch blackness, all you can do is sit tight until your eyes get used to the dark. ❜ ❨1347❩ ❛ I’ve had enough hurt already in my life. More than enough. Now I want to be happy. ❜ ❨1348❩ ❛ People leave strange little memories of themselves behind when they die. ❜ ❨1349❩ ❛ Stop eating yourself up alive. Things will go where they’re supposed to go if you just let them take their natural course. ❜ ❨1350❩ ❛ When your feelings build up and harden and die inside, then you’re in big trouble. ❜ ❨1351❩ ❛ When you fall in love, the natural thing to do is give yourself to it. ❜ ❨1352❩ ❛ If I have left a wound inside you, it is not just your wound but mine as well. ❜ ❨1353❩ ❛ Hey, what is it with you? Why are you so spaced out? You still haven’t answered me. ❜ ❨1354❩ ❛ People are strange when you’re a stranger. ❜ ❨1355❩ ❛ The dead will always be dead, but we have to go on living. ❜ ❨1356❩ ❛ You don’t get it, do you? ❜ ❨1357❩ ❛ I am a flawed human being - a far more flawed human being than you ❨1358❩ realise. ❜ ❨1359❩ ❛ At least let me know whether or not I hurt you. ❜ ❨1360❩ ❛ All of us are imperfect human beings living in an imperfect world. ❜ ❨1361❩ ❛ I’ve never once thought about how I was going to die. ❜ ❨1362❩ ❛ So I’m not crazy after all! ❜ ❨1363❩ ❛ I miss you terribly sometimes, but in general I go on living with all the energy I can muster. ❜ ❨1364❩ ❛ Will you wait for me forever? ❜ ❨1365❩ ❛ I don’t want our relationship to end like this. ❜ ❨1366❩ ❛ When am I going to be able to talk to you? I want you to tell me that much, at least. ❜ ❨1367❩ ❛ It hurts not being able to see you. ❜ ❨1368❩ ❛ I’m not totally mad at you. I’m just sad. ❜ ❨1369❩ ❛ The world is an inherently unfair place. ❜ ❨1370❩ ❛ Life frightens me sometimes. I don’t happen to take that as the premise for everything else though. ❜ ❨1371❩ ❛ I’m a real bargain, don’t you think? If you don’t take me, I’ll end up going somewhere else. ❜ ❨1372❩ ❛ We’re all kind of weird and twisted and drowning. ❜ ❨1373❩ ❛ Don’t you think it would be wonderful to get rid of everything and everybody and just go some place where you don’t know a soul? ❜ ❨1374❩ ❛ You’re not telling me anything I don’t know already. ❜ ❨1375❩ ❛ He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past. ❜ ❨1376❩ ❛ If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself. ❜ ❨1377❩ ❛ We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness. ❜ ❨1378❩ ❛ Until they become conscious they will never rebel. ❜ ❨1379❩ ❛ Power is not a means; it is an end. ❜ ❨1380❩ ❛ They are not interested in the good of others; they are interested solely in power, pure power. ❜ ❨1381❩ ❛ Now you begin to understand me. ❜ ❨1382❩ ❛ In the face of pain there are no heroes. ❜ ❨1383❩ ❛ Big Brother is watching you. ❜ ❨1384❩ ❛ Power is tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. ❜ ❨1385❩ ❛ It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. ❜ ❨1386❩ ❛ The choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness and for the great bulk of mankind, happiness is better. ❜ ❨1387❩ ❛ Your mind appeals to me. It resembles my own mind. ❜ ❨1388❩ ❛ Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else. ❜ ❨1389❩ ❛ We do not merely destroy our enemies; we change them. ❜ ❨1390❩ ❛ How can I help it? How can I help but see what is in front of my eyes? ❜ ❨1391❩ ❛ You must try harder. ❜ ❨1392❩ ❛ Confession is not betrayal. ❜ ❨1393❩ ❛ What you say or do doesn’t matter; only feelings matter. ❜ ❨1394❩ ❛ If they could make me stop loving you —- that would be the real betrayal. ❜ ❨1395❩ ❛ Of pain you can wish only one thing: that it should stop. ❜ ❨1396❩ ❛ To die hating them, that will be freedom. ❜ ❨1397❩ ❛ No one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. ❜ ❨1398❩ ❛ What can you do against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself? ❜ ❨1399❩ ❛ To keep them in control is not difficult. ❜ ❨1400❩ ❛ So long as they are not permitted to have standards of comparison, they never even become aware that they are oppressed. ❜ ❨1401❩ ❛ The consequences of every act are included in the act itself. ❜ ❨1402❩ ❛ The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labour. ❜ ❨1403❩ ❛ Stupidity is as necessary as intelligence, and as difficult to attain. ❜ ❨1404❩ ❛ I hate purity, I hate goodness! I don’t want virtue to exist anywhere. I want everyone to be corrupt to the bones. ❜ ❨1405❩ ❛ The past is dead, the future is unimaginable. ❜ ❨1406❩ ❛ You know the answer already. Everyone knows it. ❜ ❨1407❩ ❛ You don’t give a damn what they suffer. All you care is yourself. ❜ ❨1408❩ ❛ It is not easy to become sane. ❜ ❨1409❩ ❛ No emotion is pure anymore, because everything is mixed up with fear and hatred. ❜ ❨1410❩ ❛ They say that time heals all things —- they say you can always forget. ❜ ❨1411❩ ❛ The object of waging a war is always to be in a better position in which to wage another war. ❜ ❨1412❩ ❛ I sold you and you sold me. ❜ ❨1413❩ ❛ You do not exist. ❜ ❨1414❩ ❛ How does one man assert his power over another? By making him suffer. ❜ ❨1415❩ ❛ Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? ❜ ❨1416❩ ❛ Everything else we shall destroy – everything. ❜ ❨1417❩ ❛ Two and two makes five. ❜ ❨1418❩ ❛ Facts, at any rate, can not be kept hidden. ❜ ❨1419❩ ❛ The past is whatever the records and the memories agree upon. ❜ ❨1420❩ ❛ So long as human beings stay human, death and life are the same thing. ❜ ❨1421❩ ❛ If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable—what then? ❜ ❨1422❩ ❛ The lie became the truth. ❜ ❨1423❩ ❛ It is like swimming against a current that sweeps you backwards however hard you struggle. ❜ ❨1424❩ ❛ Turn round and go with the current instead of opposing it. ❜ ❨1425❩ ❛ It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything. ❜ ❨1426❩ ❛ I don’t want to die without any scars. ❜ ❨1427❩ ❛ This is your life and it’s ending one moment at a time. ❜ ❨1428❩ ❛ You know how they say you only hurt the ones you love? Well, it works both ways. ❜ ❨1429❩ ❛ You are not your job, you’re not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet. ❜ ❨1430❩ ❛ You are not special. ❜ ❨1431❩ ❛ You’re not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You’re the same decaying organic matter as everything else. ❜ ❨1432❩ ❛ The things you used to own, now they own you. ❜ ❨1433❩ ❛ Today is the sort of day where the sun only comes up to humiliate you. ❜ ❨1434❩ ❛ Maybe we have to break everything to make something better out of ourselves. ❜ ❨1435❩ ❛ Only after disaster can we be resurrected. ❜ ❨1436❩ ❛ Everything is evolving, everything is falling apart. ❜ ❨1437❩ ❛ We’ve all been raised believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. ❜ ❨1438❩ ❛ Don’t you have other things to do? ❜ ❨1439❩ ❛ Prove you’re alive. If you don’t claim your humanity you will become a statistic. ❜ ❨1440❩ ❛ You have been warned. ❜ ❨1441❩ ❛ If you don’t know what you want, you end up with a lot you don’t. ❜ ❨1442❩ ❛ It’s not love or anything, but I think I like you, too. ❜ ❨1443❩ ❛ If I could wake up in a different place, at a different time, could I wake up as a different person? ❜ ❨1444❩ ❛ Why did I cause so much pain? ❜ ❨1445❩ ❛ The lower you fall, the higher you’ll fly. ❜ ❨1446❩ ❛ Maybe self-improvement isn’t the answer, maybe self-destruction is the answer. ❜ ❨1447❩ ❛ May I never be complete. May I never be content. May I never be perfect. ❜ ❨1448❩ ❛ Everyone smiles with that invisible gun to their head. ❜ ❨1449❩ ❛ We are not special. We are not crap or trash, either. We just are. We just are, and what happens just happens. ❜ ❨1450❩ ❛ The girl is infectious human waste. ❜ ❨1451❩ ❛ I want to destroy everything beautiful I’ll never have. ❜ ❨1452❩ ❛ On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero. ❜ ❨1453❩ ❛ If you could be either God’s worst enemy or nothing, which would you choose? ❜ ❨1454❩ ❛ It is like you’re never really awake; but you’re never really asleep. ❜ ❨1455❩ ❛ Worker bees can leave. Even drones can fly away. The Queen is their slave. ❜ ❨1456❩ ❛ A moment is the most you could ever expect from perfection. ❜ ❨1457❩ ❛ The people you’re trying to step on, we’re everyone you depend on. ❜ ❨1458❩ ❛ You have to give up! ❜ ❨1459❩ ❛ Reject the basic assumptions of civilisation, especially the importance of material possessions. ❜ ❨1460❩ ❛ Without pain, without sacrifice we would have nothing. ❜ ❨1461❩ ❛ You have to realise that someday you will die, Until you know that, you are useless. ❜ ❨1462❩ ❛ A tiger can smile. A snake will say it loves you. ❜ ❨1463❩ ❛ Lies make us evil. ❜ ❨1464❩ ❛ If you died right now, how would you feel about your life? ❜ ❨1465❩ ❛ You always kill the one you love. ❜ ❨1466❩ ❛ Maybe we should always assume the worst. ❜ ❨1467❩ ❛ Put a gun to my head and paint the wall with my brains. ❜ ❨1468❩ ❛ Which is worse? Hell or nothing? ❜ ❨1469❩ ❛ A minute of perfection is worth the effort. ❜ ❨1470❩ ❛ You’re going to die, tonight. You might die in one second or in one hour, you decide. ❜ ❨1471❩ ❛ Lie to me. Tell me the first thing off the top of your head. Make something up. ❜ ❨1472❩ ❛ I don’t give a shit. I have a gun. ❜ ❨1473❩ ❛ I know who you are. I know where you live. ❜ ❨1474❩ ❛ Tomorrow will be the most beautiful day of your life. ❜ ❨1475❩ ❛ My philosophy of life is that I can die at any moment. And the tragedy of my life is that I do not. ❜ ❨1476❩ ❛ Everything is so far away, a copy of a copy of a copy. You can’t touch anything and nothing can touch you. ❜ ❨1477❩ ❛ There are a lot of things we don’t want to know about the people we love. ❜ ❨1478❩ ❛ We just had a near-life experience. ❜ ❨1479❩ ❛ If people think you are dying, they give you their full attention. They listen instead of just waiting for their turn to speak. ❜ ❨1480❩ ❛ I am nothing, and not even that. ❜ ❨1481❩ ❛ This isn’t really death. —- We’ll be legends. We won’t grow old. ❜ ❨1482❩ ❛ Stop trying to control everything and just let go. Let go. ❜ ❨1483❩ ❛ The amazing miracle of death, when one second you’re walking and talking, and the next second you’re an object. ❜ ❨1484❩ ❛ Only if we’re caught and punished can we be saved. ❜ ❨1485❩ ❛ I never thought about how important the sky was until I didn't have one. ❜ ❨1486❩ ❛ Dreams are like that: they go in and out of memories and scenes, but they're never real. They're never real, and I hate them because they aren't. ❜ ❨1487❩ ❛ Power isn’t control at all — power is strength, and giving that strength to others. ❜ ❨1488❩ ❛ A leader isn’t someone who forces others to make him stronger. ❜ ❨1489❩ ❛ A leader is someone willing to give his strength to others that they may have the strength to stand on their own. ❜ ❨1490❩ ❛ In the end, we are alone. ❜ ❨1491❩ ❛ It is like a piece of my soul is lost, empty. ❜ ❨1492❩ ❛ If my life on Earth must end, let it end with a promise. Let it end with hope. ❜ ❨1493❩ ❛ Sorry? Sorry isn't enough. ❜ ❨1494❩ ❛ Every single thing I ever loved is beyond my reach now. Everything I ever wanted. Everything I ever was. ❜ ❨1495❩ ❛ Will you stay with me? ❜ ❨1496❩ ❛ A leader doesn't make pawns - he makes people. ❜ ❨1497❩ ❛ Do you hear that? The pulse of life from your heart, the slow in-and-out from your lungs? Even when you are silent, even when you block out all noise, your body is still a cacophony of life. Mine is not. ❜ ❨1498❩ ❛ It is the silence that drives me mad. The silence that drives the nightmares to me. ❜ ❨1499❩ ❛ There is nothing between us but rain. There is nothing between us at all. ❜ ❨1500❩ ❛ I like a little chaos. ❜
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