#every time i draw cater and make myself draw his phone case I ask “why did I decide to do this” and then do it anyway

[questionartbox]

tsum selfie! ♦ art tumblr | art twt | everything-twt

[jawllines]

CONGRATS also what happened to our blurbbbbbb :(

HELLO I AM SORRY!! HERE IS THE WEREWOLF BLURB :D 

i.

Harry had dealt with his fair share of whiny pups in his day.

Hell, most of the time he was the whiney pup himself. Despite being the Alpha, and for the most part being sturdy and phlegmatic, when it was just him and Y/N in a room together then he could be the absolute whiniest thing. Only because she allows him to get away with it, petting at his curls, grazing her fingertips up the skin of his sinewy back while simultaneously teasing and soothing him with gentle words spoken often just loud enough for him to hear.

This mostly occurred when she’d have been caught up in her school work or at the bakery and Harry can’t help but begin to feel neglected, especially when he’s been banished to the other side of the couch so she can focusing on writing her essay during his impromptu visits to her flat. That’s when he was the most abhorrent, he’d reckon, quietly sulky and whiney as to give her the chance to finish, but their bond makes it almost impossible for her not to feel his downtrodden mood shift. He figures she feels guilty then, beckoning him over with a soft call of his name and Harry all but scrambles for the opportunity to curl their bodies within one another.

It’s in those moments the notions of her being his true mate are only reaffirmed, coaxing him to nothing but a muddle of purrs and endearment towards her. Very seldom is she the whiny pup -- she’s lovey and warm and soft but never a complaint or a grumble at her lips when he’s busy or tending to other things.

So now, when she’s in a state such as this one, Harry isn’t sure what to do.

The beginnings of it had been that morning, when he’d woken to the strips of sunlight cascading against the walls and the dark sheets of his bed. Normally he might wake up to Y/N already stretching out her body, or curled nicely against his body, her back to his chest snuggled close. However, now her arm was wrapped around him tightly, and her leg had been positioned over his own almost possessively. The apple of her cheek was pressed to his chest and he could just barely feel her lips brush against his nipple, pebbled from the damp warmth of her breath. He had attempted to untangle her from him so that he could position them in a way he could wake her with kisses before venturing down to the dining hall for brekkie, but she wouldn’t budge. Grumbled in her sleep and stubbornly latched on tighter to him.

“Pet,” he’d murmured -- his tongue felt heavy in his mouth, how it does every morning, but he forces it to move, “Wake up f’r me.” He’d given her a shake or two before she was properly roused, and there had been something different in her eyes this morning. Something needier almost. She appeared cute as ever, and soft as ever, she smelled sweeter than normal as well which urged his cock awake some, and when he’d tried untangling them once more she groaned aloud and shook her head.

“Don’ move,” she had attempted to order, “Want to cuddle more. Love you.”

Harry had felt mushy of course, and he thinks he would’ve even considered skipping breakfast if it meant just letting her cling onto him how she was -- to revel in that sleepy possessiveness that she’d otherwise be too embarrassed to show -- but her stomach rumbled to life, demanding to be heard and catered to. So he’d mustered the strength he knows he has to overpower her, and just brings her along with him as he sits upward, ignoring the long whine that stretched from her throat.  

He’d imagined it had just been some post-sleep snuggles that she’d been working out of her system but that was far from the case. When Harry moved, she moved; if he walked to the dresser, she would tail behind him, and when he was brushing his teeth after she’d finish brushing hers, her forehead was pressed to his back, between his shoulder blades, just resting. He’d been concerned at first, feeling her forehead, “Are you feeling well, my love?” He had asked and she nodded, brows furrowed deep.

“What, I can’t want to be close to you?” She had replied defensively, though her arms were still locked around him as she’d placed them when he turned from the sink, “If it’s annoying then I’ll jus’ see if Niall wants my affection.”

Harry’s own brows furrowed, “No,” he grumbled shaking his head, “It’s not annoying, not at all -- you’re just more cuddly than usual, with me. Didn’t know if something was wrong.”

Y/N shakes her head, the irritation that he’d questioned her having left as she only hugs to him tighter when his own arms reciprocate around her body, “Just love you, s’all,” she’d replied with a soft sigh, and Harry thinks his heart may just burst from his chest when she continues, “Love you lots.”

“I love you too, baby,” he’d murmured, “Now let’s go get something  to eat.”

It’d continued throughout breakfast, during their morning walk around the grounds flourishing with springtime, when he’d read to her from his father’s old journals (he didn’t think she’d much care for them, but she loved it -- hearing his father’s recounting of events across the world and within the pack was so enthralling to her, she often requested he even bring one when he came to visit her flat), and carrying on into lunch, and to now, as he’d just had to negotiate his way out of bed with her so he could coordinate their food orders by promising twenty-five kisses minimum when he returned. Y/N wanted to be near him at all times, warm on his body, holding onto him in some way, and if humans had the capability of purring he’s sure she would be.

Harry’s a little worried. Don’t get him wrong, he’s reveling in this sudden burst of love and affection, but it's at a caliber she’d never expressed before. If he didn’t know any better, he would say Y/N was on the cusp of her heat, but that. . .but that couldn’t --

Oh.

Oh.

The sudden spark of the thought as Harry reaching into the desk in his office, tearing open the drawer on the top right side and pushing past the dagger that had linked him and Y/N’s blood together, for the book the Swedish woman sent him. It was full of information about their situation, which he had thumbed through quite often in the beginning, before they were together, but he’d recognized he’d always skipped over a chunk of pages. He can’t remember his exact reasoning but it had been along the lines of not wanting to get his hopes up and not wanting to form a knot at the thought of it.

When he finds the page, his eyes first flit over it quickly, searching for keywords that might clue him in on what he thinks may be happening and when he sees words like heat and possible and needy it prompts him to go back and read more carefully. Realization pooling around him, allowing him to plunge deep within its depths, and awakening his cock.

Y/N was in what the Swedish woman called, a “false heat”. Obviously, she can’t have one given she is a human, but since she is bonded with a werewolf -- an Alpha, no less -- her body has shifted into a state of this needing and wanting in order to accommodate him. Though his rut had already past, it was just her body trying to figure itself out; regulating so that she could match up with his rut, only to make the two of them a mass of insatiable desires until they’re both run dry.

And at the understanding that the reason she smelled much sweeter than usual was because she was wet and begging to be filled but didn’t know how to formulate it. His poor girl was so needy for him and he’d run off without a thought -- he can’t help but shake his head at himself.

So he all but runs back to his room, finding her flopped over on his bed, phone in hand above her face until she hears him and she turns to face him, lighting up once he enters, “You’re back sooner than expected,” she pushed herself up from her lying position, waving him over with both hands, “Sooner the bed, more of you to myself then.”

He climbed onto the bed and didn’t waste a moment, leaning forward and capturing her lips within his own. They were tender and warm, like she might have been nibbling on them in his absence, frustrated with the way she feels and not understanding why, and this only fuels him further. His hand slides up her back, palm flat between her shoulder blades as he levels her back down to the mattress. His whole body bristles when she moans, a longing, pretty little noise that makes him draw back. Fingers curling into the waistband of her pants, he wiggles them down her legs, and she’s more than compliant, her legs falling open for him to get in between.

“My sweet little puppy,” he murmured, more to himself than to her as he looks down, seeing that the fabric between her legs was nothing but a piece of soaked cotton. So soaked in fact, he could practically see through them, “Why didn’t you tell me your pussy was this wet, hmm? I knew I smelled something sweet,” he shook his head some, overwhelmed with the suddenness of her arousal hitting the air around them. His cock was filling quickly, even more so as he uses two fingers to merely pull the damp fabric to the side to take a peek at her weepy hole. He thinks he may pass out, eyes drinking her in to see her wet lips parted, clit engorged and begging for his mouth and he was more than ready and willing to give it to her, but first he pulls a little harder on her panties.  The fabric splits apart, and she squeaks, “Still waiting for an answer.” He reminded her.

“I didn’t wanna bother you -- thought I was pushing it with the cuddles,” she struggled to get out as the pads of his fingers carefully graze over her lower lips, spreading her wetness around, slipping ever so carefully around all her sensitive spots, “Was happy just to -- just to cuddle.”

A smile pulls at his mouth, “You’re never pushing anything ever -- I love holding you and I love taking care of you in anyway you need me to,” and he takes mercy on her begging little pussy by sinking two fingers into her hole easily. He shivers some at how both tight and welcoming her hole is for him, curling his fingers up against the soft, spongy bump that makes her whole body tremble. Harry’s mouth waters when the whimpery little moan that leaves her mouth, enters his ears, and his heart swells when she grapples for him. Reaching out for his shoulder, she pulls him down so that he’s close, his arm between them as he begins slowly fucking his fingers in and out of her, while she decides to wrap her arms around his neck and hold him close again.

“Love you,” she murmurs, “Love you, love you, love you,” she repeats it like a mantra and Harry is soaking it in. Who would have ever thought his sweet little human would have any semblance of a heat? And one that just absolutely turns her into a mess of pure, unfiltered affection.

“I love you too, Darling,” he hums in response, pecking a kiss to her temple, “So much.”

                                                  .                                   .                                .

Once Harry had worked four orgasms with his fingers and mouth alone, he was beginning to truly understand this false heat that she was going through. The poor thing was so needy -- probably the neediest she’s ever felt in her life -- so all the noises she let filter from her throat were unabashed, louder than she’s ever thought to be before. Her cunt was all accepting of everything he was able to offer, from three of his fingers curling up into that special spot that twists her up in greedy knots, keening for more, to his tongue that first laps at her soft petals, parting her lips around the wet muscle only to dip it within her. Her whole body was quivering. . .trembling like a leaf just barely clinging onto a branch in fall. . .but in the same breath, she was blooming for him. The carnal desire that she’s normally so reserved about, he was meeting for the first time, and it was the utmost gratifying.

When she cums, she begs for another, and though she grabs at his wrist when she’s feeling overstimulated she doesn’t tell him to stop or say their special word. She pleads and whines, babbles some and even mewls, to the point that he plugs her mouth with his fingers. Not because he wasn’t reveling in each pretty little sound she was producing but because this is what they’re meant to do for omegas in their heat. And it proves to work, ��her murmuring happily around his fingers, looking at him with these glossy, fucked out eyes that ooze nothing but love and adoration for him.

His cock is throbbing; a heavy weight in his boxers that almost feels unignorable at this point. This strokes him in all the best ways, his soft little human undulating at the thought of him inside of her. She had just come down from a nice, tightening orgasm around his fingers, where she’d milked them, soaking him to his palm and still asking for more. “Please,” she urged him, pulling him down towards her body, so his chest was flush against hers and she mouths pitifully at his lips, like she wants to kiss but keeps talking and cuts it off anytime they lock together for a moment, “Want you so bad -- everywhere, all over me, inside me, I --” her fingernails dig into the skin over his shoulder blades, shaking her head, “M’sorry, m’so needy but you’re -- you’re my Alpha, Harry need you so bad.”

Harry nearly busts off right there, a particularly strong throb rock through his prick and a thick string of precum dots the heather grey fabric of his boxers wet and sticky. He bristles with her claim and those words that he didn’t even know he needed to hear, were the ones that sparked the fire in his veins at an even higher temperature than before.

“Don’t apologize, never apologize,” he slips down closer to her, tilting his forehead against hers, their noses brushing together, “You’re right baby, I’m your Alpha -- need to take care of my girl, don’t I? Fill you up so full with my knot that you feel me leaking from you for days.” This makes her shiver, nodding quickly as she parts her legs open more easily for him. Harry has one hand up near her face, cradling her cheek and caressing the skin gently for a moment before he pushes up and the other he pushes his boxers off his legs, then taking the base of his cock in his hand and slipping it up her swollen, messy little slit. He looks down between them, the head shiny and slick with his own arousal, dipping into that sweet little oasis of a pussy she has for him.

He watches himself sink in, her walls wrapping around him and the filthiest groan leaves the both of them and Harry flops back over to her. Bottoms out deep within her, balls snug to her bum and he can already feel his knot forming. “God, baby,” he all but growls, shaking his head, “You sweet little thing, you’re so tight and warm for me aren’t you? Just the perfect fit for your Alpha, yeah?”

She’s nodding, letting him move her legs easily, so her leg was swung around his forearm with the inside of her knee to his skin, as he begins to steadily fuck into her.  The pads of his fingers dig dents into the flesh of her thighs, rocking back and forth and Y/N seems like she’s fallen into paradise. Her eyes are wet with tears, and she loops her fingers around the thin skin of his wrists, pulling the two fingers that had been in her mouth back against her tongue. “Oh, sweet girl,” he hushes her, petting at her tongue, “I love you so much.”

Harry’s hitting her spot again and again, and she’s mewling for him, “I wove you so mu-tch,” she cries out to him, “G’na cum, I think m’g’na cum.”

“Yeah?” His voice is a low rumble, “Cum for me then, yeah? Squeeze me baby, squeeze me tight around my knot.”

Y/N listens, moaning and her walls begin pulsating around him intensely. It pushes him towards his own end, giving a shaky breath, another deep growl as he buries his face into her neck and breathes in the sweet scent of her as his knot swells, slipping into her dripping hole as he cums shot, after shot inside of her, filling her so full that its slipping around his shaft as some of it leaks out of her around his balls. Thighs trembling as they squeeze around his hips, overstimulated and sensitive as she finishes out her orgasm. He wants to slump over her and rest but he can’t, instead shifting them to the side so that they were on their sides, facing one another and her hooks her leg around his hip to keep her close.

“I love you so much,” she whimpers, leaning forward and rubbing their noses together mawkishly.

Harry’s heart grows in his chest, and he feels so soft, sliding his palm up and down her back, “I love you more, my love,” he puckered his lips, placing a gentle kiss on her mouth and he tastes the salt of her tears from before, and his heart yanks. “You’re my whole world. Do you know that?”

“No, you’re mine,” she counters, burrowing her face into his chest, “I love you most.”

They could do this all day and night, he’s sure of it, and the fact that they could make him feel immensely warm. He was in bed, with his mate, and though he was knotted with her after the filthiest act, the moment felt so pure and innocent. . .full of love.

Harry’s happy and he doesn’t think he could ask for anything more.

[cherryyharryy]

Chapter 5: Clavicular Notch   

 This dream isn't feeling sweet

A shattered gasp shot through her lips as her head flew off the pillow. Harry’s shirt was glued to her drenched body and her pillow held more than her imprint. Adeline clenched the comforter through the exhausted and weakening paralysis coursing in her bones, focusing on what little energy and strength she could conjure up to throw the heavy weight off her body.

She counted back from ten before finally opening her eyes, willing her lungs to find a calmer rhythm. It took her brain a few moments to register that she was awake, her legs now dangling off the edge of the bed, allowing her feet to get used to the shock of cold from the hardwood.

After a few minutes of stirring in silence she shuffled out of her room in need of a glass of water, eyes nearly closed and her tongue struggling to swallow in dryness.

The apartment was dark, and she didn’t have the stamina to fiddle around for the light switch when she stumbled into the kitchen. The sink seemed miles away as she drug her feet across the tile, yanking a mug off the rack on the counter and filling it to the top with cold water.

She adjusted her shirt so it covered her thighs before sliding onto the barstool at the island, sparing her already tormented body from the bite of the cold leather. She only had three big gulps past her lips when her body flinched at a sudden burst of light.

“What are you doing up?”

An ankle-length-nightgown-clad Nicole strolled towards the stove where she started a pot of tea. She flipped the box of small packets open and picked out a few before deciding on one, which only sent memories of Harry tumbling through Adeline’s head.

Harry and his middle of the night tea that served to further his consciousness rather than its intended purpose of soothing his wired body and rambunctious mind, which led to flirty texts buzzing through her phone and a whispered phone call until one of them fell asleep.

But Nicole was no Harry and now they had a bit of a different routine.

Despite having been asleep for hours, every hair on Nicole’s head was in place and her nightgown was wrinkle-free. There were no makeup smudges under her eyes nor any evidence of a panic attack wreaking havoc on her as she slept. Her kettle steamed right away, drawing her questioning eyes from where they’d been resting on her younger cousin.

“Couldn’t sleep.”

“These walls are thin you know,” Nicole eyed her knowingly, “I can hear you gasping and mumbling to yourself.”

“I’m just a little stressed.”

“Are you having nightmares? Are you—why are you using a mug for water?”

Adeline looked down at her drink and sighed. “No nightmares, just stress. I think I let it build up and then at night it all hits, and then I just...lose it. I don’t know.”

Nicole took a seat beside her cousin, her tea in perfectly manicured hands. “What are you so stressed about?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? How could you not know?”

Adeline shrugged. “Life I guess. That’s what I worry about.”

“What could you possibly be stressed about?” Nicole asked accusingly, waving her spoon in the air. “You’re 18, living in a rent-free apartment, away from your parents. You’re at a great school, no job, no major responsibilities. Your skin is blemish free...what’s the problem?”

Nicole’s criticism only furthered Adeline’s need to shut down. The clinking of her spoon stirring her tea grew louder, mixing in with the whirlpool of reasons she should be happy flinging around her mind.

“I know, I know. I’m very blessed. I don’t know what it is, just got a case of the blues.”

Nicole’s eyes narrowed in on her. “Alright then, whatever you say.” She brought her cup to the sink, mumbling about all the chores she had to do the next day before cleaning up her mess and bidding Adeline a weak goodnight.

Adeline downed the rest of her water and slid off the stool, holding back a round of tears as she she rounded the island, leaving her mug on the counter for Nicole to fuss about in the morning.

***

Half an hour later and Adeline was still tossing in bed, so she resorted to the only thing that could quiet her mind.

“Hello, darling.”

“Harry…”

“Bad night, love? You alright?”

“Just tell me about your day.”

And so their routine began; her calling in the middle of the night to rely on Harry’s voice for comfort. The time they spent together took a major hit when fall semester began. His college acceptance letter to Chadron had been bittersweet, knowing what it meant for their relationship.

“I had quite a productive day. Woke around noon to go stand in line at this new record store that was opening. I was eighth in line, Addy.”

“So? What does that mean?”

“That, my dear, means that you are talking to the proud owner of two free vinyls.”

Adeline settled back into her pillows, her body finally able to relax at the thought of the smug grin that was surely adorning his face, lying in his small bed, shirtless with the covers kicked down to his feet because he always got too hot, fan on high with that morning’s coffee still sat on the nightstand.

“Congratulations, glad to hear you skipped class yet again for a worthy cause.”

“You’ll eat those words when you’re listenin’ to this delicacy the next time we see each other.”

“Neither of us even owns a record player.”

“M’working on it, babe, don’t worry about it.”

“Anyway,” Adeline hummed, “what are your plans for tomorrow?”

“Guess I’ll go to class considering I haven’t gone all week.”

“All week! Harry you can’t do that! This isn’t high school. They aren’t going to cater to you. If you miss assignments, that’s it, no more turning things in whenever you want.”

“Thank you, mum.”

“M’serious, Harry. We can’t slide by anymore. Last week this girl showed up ten minutes late to class and my professor told her to leave. He said if she was going to be late, then she shouldn’t even bother showing up. We have to be more responsible now.”

“I know, but s’just not any fun. Guess that's what happens as yeh get older, the fun dies a little each day."

"I think that's a little dramatic. We can still have fun, we just have to put school first."

"For someone so smart that was a load of shit, Addy. If I were to die next week, my life flashing before m'eyes, what do you think I'd wanna see?"

"I know," she let out a sigh, "I get that, I do, I just don't wanna mess this up. This is the rest of our lives we're talking about."

"True, but you can't have all work and no play either," he reasoned. "See, this is why we should've gone to the same school. We balance each other out. You could yell at me to do my homework, and I could drag your bloodshot eyes away from your laptop to some stupid party."

Spending her college years with Harry would be a dream. She missed him more and more as the days went by. The picture he painted made her skin tingle and her brain dance, wanting nothing more than to live out the innocent fantasy.

"And then what?"

"We'd be there for an hour before leavin' out of boredom, tired of watching people drink themselves into a coma and mixing drugs in the bathroom. Then we'd go get ice cream, or go skinny dipping."

"How are those my only choices?" She laughed.

"Sorry, I meant, go get ice cream, and go skinny dipping. Forgive me love, m'quite knackered."

"You're ridiculous. What about in the winter when it's cold?"

“In the winter we would...go back to my apartment, cause you're roommate is really weird. Like, really weird. And pile up every blanket we own onto the bed and just hug 'till we fall asleep."

"You mean cuddle."

"You know I don't like that word, Adeline."

Laughter erupted from her mouth at his sudden serious tone. It had been late at night, not long after they first got together, that he informed her of just how much he hated the word. It was on a list that included overdone brownies, people who let newspapers pile up at the end of their driveway, and seeing babies in frigid grocery stores without socks on their feet.

"I couldn't help myself. I—ugh, Nicole is shouting at me to be quiet. I should probably go." her eyes flickered to her clock. "It's getting late anyway, almost three."

"Yeah, I have an early class tomorrow, he sighed.

"Thought your Thursday class didn't start 'till eleven?"

"It does, that's early."

"Whatever, Harry."

"Hey,” he cooed, “I know you've been really stressed out lately, yeh need to step back sometimes to relax."

"I know, I've just been overthinking about my life at the moment."

"You're living the dream, babe."

"I know, s'just not what I was expecting.

"And what was that?" He asked.

"I—I don't know. Just doesn’t feel the way I think I should feel. I don't even know if that makes any sense."

"It does, I understand."

"You do?"

"Yeah. I miss you too, angel. More than you know."

***

And then her professor, a dignified man with three degrees and a never ending collection of sweater vests, who erased everything he wrote on the board about two seconds after he wrote it, who's advice for her when she came to him for tutoring was to 'look at her notes', was anything but helpful.

The classroom was on the exact opposite side of campus from her class right before, and you'd think fifteen minutes would be more than enough time to get there, but a few weeks in and she can only manage to arrive after the door had been locked and she’s left to interrupting the lecture with her knocking.

On top of that, the room was freezing. The guy that usually sat next to her asked for a pencil every. single. day. And last week she sat in gum.

So needless to say, she dreaded Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Despite the weekly impending doom, today she had high hopes. They were getting their first test back, and she was in need of some good fortune. Nicole had been a grouch that morning, complaining about how she interrupts her morning routine, which led to an argument which led to her storming out without even having the chance to brush her teeth.

So an 'A' on a test, which she knew she was getting—she had studied for hours—was just what she needed to turn her day around.

***

Dr. Wallace loved to torture apparently, making them wait the entire hour and fifteen minutes of which she couldn't harness any concentration, until he passed back their exams. Adeline’s heart was a pounding frenzy and her bones were tingling.

When the seventy-five question test was finally laid down before her, her brain froze in mindless thought and the anxiety filling her up moments ago switched gears. She looked up to her professor, who was already five rows past her’s, and back down at what must be a mistake.

Had to be a mistake.

Please, God, let it be a mistake.

***

"Well maybe next time you'll try a little harder. Set some time aside and study, you can't have your boyfriend the focus of your life anymore, school needs to be your priority, Adeline."

She just sat there, dumbfounded with her mouth gaping around silent protests. Her dad flipped through the pages of her test, shaking his head every so often. At one point he pointed out one of her wrong answers, with the audacity to ask her why she got it incorrect. And he did not care for her response of 'I didn't know the answer'. Before she even had a chance to put a sentence together, he continued on with his rant.

"College is different, honey. Your professors aren't goin' to babysit you anymore."

"I know dad, I know." her head dropped into her hands. She huffed out a shaky breath and met his gaze once again. "I guess next time I'll start preparing three weeks ahead of a test."

"Now that's what I'm talking about." He slid from his seat at the table, nodding with each word as he picked up both of their plates. "More cake?"

She shook her head. "M'just gonna head back."

"What? I thought you were spending the weekend? That's a long drive."

"Yep. So the sooner I leave, the faster I get back." She slung her bag over her shoulder and rounded the island to kiss her dad's cheek. "I'll see you guys at Thanksgiving."

***

Strike two. The understanding of trying your hardest was not a part of the genetic makeup on her dad's side of the family.

"Adeline, I don't know what you want me to say? This is a terrible grade. You got what you deserve. You get out what you put into things. Try harder next time."

With that boost of encouragement Nicole tossed her now crumpled test on the counter and went back to scrubbing the bare fridge, mumbling about how Adeline arranged all of its contents wrong and how she has to do everything.

"You're not listening. I did try. Really hard—"

"If you tried hard you would have the grade to show for it."

She snatched her test and spun on her heel. "Whatever, Nicole. M'goin' to bed."

***

Surely this was a joke. Bombing this test was bad enough, but everyone’s negative input was just another muddy stomp across her heart.

“You can’t be mad, Addy, not at me or anyone else.” Gina, Adeline’s friend from high school whom she sat with in her Sociology class, attempted to smooth out her test on the edge of her desk. “You’ll do better on the next one.”

“But Gina, you can understand why I’m frustrated. I mean, look at the second question—it’s ridiculous! How can he expect anyone to get that right? And—”

“Blaming the professor will get you nowhere.”

She sighed and took her somewhat smoother test from her hands and stuffed it into her book bag, trying not to let any more tears slip all because of one stupid exam.

“You’re my friend, aren’t you supposed to complain alongside me, y’know, and tell me as long as I try my best it’s good enough?”

Gina brought her coffee down from her mouth and narrowed her eyes. “M’not your mom at your dance recital. You’re in college now. The bar for doing your best has raised, so you’d better catch up.”

***

"It's one test, love. You'll do better on the next one."

"You don't understand, Harry." She kicked her door shut and flopped down on her bed, keeping her phone pressed to her ear. "I spent hours over the course of days studying. Took pages of notes, did the practice questions, I even went to a study group with some people from my class! All for nothing but a lousy fuckin' 42."

"M'sorry Addy, know how you feel," he sighed. "But I also know how smart you are, how yeh never give up. You'll come out of this class with an A, I know it. Remember that biology teacher you had? She was a piece of work and you made it outta her class alive. I'm rooting for you, darling."

She relaxed into the pillow, letting herself believe his encouragements. It wouldn't last, she’ll worry and panic the rest of the semester, but for now she’ll pretend he's right.

"Thank you, Harry."

"F'course. S'what I'm here for. So other than everyone you know not taking your side—”

“Don’t mock me!”

“S’your own words,love.”

“I was really upset!”

“I know, I know. But you’re not now?”

“Until my next test.”

He sighed on the other end, and now more than ever did she wish she could see him, feel him. His voice alone was losing its convincibility that Harry was actually physically on the other side of the call.  

“Take a deep breath, baby. Your whole college career isn’t dependent on this one class. Everyone has a test or two that they’re going to bomb. All you can do is learn from it. Maybe find someone who’s already taken this professor, see how they survived.”

“Yeah, there’s this guy in my history class who took it last semester. Guess I could pick his brain.”

“There you go. You’re going to be fine. And if all else fails, I’ll support you for the rest of your life.”

She rolled her eyes, fighting back a smile. “Shut up.”

“So...any luck with picking a major?”

“I was hoping you wouldn’t ask,” she sighed.

“How many times do I have to tell you—”

“I know, I know. Literature. But—”

“It’s your calling. Your mom said you’re an incredible writer.”

Adeline rolled her eyes. “She’s my mom, she has to say that.”

“I’d say it too if I was allowed to see any of your work.”

Adeline bit the inside of her cheek, thankful that Harry couldn’t see her at the moment. She’d done an excellent job of keeping her writing to herself, only choosing to share a poem or short story here or there with her family, but the thought of Harry reading anything she’s put down on paper filled her with more fear than she’d like to handle.

“I’ll think about it,” she mumbled softly. “My major I mean. I’ll think about literature.”

“Good. And—ah my neighbor’s here. I blew him off last week, can’t do it again.”

“Have fun. Don’t do anything stupid.”

“I won’t if you’ll stop stressin’ over this class for now.”

“I’ll try.”

“Good,” Harry sighed. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Sweet dreams, love.”

[constructiongirl-blog1]

A girl walks into a construction site

5:07, isn’t that when I set the alarm for? Clearly not. 5:08, I can barely look. Why has my alarm not gone off yet? 5:09 and my ears are graced with the what is meant to be gentle wake up alarm my phone is programmed with. Phew. I’m awake. Of course I’m awake. I was so stressed about not being awake that I have been awake for the past two hours, checking my phone and reassuring myself that I can close my eyes for a while longer. I stumble out of bed, still feeling the effects of the 7 beers the night before. Grabbing my phone to use as a torch I rummage around my bag until I find the three items I brought with me that might be acceptable for a job on a construction site. I make two clumsy rolls, assuming I will be starving and still not being able to see in the pitch black room. Yes, I know what you’re thinking, if you can’t see why not turn on a light? That may have worked for Dumbledore but I’m assuming when he said it he didn’t have two flatmates that had got in at 2am, one of whom was still in her clothes lying on top of the sheets. Though I attempt to eat some breakfast, I start wincing with every bite as I begin to feel more and more like I am going to be sick. I leave the remainders of my apricots and cheapest cereal Countdown has to offer, grab my rucksack and that’s it; I’m off. I make the massive commute of eight minutes down the road from the hostel to the labour office headquarters, the whole time debating why I am doing this. Then, I arrive. My trepedatious foot somehow makes it through the door and suddenly I am surrounded by men in high vis vests, men in steel capped boots and men looking bored of waiting for a their name to be called out to go for a job. In case you hadn’t gathered, the main theme there was men. I became very aware of how blonde, pale and tiny I looked in comparison to the majority of my companions. I spotted one other girl, though she didn’t seem to be in a mood to make friends so that was it, I was on my own and determined to show I could pull off the fluorescent orange vests just as well as the men. Once I had been given my gear, hard hat and all, I was gifted with one of those draw string bags that everyone seems to have lying around in case of the event that they might suddenly have to go on a school swimming trip at any moment. I felt like I had been officially initiated into this tribe that I knew so little about. Still cautious, I decided to sit down quietly and avoid making eye contact with these tattoo-laden, bulky men. It turned out I didn’t make the rules in the office though as promptly after sitting down, an older man to the side of me started asking me about myself before advising me that the bar in his hostel is the greatest for when you want to chill after work. Finally, after I had seriously contemplated walking out and what I was doing in this office, a guy shouted my name and said they had a job for me. Shortly after, I was asked to follow this stranger into his car and for some reason, as it is for work so who could be dodgy in that situation, I did as instructed. Thankfully there turned out to be another girl going to the same job but I wouldn’t know she was friendly until a few hours after this. We drove for twenty minutes out of the city, the driver assuring us falsely that it would be a thirty minute bus ride back, until we arrived at the construction site. Not only THE construction site I was going to have to work on for my first day but also THE first construction site I have been into. By this point, I had learnt that the girl placed with me has been with the company for a month so I watched her like a hawk and then morphed into a sheep, copying all that she did to pretended that I fit in. Each site has a manager and I could almost feel the guy’s doubt as he looked us both over. Nonetheless, he and we both knew that we were stuck with eachother for the day so we may as well at least pretend to trust that we know what we’re doing; though that was more for me than him. Still feeling sick I spent the morning wondering if I was going to vomit where would be the best place in a large warehouse full of materials. I couldn’t decide though and simply tried to hold it down and distract myself with the back pain I was experiencing from carrying wood, metal and carpets that my muscles simply aren’t quite big enough to cater for yet. Somehow the pair of us got through the day, although a table did drop on my leg and this was relatively painful. Despite all of my initial thoughts, I wasn’t stressed out when we finished and am contemplating returning for a second day. Not before I endure all the stress of setting an early alarm though, but it looks like that is the price you pay for being given a pair of slightly too big steel capped boots. I wonder how long I’ll perceive myself as a stranger in this situation, knowing I don’t fit in but trying desperately to pretend that I can.

[emilyplaysotome]

Dating Diaries - Chapter 9 - The Sound of Silence

Inspired by real events, Emi enters the dating world after her long term relationship ends. Determined to move forward, she starts dating and quickly finds herself in over her head.

In case you missed it, here are the previous chapters:

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8

Two weeks into Mako’s trip, I found myself visiting Kyoto of all places. I went back and forth with myself on whether or not I should tell Kazumi I’d be in his neck of the woods.

After a week of silence where he’d some space from me, he’d reached out with one of his very Kazumi-esque messages.

Hope you haven’t frozen your nose

:)

In what was a bit of a fluke for winter, temperatures in Tokyo had dropped unusually low for the season. Everyday before work, I’d bundled myself up before dragging myself to the train and heading in for the day.

Everyday I looked at my phone which was void of the messages Kazumi used to send in which he wished me “Good Morning” and reminded me that I was beautiful. 

The silence served to remind me of how much had changed between us.

Going cold turkey had been hard, but I’d stuck to my guns after muting him and accepted that he hadn’t reached out in any capacity. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, I missed our nebulous relationship - perhaps because it had been comforting and familiar in a new era of my life that was anything but.

When Kazu had asked me for space, I figured that he would last 3-4 days which was the longest we’d ever gone without talking. On day 5, I felt a twinge of sadness that he didn’t miss me. On day 6 I was convinced I’d never see his familiar name in my notifications again.

In the past, Yuri often spoke to the fact that Kazu wasn’t the type to let me go so easily, but it seemed that he had somehow let go successfully while something in my heart was still holding on. It was a strange feeling to know that I did not want him (that I had deemed him toxic for me), yet I was still not able to let go. 

And on the seventh day of silence I felt hurt, rejected, insecure, and every ugly feeling that I have tucked away in the recesses of my heart.

On the morning of day 8, I saw his name and I felt that anxious feeling I hadn’t felt for some time. When I saw his message I shook my head at how weird it was (seeing as how most people would have said something along the lines of, “I hope you’re staying warm” and left it at that).

I wrote back the following, and I felt my heart race as I did:

Haha is that a thing people say? My nose is fine! Hope you’ve been well.

No I just invented it.

I’ve been worried and preoccupied with my latest novel.

His words which usually bled with affection towards me lacked that warmth entirely, and I didn’t want to make excuses for the fact that he didn’t seem into me anymore. I didn’t understand why he’d continue to like my tweets, or text me again if he was over me, and somewhere deep in my heart I wanted to believe that I hadn’t been rejected.

It was my ego, not my head that was struggling with letting go.

Sorry to hear that. I missed your weird inventions, so let me know if we can be friends again (as in, if you still want space or if I can text you a bunch). I’m also going to be in Kyoto for work for a couple of days and if you’re around maybe we can meet up. If you’re busy, it’s all good...just let me know :)

I sent the response and it sat in limbo.

The next morning I grabbed my things and headed for the bullet train to Kyoto.

My coworker Masaki was waiting for me on the platform, and as we found our seats he said, “So Ayumi tells me that your boyfriend is Kazumi Kagami.”

“Ayumi is nothing but a gossip.”

“Oh, so he’s not?”

I shook my head no, “We’re friends.”

“Doesn’t he live in Kyoto? Are you going to see him?”

I could feel my anxiety pick up but in an attempt to play it cool I replied as nonchalantly as I could, “I don’t know. Maybe. Why?”

“I’ve got a book of his I’d love to get signed if you wouldn’t mind.”

Masaki handed me one of his more popular novels, and I nodded as I tucked it into my bag without making any promises.

I’d checked my phone that morning and saw that my message was still in limbo, and that new familiar feeling I associated with Kazumi filled my heart. It was a mix of disappointment, sadness, and hurt and it didn’t seem to matter that I logically knew the universe was doing me a solid.

That’s the funny thing about matters of the heart - you can know what’s best but still be hurt by the reality of what is.

That morning I did have a message from someone - Makoto.

He’d sent me a picture from his capsule hotel where he was smiling on the bed giving the camera a little wave. Unlike Kazumi, for the past couple of weeks I’d been surprised by how often we communicated. 

Usually it was once a day or once every two days, and despite his busy schedule he always seemed to find time to write, watch my InstaPicStories, or like something of mine on Tweeter. The attention he gave me didn’t feel manipulative like it did with Kazumi - there was something pure and sweet about it. 

With Mako it felt like we were old friends and as a result I didn’t find myself obsessing over my word choice as I’d done with Kazu - I just felt like another version of myself who was confident, secure, and relaxed. We bantered until one of us stopped replying with the knowledge that we would continue the conversation at some point soon.

I looked at the two familiar names and I thought about how each man represented a version of myself.

As a Gemini the notion of the “twins” is one that I hold near and dear to my heart. I can go between incredibly awkward and incredibly charming at the drop of a hat, just as I can go between being an introvert and extrovert. 

My personality is a complete contradiction, and so much of how I respond to a situation has to do with what twin is currently dominant.

If I were to apply the idea of “like attracting like” Makoto is the perfect pairing for my good twin. My good twin is the twin who I strive to be for the majority of my life. 

She is secure, fun, happy, optimistic, and sees the good in other people. She radiates confidence and her light draws people in.

People like Makoto, and another ex-boyfriend of mine (who was sweet, loyal, and overall one of the best men you’ll ever meet) mirror everything about my good twin. A man who appeals to my good twin draws her out and allows her to thrive. Though he’ll occasionally catch a glimpse of the twin that hides in the shadows, for the most part he’ll see me as my best self.

Kazumi is the man that appeals to my bad twin. 

My bad twin is critical, selfish, insecure, mischievous, exciting, devious, and bitter. She is the one who sits on my shoulder and tells me that nothing I do is good enough and that no one will ever love me. She thrives off negativity and uses bad behavior to validate her negative ego - whispering messages in my ear such as, “He’s not that into you because you’re not as special as you think you are...”

She is meek in the face of conflict, and her insecurity makes her desperate for validation and love.

When she rears her ugly head it is hard to get rid of her, and I find myself giving into obsession, anxiety, and depression - all of which is fueled by her toxic whisperings.

She is not all bad, for without her I would never push myself the way I do. She allows me to be critical of myself in a way that my good twin never could, and has helped me grow as a person in the face of self-imposed adversity.

She is the twin who makes me a perfectionist at work because nothing is ever good enough for her, and when it is good enough for her, people are amazed by what I can do. She is the reason why I was promoted recently, and she is the reason why I’ll be a success in my professional life.

She is the twin who attracts people like Kazumi, who have a deep insecurity within and she thrives off that energy, making me just as insecure in turn. Her brand of fun is excitement and drama and she loves the emotional roller coaster my good twin despises. She luxuriates in hurt and turmoil because it validates all those awful things she likes to whisper in my ear.

And when it comes to matters of the heart, she is everything I never want to be seen as - desperate, weak, and insecure.

While I want to believe I’ve successfully hidden that image from Kazu, I’ll never know. I do know that with Shizuo, he saw all those things and whether he realized it or not, used them to his advantage.

With my bad twin at the helm that morning, I stared at the TalkTime message to Kazu that still hadn’t received a read receipt and wrestled with the impulse to follow up.

In the past, my good twin would have lost this battle quickly but because of all the work I’d been doing lately, I heard her say to me, “Emi...what are you trying to achieve by writing to him?”

“I miss the attention. Why doesn’t he like me anymore?” my bad twin snapped back.

“Why does that matter?” 

“Because! What does it say about me if he walks away?”

“Nothing. Other than the fact he can’t handle a woman who doesn’t cater to him completely.”

“But he used to fight for me - it made me believe that I was one of a kind.”

“You are one of a kind - don’t give him the power to make that true or untrue. What do you want from him?” 

“I want him to want me.”

“For what purpose? Do you want to be his girlfriend?”

Even my bad twin knew that the answer to that question was “no”, and so I resolved myself to letting it lie and put my phone away for the remainder of the ride.

I’d told myself that this month away from Makoto I would work on me, but my bad twin didn’t want to deal with what that meant. I told myself that things were over with Kazumi but my bad twin didn’t want to accept that. I told myself that everything that was cropping up was probably about these two men, but my good twin held me accountable.

Once Masaki was asleep, I pulled out my notebook and started to write another letter I’d never send to the person with whom my unresolved issues further fueled my bad twin’s obsession with Kazumi.

Dear Shizuo,

I’m headed to Kyoto with Masaki (that coworker of mine you were always suspect of [which is ironic now that I’m thinking about it]) for work. There’s a big wedding expo here and we’ll be manning our booth for a couple of days before going home.

Do you remember when we came here for our anniversary?

I do. I remember that was our last happy memory together, and that a month later I’d find out that you were cheating on me. 

Do you know what that did to me? 

Masaki and I are staying at a hotel near Gyoen National Park. I’m worried I’ll see it and cry when I think about being there with you. I’m worried the memories of being happy and feeling good about myself will bubble up and remind me that I haven’t healed as much as I want to believe, and that I miss you even though I know I shouldn’t.

I don’t want to cry in front of him.

I’ve realized that the aftermath of what you did validated that small part of myself who has always wondered if I’m not good enough to be with someone. I gave you the power to dictate how I feel about myself, and I know I need to take that away from you...from Kazumi...but it’s hard.

Are you with her right now? 

Are you happy?

Those questions I know don’t really matter, but that side of me that loves to revel in disappointment and distress wants to know. She wants to punish me for being not enough...but I know that I have to stop her on my own.

- Emi

I wrote several more letters like that over the course of the time I spent in Kyoto. 

Masaki was surprisingly well behaved that trip, and I found myself hanging out with him in the evenings and actually enjoying myself. I realized that once he was away from the rest of our coworkers he didn’t have the impulse to show off and do all the stuff I thought was a bit obnoxious. 

On the first full day we were there, we went to dinner and he caught me checking my phone a bunch. He ignored it at first and then asked me if I was expecting a call which made me realize that I’d been obsessing over the fact that I still hadn’t received a “read” receipt from Kazu.

Against my better judgement (thanks to the second bottle of wine we were currently sharing) I told Masaki the full story about Kazumi (without any salacious details) and was pleasantly surprised when he thoughtfully let me know that he no longer wanted Kazumi Kagami to sign his book.

“I don’t like that he’d do that - even if you were just friends that’s not how you treat someone,” Masaki said softly.

“I agree. It’s why I’ve tried to distance myself, but I still feel sad. I don’t know why...but for some reason I still want his attention and his approval somehow.”

“I’ve been there and there’s no easy way to push through it because your head knows what’s best but your heart just doesn’t want to get on board for some reason.”

“Yeah...” I chuckled, “Maybe I just have really bad taste in men. My last boyfriend cheated on me.”

Masaki smiled at in me in a way that was far softer than any smile I’d ever seen him wear and he said, “My ex cheated on me too.”

“Really?”

“Mmm. And you know...for months I thought about it. I wondered - are they together? Are they happy? Does she laugh about how they carried on together for months before I found out?”

Masaki spoke so quietly that I worried should I breathe too loudly I’d miss what he was saying, and somehow every word he was saying felt important to hear.

“And this one day, a year and half later I ran into one of her friends. We were at a work party, and as much as I didn’t want to talk to her I also knew I couldn’t just run away. I played it like I was fine, you know...that I was doing well...and I asked how she was and how Kana was and she told me that Kana was fine and then very quickly excused herself. Of course, that only made me obsess more...”

Masaki looked lost in the memory, and let out a self deprecating laugh as he continued his story.

“Six months later, I was running in the park and I saw Kana. She was alone on a bench and was reading book. I had this moment where I contemplated just ignoring her and continuing my run but something stopped me from doing that...and so, I approached her. We got to talking and after exchanging a few pleasantries she apologized to me for what she’d done. She told me that after our breakup, she sank into a deep depression which had resulted in her being hospitalized. The day I’d seen her friend, she must have realized that it wasn’t her place to tell me what had happened and so all this time I was thinking Kana was happy and engaged and that the reason her friend ran away from me that night was because she didn’t want to pour salt on the wound...it was just a story I made up. None of it was real...”

Masaki finally snapped back to reality with me, and took another sip of wine before shaking his head.

“My point is that you’ll just never know. Not with Kazu. Not with Shizuo. You don’t know what their real story is and it’s not worth trying to guess. So yeah...it sucks when someone hurts you like that but you can’t live in a story you make up about them. You know? You gotta deal with your own story and what’s there and make the best of it.”

I nodded, taking in everything Masaki had said.

When I’d left Shizuo, he’d begged me not to. He’d followed me out of his apartment after I ended it even though he was only in a towel and in front of all his neighbors he pleaded with me to stay.

Masaki was right - it had never occurred to my bad twin that he might be grappling with the same kind of sadness I was dealing with.

My bad twin was so caught up in being rejected and stroking my own insecurities that I never even thought about the fact that I was telling myself fables about Shizuo and Kazu to avoid looking in the mirror and dealing with my own story.

“Damn Masaki, that was super profound.”

“What can I say? I’m more than just a pretty face.”

We smiled at each other and clinked our glasses before toasting to moving on.

The rest of my time in Kyoto was rather enjoyable and between the Expo and dinner with Masaki I didn’t have time to obsess. It was only that hour or two before bed where the silence was palpable and I started to feel lonely that I thought about Kazu or Shizuo.

If I’m being honest, I guess it wasn’t “them” that I was thinking about but their rejection and how that related to me. My bad twin fought to hold on while my good twin had me writing letters I’d never send in the spirit of letting go.

Even though a battle inside myself raged on for days, I was proud of the fact that I did not follow up or reach out, and that I kept Kazu muted.

With that said, the morning we were headed home to Toyko (aka the 3rd day of my trip) I checked my phone as I always did first thing the morning.

Makoto had texted me pictures from Nagano where he’d gone with a few of his work friends on a day trip skiing. There were some really beautiful shots of the mountain, one of him looking cute in ski apparel, and one of a fancy hot chocolate that he’d gotten at the lodge and he said he wished he could share with me.

The messages made my good twin smile, so naturally my bad one whispered, “Has Kazu read your message yet?”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m not seeing him. He made his intentions towards me clear.”

“But has he read it?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“...But has he?”

He hadn’t.

I didn’t let Masaki know that I’d checked, nor did I talk about Kazumi with any of my friends. There was no point - it had all been said again and again and the only person who hadn’t accepted the fact that it was over was me...

...my bad twin at least.

One week later, I still found myself thinking about Kazumi.

It wasn’t just my bad twin - it was my good one as well. She had been proud of how she’d kept her sister in check, but something in both of them felt unresolved.

As a result, I found myself looking at Kazu’s tweeter feed and saw that in the week he’d been silent, he continued to “like” random tweets of mine. If I knew him the way I thought I did, it was his lazy attempt to keep me at arm’s length while he deliberated over what he wanted. I realized that perhaps the thing that felt unresolved was that I hadn’t established what I wanted - which was access to his brilliant mind and a friendship in which we could chat and not be so emotionally affected by each other.

In the week of silence, Makoto had texted me. Yuri had texted me. Hiromi and Keima had texted me. Even Masaki had texted me.

I realized that when I opened my TalkTime or FriendFind, they were full of people who wanted me around. They were full of friends I cared about and new acquaintances who knew that they wanted to be in my life and made an effort in doing so.

During this time, I spent an entire day cooped up in my apartment, playing video games, reading books, and just doing whatever it was that I wanted, all the while remembering that I really liked the person I was and currently am. 

I wondered why at this point in time, it was not just my bad twin that was thinking about him, but my good one as well. 

I stepped back and realized that my good twin (the one that is secure and values the person I am in this very moment) wanted me to make it known that I wasn’t about to allow myself to be in limbo. She wanted me to know that if Kazumi refused to provide me with the closure necessary for both good and bad twins to move on, I had the power to do it for myself.

It didn’t matter if he read this message or not. 

I was sending it for me, not him. I was sending it so if I were to look back on our nebulous three month relationship one day, I would not feel as if anything were unresolved. I would look back and realize that I had carried myself with dignity, and had said the things necessary in order to establish that I valued myself too much than to waste time talking to a man who was too cowardly to express that he wanted to walk away.

Hey - I just wanted to say that I hope you’re doing ok.

I was debating reaching out again, but I feel as if I need to. I can’t really tell what you want from me anymore. I figured after not hearing from you that moved but then you “like” random tweets of mine which makes it hard for me to forget you. I really hope we can be friends but I don’t want to chase someone who doesn’t want me around. And if you don’t, it’s ok. I’ll miss you but I am still very happy to have met you. So just let me know...I do hope we can be friends. I want to be friends.

I sent it, and then deleted the message in my history. 

I didn’t need a read receipt. It didn’t matter.

He might stop liking my tweets. He might never speak to me again.

That was ok.

My good twin needed to let him know that just because he’d held my bad one hostage for the past few weeks, she was back in the driver’s seat now. She was not going to allow for me to waste my time with someone who couldn’t figure out if he wanted me around.

She wanted me to see that I don’t have to sit and be a silent passenger to someone else’s whims like I was with Shizuo, and now Kazu.

She wanted me to see that you make your own path, you get your own closure, and most importantly you hold fast to the belief that your value comes from within.

She wanted to be friends, and if he didn’t...that was ok.

It will probably make my life easier if Kazumi doesn’t reply, but as is the case with life, I simply don’t know what the final outcome will be.

I don’t know if we’ll be friends or if he’ll disappear into the ether and just be added to the list of “somebody that I used to know”. I am thankful for the mirror he’s held up to me, and for the fact that as flawed as he is, he has served a purpose in my life to help me get through what has been a difficult time.

With Makoto, while I do not know if he’ll stick around, I am thankful that he has reminded me of the type of man who is best paired with my good twin. The mirror he has held up has reminded me of my best self and so, I have worked on and will continue to work on making her even better.

Most importantly, as I move forward I am thankful for the person I am becoming and for those around me who continue to walk beside me as I continue to evolve. They remind me everyday of the things I already know - that I am kind, fun to be around, and deserving of love.

And on that note, the person I’ve realized who is most deserving of my love is me - not either of the men who have taken up the majority of my thoughts over the past few months. 

As I reclaim the person I am, it’s hard to remember that I ever forgot who I was. 

It’s hard to wrap my head around the fact that I once asked myself, “Who am I without Shizuo?”

I know that I’ll have good days and bad, but I feel secure in the fact that the core of who I am is dope as fuck, and that whoever is lucky enough to be awarded the title of my “boyfriend” in the future is going to need to prove that he’s worthy of it...and most importantly, of me.

This is the final chapter of my Dating Diaries. 

To be honest, my initial ending was when I thought it was done with both of them but as life has shown me there is more nuance to relationships if you allow for it. I may do an epilogue but it doesn’t matter - the heart of this story is about finding yourself after a breakup and realizing that your worth does not come from external forces but within.

In the words of RuPaul, “If you can’t love yourself how the hell are you gonna love someone else - can I get an amen!”

If you liked the story, I hope you’ll share it and if you’re feeling really generous I hope you’ll consider buying me a coffee!

Thanks for reading and hope you got something out of it!

@robotloveskitten

@airashime

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@speakfearlessly1989

@nitelotus

@scorpioslover

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@mandakatt

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@itshouldcometothis

@bunnysroom

@voltage-trash

[steamishot]

Frustratingly beautiful

Officially back from NY and into work. My trip to NY was an escape into a bustling world. It felt different from my other travels because I went there with the intention of imagining my life living there. I had gone there with my friends in 2014, but as a tourist and we hit up the main attractions. This time, I stayed with Matt in Brooklyn and we did more lowkey nontouristy things. 

The evening of my flight, I talked to Matt on the phone during my drive to downtown to pick up my friend S for hot pot in Alhambra. When I reached downtown (5-10 min before I was supposed to meet my friend), he snapped at me because he felt annoyed at me for answering a question with a question, one of the things I do that he says annoys him. I got pissed off by this because we were on the topic of his personal statement, which I spent hours helping him rewrite and edit and thought, this outburst just cancels out any appreciation you had for my helping you. He apologized but I still wasn’t very happy with him that night. I was “exhausted” by excitement prior to that and couldn’t wait to see him. This incident calmed me down in a way. I thought about what I wanted to discuss with him regarding this argument once I saw him and was still slightly mad by the time I landed.

I took a red eye flight- left LA at 11:25 and arrived at 7:55am. The plane was really cold and uncomfortable, so I only got to sleep maybe 2-3 hours. Once my plane landed, he called me and just stayed on the line with me til I met him at the howard beach station. This required me to take the airtrain out of the airport and meet him at the end/start of the subway station. As I got out of the airtrain, we hung up, and I started getting shy/nervous about seeing him again. I walked over to the subway station where we had to buy tickets to exit. He gave me a metrocard with money loaded in it (from the other side of the turnstile), but we were both kinda awestruck and were idiotic, being that we couldn’t figure out to get the card to work. Turns out I needed $7.50 instead of $5.00 so he went to load more money. But once we did do that, we couldn’t figure out why it still wasn’t letting me through. We just needed to flip the card around. It was funny being so close yet so separated from him at the same time for a few minutes lol. I couldn’t look at him because I was shy, and once I went through, I gave him a side hug lol.

We held hands again and it was kinda a weird feeling. We then walked down to the subway station and he asked for a peck. I gave him a half peck out of shyness. Then I started warming up to him again and gave him a real hug as we were waiting for the train. Once we got on, he motioned for another peck, and I gave him a real one this time- he was like bursting from happiness lol. We were slowly warming up to each other again. When we got back to his place, I went to go use the restroom and he laid in bed waiting for me. We started snuggling and cuddling, and then it led to sex. I thought that it would feel much better given that we hadn’t done it in months, but I think our sex is better when we “train” and do it consistently because we lose our skills without practice lol. It was more like “ahh, so this is what it feels like again” to me. We both napped for like an hour or two before heading out to Manhattan. Our day went like Dian Noodle (his hometown food) -> Chinatown (coincidentally there was also an Italian festival) -> hui tea/boba -> central park for rowboating -> hatsuhana sushi -> murray’s cheese shop -> wine shop -> home.

I could tell he became a more serious/burnt out/tired person after starting residency. He was less energetic, and was exhausted from our day of exploring, which he never was when we traveled together in the past. It was always him pushing me to do more and to stay out longer. I planned our NY trip and chose all the restaurants/food/drinks spots (minus one or two). It was rewarding to bring him to dian noodle and eat his hometown food with him. The last time he sat down and ate in a restaurant was 1.5 months prior when his family visited. Otherwise, it had been uber eats/chipotle/grocery market food all day every day. The food we ate at Dian fit his palette exactly and he really enjoyed it. When we got to central park for rowboating, there was a line. He was a little reluctant to go and was for some reason, dreading rowing (I think because he feels tired and doesn’t want to do more work). However, I said to stick it out. We ended up having a lot of fun. HE ended up having a lot of fun rowing although he initially didn’t want to. The cheese shop was great, but we accidentally got sparkling wine instead of regular. We had planned to watch the farewell, but couldn’t find it streaming online, so we watched terrace house. Although it’s not a show he’d normally watch himself, he got pretty into it.

Sunday, I felt much better after having a good night’s rest. Our day was Brooklyn bagels -> minksoff theater for lion king -> matcha -> Italian food for dinner -> hot chocolate -> home. Bagels were interesting- we were expecting the classic lox and bagels, but we got something with avocado instead lol. Lion king was good, but more fitting for children/family I thought. Some parts were slow and the acting wasn’t great- it was just the music and props that stood out. The jokes were also kinda childish. They did a good job at incorporating African heritage into the show, though. Matcha was a relaxing experience although my spot in little Tokyo still wins. While killing time before our reservation, we sat at a park and he called his mom about something. The conversation turned into a 30 min heated back and forth. Italian was probably the best meal we’ve had. We were both quite blown away. Hot chocolate was alright, but ambiance and presentation were nice. They also had a yelp check in for BOGO so I got two hot chocolates for only $6.

By the end of sunday, i felt like he was returning to the old relaxed and fun matt. he was feeding off of my energy. i tend to find funny moments throughout the day to laugh at and dramatize it to make it funnier. one time, he realized right before the subway doors were about to close that we were supposed to get off at that stop. so he ran for the door and pushed a guy with a backpack standing near the exit to the side. i started cracking up because the guy wasn’t even blocking our pathway. i laughed to the point of peeing my pants and kept teasing him about it. 

Monday, he had to go into work for 5-6 hours. After dropping him off at work, I took the opportunity to go to flushing, queens for the first time. It was my way to test my independence and travel by myself. I think it was the first time I explored on my own in an unfamiliar place since Taiwan in 2014. The ride to queens was about an hour, and I had to walk another 25 min to get to this xiaolongbao place I wanted to go to. i was literally eating by myself, as I was the only one in the restaurant for a good 70% of my meal. I had the entire waitstaff catering to me LOL. I ordered crab xiaolongbao and a hot soy milk, which were both bomb. I felt really full afterwards. I also took my time eating because I didn’t really have anywhere to go, and also overstayed my welcome by taking a crap after eating in their restroom lol (had to take advantage of the restroom). I then walked over to a closeby park ~ 15 min away. The park was really quiet. I feel like in LA, if you are in a quiet area you feel obligated to acknowledge or say hi to people you come across (like during hiking). But in NYC, people just exist amongst each other because it’s so commonplace to be around strangers from all walks of life that you become desensitized to it.

I felt more confident that I could be by myself after my trip to queens. Even in LA, I feel like I’ve become a pretty dependent person. I need someone to accompany me to the places I choose to go. Even something as simple as returning something to the mall, I’ll try to make it a hangout with friends or family. 

I met him later that day in Chinatown for hot pot. It was funny to have a text exchange of “let me know when you exit the subway” vs “let me know your ETA” as we used to in LA. He gave me a hug when he saw me and wanted a peck as we sat down at our table. So it was cute that we got to semi experience the whole, seeing your SO after coming home from work type of thing. The hot pot was pretty bad, coming from a spoiled LA native. At least he enjoyed the AYCE portion. We ended up watching the farewell at a nearby theater. I liked that we got to view it in NY because the protagonist also lives in NYC. Their family dynamic was pretty similar to Matt’s and I had fun drawing comparisons. He ended up shedding a tear at the end.

We went to a rice pudding shop after, which had many reviews on yelp but it was just a place (we felt) capitalizing on ethnic dessert lol. Here, he got an email offering him an interview for a categorical position in palm desert. Once you are offered an interview, you must schedule it immediately in case someone else claims a spot and you become waitlisted. He had four options, all were on a Monday. After 20-30 min of deciding which one he wanted, one spot was already claimed. He chose 12/8. He’ll be home for “2 days”. I was happy for him but also became kinda selfish because he started becoming selfish lol.

Once he got this notification, he became spacey and he was just thinking of all he had to do, schedule wise, how to coordinate time off etc. We had planned on going to trader joes after to pick up tea for me, but he led us in the wrong direction. After we realized we walked 15 min the wrong way, he said wanna just go home? It seems like it should have been an insignificant moment, but I think in that moment my resentment surfaced. Yet again, his needs are more important than mine, and his career will always come first. In my mind, I asked for one thing. I told him I wanted to go to TJ to get tea and go home, but he suggested we go to a dessert shop first. Then at the end, we didn’t even accomplish what I wanted in the first place. As one person commented online, being a partner to a resident means you are third priority. Career = first priority, resident himself = second priority, you = third priority. After me throwing a tantrum, we stopped by a different TJ on our way back home and got my tea lol. We were both babies that night.

I didn’t feel well emotionally or physically that night, and had diarrhea. As we were lying in bed on our last night together, I ended up crying out my frustrations to him. I am supposed to get my period in 6 days, so I wondered if it was PMS talking, but he said I sounded rational and just kept apologizing. The next morning, we talked more in bed. I think this is the life I’d have to accept as a resident’s partner. If he could barely tend to his own needs, why would I expect him to tend to mine? 

Our goodbye wasn’t emotional, as I was still frustrated with him and I know I would see him again in a few weeks. I went by myself to the airport and made it exactly on time as my plane was boarding. My parents picked me up at union station- I felt like a little girl again at home. Last night, I toyed with the idea of living in NYC and pushing myself to do what I’ve always wanted- live in a new city. Why am I holding myself back? Once I make friends in NYC, I’m sure it will be a lot of fun. LA wins in weather (maybe) and certain cuisines, but NYC is wild and the place to be at when you’re young. If I had the option to choose whether matt comes back to the westside or stays in NYC, I think I’d prefer him to stay in NYC after this trip. Then it’d give me a reason to go/move there.

[diaryofaconstructiongirl-blog]

A girl walks into a construction site

5:07, isn’t that when I set the alarm for? Clearly not. 5:08, I can barely look. Why has my alarm not gone off yet? 5:09 and my ears are graced with the what is meant to be gentle wake up alarm my phone is programmed with. Phew. I’m awake. Of course I’m awake. I was so stressed about not being awake that I have been awake for the past two hours, checking my phone and reassuring myself that I can close my eyes for a while longer. I stumble out of bed, still feeling the effects of the 7 beers the night before. Grabbing my phone to use as a torch I rummage around my bag until I find the three items I brought with me that might be acceptable for a job on a construction site. I make two clumsy rolls, assuming I will be starving and still not being able to see in the pitch black room. Yes, I know what you’re thinking, if you can’t see why not turn on a light? That may have worked for Dumbledore but I’m assuming when he said it he didn’t have two flatmates that had got in at 2am, one of whom was still in her clothes lying on top of the sheets. Though I attempt to eat some breakfast, I start wincing with every bite as I begin to feel more and more like I am going to be sick. I leave the remainders of my apricots and cheapest cereal Countdown has to offer, grab my rucksack and that’s it; I’m off. I make the massive commute of eight minutes down the road from the hostel to the labour office headquarters, the whole time debating why I am doing this. Then, I arrive. My trepedatious foot somehow makes it through the door and suddenly I am surrounded by men in high vis vests, men in steel capped boots and men looking bored of waiting for a their name to be called out to go for a job. In case you hadn’t gathered, the main theme there was men. I became very aware of how blonde, pale and tiny I looked in comparison to the majority of my companions. I spotted one other girl, though she didn’t seem to be in a mood to make friends so that was it, I was on my own and determined to show I could pull off the fluorescent orange vests just as well as the men. Once I had been given my gear, hard hat and all, I was gifted with one of those draw string bags that everyone seems to have lying around in case of the event that they might suddenly have to go on a school swimming trip at any moment. I felt like I had been officially initiated into this tribe that I knew so little about. Still cautious, I decided to sit down quietly and avoid making eye contact with these tattoo-laden, bulky men. It turned out I didn’t make the rules in the office though as promptly after sitting down, an older man to the side of me started asking me about myself before advising me that the bar in his hostel is the greatest for when you want to chill after work. Finally, after I had seriously contemplated walking out and what I was doing in this office, a guy shouted my name and said they had a job for me. Shortly after, I was asked to follow this stranger into his car and for some reason, as it is for work so who could be dodgy in that situation, I did as instructed. Thankfully there turned out to be another girl going to the same job but I wouldn’t know she was friendly until a few hours after this. We drove for twenty minutes out of the city, the driver assuring us falsely that it would be a thirty minute bus ride back, until we arrived at the construction site. Not only THE construction site I was going to have to work on for my first day but also THE first construction site I have been into. By this point, I had learnt that the girl placed with me has been with the company for a month so I watched her like a hawk and then morphed into a sheep, copying all that she did to pretended that I fit in. Each site has a manager and I could almost feel the guy’s doubt as he looked us both over. Nonetheless, he and we both knew that we were stuck with each other for the day so we may as well at least pretend to trust that we know what we’re doing; though that was more for me than him. Still feeling sick I spent the morning wondering if I was going to vomit where would be the best place in a large warehouse full of materials. I couldn’t decide though and simply tried to hold it down and distract myself with the back pain I was experiencing from carrying wood, metal and carpets that my muscles simply aren’t quite big enough to cater for yet. Somehow the pair of us got through the day, although a table did drop on my leg and this was relatively painful. Despite all of my initial thoughts, I wasn’t stressed out when we finished and am contemplating returning for a second day. Not before I endure all the stress of setting an early alarm though, but it looks like that is the price you pay for being given a pair of slightly too big steel capped boots. I wonder how long I’ll perceive myself as a stranger in this situation, knowing I don’t fit in but trying desperately to pretend that I can.

[lindyhunt]

17 Inspiring Instagram Video Examples From Oreo, GoPro, BuzzFeed & More

Remember when Instagram first started allowing users to post videos back in 2013?

The first Instagram videos had to be recorded on your phone and could only be up to 15 seconds long. Those were the days that people compared Instagram video to its Twitter-owned counterpart, Vine.

Instagram has come a long way since then, and it's blown Vine out of the water. Like most of the other popular social networks, the folks at Instagram have made changes to its platform that make it easier for people to post and share videos.

In late March 2016, Instagram announced they'd start rolling out the ability for Instagram users to upload 60-second videos. For iOS users, they added that users will soon be able to make videos out of multiple clips from your camera roll.

Thanks to these changes, marketers can use the Instagram app to relate with their fans and customers, to communicate their business' personalities and brand stories, and to express artistic creativity.

There are a lot of brands who are posting great photos on social media. But what about videos? While brands have been slower to adapt to Instagram's video platform, many of the ones that are experimenting with it are doing it really well. Check out the examples below.

17 of the Best Instagram Video Examples

Click anywhere on the videos to play them, and click again to pause them.

1. Oreo

Oreo is known for its simple, creative social media content -- and its Instagram videos don't disappoint. The video below is a great example of a fun, creative video that works perfectly for the platform.

While we love the sound quality in this video -- how satisfying is the sound of pen on paper? -- it doesn't require sound to make sense. This is a really smart move because when you're viewing any video on Instagram, you'll hear sound only if your device's volume is turned on. If your phone is set to silent or vibrate -- which is the case for many people, especially when they're perusing Instagram in public -- then the video will play with the sound off.

Keep this in mind when you're planning your next Instagram video: It should either be eye-catching enough to draw people to turn on the sound within the first few seconds, or it should be able to play without sound.

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A post shared by OREO (@oreo)

2. Burger King

Here's another Instagram video that doesn't require sound. In fact, it's completely silent -- and the reasoning is very clever. The Burger King (yes, that's the name of their mascot) is famously silent.

But on the 199th anniversary of National American Sign Language (ASL) Day, he broke his silence both on Instagram with the video below, and on YouTube with a longer video -- a great example of paring down a longer YouTube video to fit Instagram's platform.

In the video, the Burger King calls on their deaf fans to ask what the official sign for their famous burger, the "Whopper," should be. The video encourages fans to submit ideas via social media using the #WhopperSign hashtag.

When a winning hand sign was picked, here's how they changed their logo to celebrate:

Image Credit: AdAge

3. GoPro

If you know anything about GoPro, you're probably picturing the company's Instagram account accurately: extreme sports shot from GoPro's classic fish-eye lens. The video below is one of the few longer Instagram videos out there that you're happy to watch all the way through. Right from the still image before you press play, you know what's waiting for you.

The video's first-person point of view gives you an intensely intimate experience that any business page desires to give to its followers.

  4. Reebok

Inspiring content tends to do very well on social media, especially Instagram. This video is clearly the work of professionals, which not every brand has the resources for. But the message, which is part of a larger campaign shared across their website and other social networks, is both beautiful and shareable: You have 25,915 days: What will you do with them?

5. BuzzFeed Tasty

The videos BuzzFeed Tasty puts out on Instagram and Facebook are simply perfect for those two platforms: They're visual, helpful, shareable, light-hearted ... and, best of all, they're simple. When I watch these videos, I want to save them somewhere so I can refer back to them when I want to make the recipe myself. (Plus, I love the music they use.)

"We want people to be able to watch the video and feel like they can pull it off at home," Andrew Gauthier, creative director of BuzzFeed Motion Pictures, told CBS.

The folks at BuzzFeed have published more than 500 "Tasty" videos since last July, and they've been viewed 14 billion times, mostly on Facebook. But these videos are perfect for Instagram's visual platform, too. Thanks to Instagram's decision to extend video length to 60 seconds, BuzzFeed is able to post full recipe videos along with a caption explaining exactly how it's done.

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A post shared by Tasty (@buzzfeedtasty)

6. Livia Sala

Here's another food- and recipe-related Instagram video that took a different approach than BuzzFeed Tasty. In this video, Milan-based food stylist Livia Sala captured the process of making ravioli on video, complete with cute "commentary" from some of the ingredients on the list.

Instead of using fluid video, Sala uses a series of still shots, one after another. This is called a "stop action video" from still photos, which you can create by taking still photos and uploading them to iMovie on your computer or phone. This is a great video because it's delightful and fun -- are you seeing the trend here? The post was a Shorty Award finalist for Best Instagram Video in 2013.

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A post shared by liviasala (@liviasala)

7. Allstate

Think insurance companies are limited to boring content? Allstate has always set themselves apart from the crowd with their entertaining commercials and social media presence.

But they don't just put out the same videos on every one of their social outlets. Instead, they carefully cater their content to the platform they're publishing on. (For example, this YouTube video of theirs looks like a normal commercial, but turns into a "choose your own adventure" type game.)

On Instagram, some of the videos they post are video memes -- this is a meme format we haven't seen many brands use. People love memes on Instagram because they're funny and shareable, and folks tend to tag their friends in the comments, thereby expanding the post's reach. That's exactly what happens with Allstate's video memes, like the one below.

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A post shared by Allstate (@allstate)

8. Ikea

Here's an example of a short, snackable video that showcases a product in a funny way. In this case, Ikea's showing off its anti-slip mat with a scene of a dad chasing his son (who happens to be wearing a hilarious monster costume).

This video is great because it doesn't just show what the product looks like. In fact, you barely see the product itself. Instead, it shows the product's benefits -- and in a way that lets viewers see the brand's personality. Instagram users love seeing personality behind Instagram content, which is why it does so well for engagement. So the next time you want to showcase a new product, consider showing it off in a humorous way.

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A post shared by IKEA UK (@ikeauk)

9. Camp Brand Goods

This Canadian outdoor adventure apparel company consistently posts great content on Instagram. Not only is their Instagram content always high quality, but they use it to showcase the lifestyle they build around their products, not just the products themselves.

"[On Instagram,] it’s less about the product than it is about sharing good times," said Camp Brand Goods' Leslie McNeilly. "We tend to post an even mix of scenery shots and product shots. We created our own hashtag [#keepitwild], and we award a T-shirt weekly to an Instagram user who is caught keeping it wild."

While they haven't done many videos, the one below is a great one. It has the same look and feel as their photos on Instagram, especially with that vintage, faded look, with perfectly matching music.

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A post shared by Camp Brand Goods (@campbrandgoods)

10. Ben & Jerry's

Here's an example of a great product announcement video on Instagram from Ben & Jerry's. We love that the video shows a fictional way the product was made -- as if it were as easy as putting cookie dough and Oreos in an empty pint and shaking it up. It's another great way for a brand to show its personality using short videos.

The video's playful tone is perfect for Instagram -- and so is the length. Although Instagram is starting to allow longer videos, it's important to remember that users are often scrolling through their feeds when they come upon a video, and many may not want to watch for more than ten or twenty seconds. This would've been a great video to share on Facebook, too, because of that playful tone and short length.

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A post shared by Ben & Jerry's (@benandjerrys)

11. Wistia

How-to videos are a popular video format for many brands -- but the key is making these videos interesting enough for the Instagram platform. The folks at Wistia did a great job of using cool angles along with text to capture viewers' attention right away -- without them needing to turn the sound on. (In fact, this video doesn't have sound at all.)

Then, they used the caption to point viewers to the link in their bio for the full instructional video. (Note: When you ask people to follow a link in your Instagram bio, make sure you make that link trackable.)

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A post shared by Wistia (@wistia)

12. CBRE

Nothing like a breathtaking time lapse to mesmerize your followers on Instagram. You might not think a commercial real estate and investment services firm like CBRE would have beautiful content to post, but it's videos like this that have the ability to showcase the more visually pleasing sides of the industry.

Even if you work for a "boring" industry, you can come up with creative ideas that cater to what type of content your audience wants. One key thing to keep in mind -- especially on Instagram's platform -- is to make your content relatable and approachable. In other words, make it human. No one who's scrolling through their Instagram feed wants to see a cut-and-dry product update. They'll scroll right past it and on to their friend's video of his cat.

Instead, produce videos that help you form an emotional connection with your fans, as CBRE did with this stunning video, the beauty of which anyone can appreciate.

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A post shared by CBRE (@cbre)

13. Califia Farms

Califia Farms is another brand that consistently creates awesome Instagram content. They tend to post a solid mix of photos and video content, including fun, playful videos and GIFs like the one below. Here, they're announcing a new product with a sort of "slow reveal" -- but one that's visually compelling enough for users to stick around.

If you like the idea of posting animated videos to your own Instagram account, they aren't actually all that difficult and expensive to create. Here's a list of 10 easy-to-use tools for creating animated photos and videos to get you started.

14. Flixel Photos

Here's a stunning image from Flixel Photos. ... Or is it a video? It's actually something called a "cinemagraph," which is kind of a combination of the two. A cinemagraph is a file format used to create short, infinitely-looping animations for the web that look like images with a moving component. The effect is really cool: It's like experiencing a living moment.

Creating a cinemagraph isn't as hard as it looks. Here are seven tips from Flixel photos on making your cinemagraphs remarkable.

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A post shared by Flixel Cinemagraph® Pro (@flixelphotos)

15. Dunkin' Donuts

A video doesn't have to be long to be successful. In fact, the video below from Dunkin' Donuts is literally three still images put together into a video. This is another example of a "stop action video" from still photos, which you can create by taking still photos and uploading them to iMovie on your computer or phone.

While this video is super simple, what makes it great is its timeliness (in celebration of Mother's Day) and that it's funny, unexpected, and therefore shareable. Donuts given like flowers? Yes, please.

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A post shared by Dunkin’ (@dunkin)

16. WeWork

Another great use case for Instagram? Showcasing your company culture. Instagram's a great platform for positioning your brand as a friendly face and building a voice and personality to build a relationship with followers. It doesn't hurt for recruitment, either.

Here's a wonderful and whimsical video that cuts together short clips from WeWork's company party. Kids breakdancing, someone dressed up as a snowman, employees talking and laughing ... they did a great job of showcasing the employees' personalities and making the party look really fun.

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A post shared by WeWork (@wework)

17. Saturday Night Live

The American TV show Saturday Night Live produces great video content by its very nature -- but that's not the only reason why their Instagram videos are so good. They have their Instagram promotion down to a science.

"It's found a successful formula for extending each show way past the broadcast date, and for re-purposing TV content for the online generation, with micro-video playing a huge part of that," writes Carla Marshall for ReelSEO.com. "Take the 2nd April show, which featured Game of Thrones actor Peter Dinklage, and singer Gwen Stefani. Both appeared in a very odd little sketch called 'Space Shorts/Pants' which SNL then uploaded to Facebook, and YouTube, and to Instagram, where it generated over 70K views. By using its social media presence, the brand was able to extend the buzz around the sketch for days, even weeks, after."

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A post shared by Saturday Night Live (@nbcsnl)

Struggling to create short but sweet Instagram content that drives engagement with your business? Download some inspiring Instagram post and story templates below to improve your game.

[newsnigeria]

Check out New Post published on Ọmọ Oòduà

New Post has been published on http://ooduarere.com/news-from-nigeria/world-news/why-the-american-conservative-purged-its-own-publisher/

Why The American Conservative Purged Its Own Publisher

Note by the Saker: today, with his kind permission, I am posting an article by Ron Unz originally posted here.  While this article deals with something specific which has happened at The American Conservative, I am sure that there are many amongst you who will immediately see the parallels with some, lets call them, recent “changes of course” we have recently observed in the Russia-oriented blogosphere.  Simply put – to cater to specific political interests might give you a short-term advantage but in the long run it is always self-defeating.  I will not polemicize with those who chose that path – not publicly, not privately.  But I am offering Ron’s article as a valuable insight into what happens to those who chose to follow such a path.  Finally, I want to most sincerely thank Ron Unz for this support.  The Saker  

***

Why The American Conservative Purged Its Own Publisher by Ron Unz

Some may be aware that when I originally established The Unz Review over four years ago one of my main motives was to have a convenient venue for my own writing, a situation necessitated by my removal as Publisher of The American Conservative. However, other matters intervened, and all but a few months of my time since then have been preoccupied with software development issues and politics, but now at very long last I do hope to return to that original purpose.

Shortly after my departure from TAC in Fall 2013, I had written an article recounting the unfortunate circumstances, and this had attracted some interest from editors at The Atlantic. But they not unreasonably balked at the length, and soon afterward I was drawn into a major campaign to implement my proposal of a huge hike in the American Minimum Wage, an effort that eventually helped establish it as a central economic pillar of the Democratic Party; this was soon followed by other endeavors, mostly on software matters. Over the years, various people have expressed curiosity about my TAC story, which remained unpublished, and with the fifth anniversary of my defenestration now upon us, I’ve decided I might as well release it in its original form, changing scarcely a single word though updating some of the links. Five years represents an eternity in political journalism, and various events and personalities have surely lapsed into obscurity, but such is the price paid for historical authenticity.

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Given hindsight, I’d consider myself satisfied with the ultimate outcome. The Review currently operates on an absolute shoestring while the editorial budget of TAC these days is an order-of-magnitude larger, covering the costs of a full-time staff of seven or eight. But according to Alexa.com our readership passed theirs six months ago, and has been substantially higher every week since. Possibly for these sorts of reasons, TAC recently named yet another new top editor, with Benjamin Schwarz becoming the third in eighteen months. And aside from providing some of the background to the creation of The Review and helping to explain its eclectic ideological focus, I think my story also serves as an example of why so many small publications tend to blur their editorial line over time, lured by mainstream respectability and resources, a process that seems to have recently claimed the late Alex Cockburn’s once fiercely-independent Counterpunch.

On June 12th, 2013 I was having an unusually lengthy phone conversation with Daniel McCarthy, editor of The American Conservative (TAC). I live in Silicon Valley, three thousand miles away from DC, and despite holding the nominal title of publisher my involvement with TAC business operations had usually been negligible, amounting to just a few minutes a week on the phone. But I had grown alarmed over the lack of any major new donations since January, and had begun urging McCarthy to make the cuts in expenses necessary for the publication’s survival, while lobbying the board on the same subject. Web traffic had also been sharply declining for six or seven months, suggesting the need for a change in editorial focus. And several months earlier, TAC had cut its print frequency in half to just six issues a year while doubling the annual subscription rate to $60, thus quadrupling the per issue cost to an unreasonable $10, a pricing decision I’d strongly questioned at the time and now believed we needed to reverse.

  Despite my tradition of operational disengagement, I felt comfortable pressing these points. Since late 2006 I had provided some 70% of TAC’s total funding, and even after converting the publication into a non-profit in 2010, I had still remained TAC’s largest donor during 2012, while also serving as chairman. TAC had come close to shutting down on a couple of previous occasions and I wanted to avoid taking such a risk again, especially since over the last year or two I had begun regularly publishing some of my own articles in the magazine.

Finally, at the end of the call I asked McCarthy whether he’d yet had a chance to prepare a redlined edit copy of the new article I’d submitted a couple of weeks earlier and on which he’d previously suggested one or two minor changes that I had subsequently made. To my enormous surprise, he informed me that he’d decided to flatly reject the entire piece—an analytical study of American urban crime rates—as representing the sort of racially-inflammatory material that had no place in a quality magazine such as TAC. He instead suggested that a more appropriate venue for my article would be one of the webzines categorized as White Nationalist hate-sites by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

After a few stunned words on my part, I hung up the phone and almost immediately received an emailing McCarthy had sent out to his undisclosed distribution list, harshly criticizing my behavior while repeating his same charges in more measured terms, describing the subject of my article as “a distraction from TAC’s mission” and something that would “fatally detract” from TAC’s advocacy of “the case for noninterventionism and restricting executive power.” I soon discovered that my TAC blogging privileges had also been terminated, banning me from the website. Later, my access to TAC’s ongoing website traffic information was eliminated. So more than six years after becoming TAC’s publisher, I had been summarily purged.

For several weeks I made frustrating attempts to gain support from the other members of TAC’s governing board. But they had spent years just as totally disengaged as myself from TAC’s operations and had absolutely no desire to involve themselves in what they perceived as some sort of rancorous personal dispute. During this period I did my best to avoid publicizing my situation, partly because I found it so humiliating, but finally in late July National Review learned of this simmering controversy and solicited an interview. Initially I hesitated, but seeing that TAC—after rejecting my article as “a distraction”—had covered its homepage for several days straight with articles about British rock bands, zombies, giant robots, and cartoon characters, I became angry enough to provide my side of the story to the media. Three days after NR ran its short he said-she said item, TAC’s board convened in a special Sunday phone session to remove me, formalizing what had already occurred.

Although I regarded the denunciation of my article mostly as a pretext to eliminate my pressure on business matters and also a means of petty retaliation, one member of the TAC board did see the piece as central to the dispute. In subsequent exchanges, Founding Editor Scott McConnell, with whom I’d previously been on quite friendly terms, strongly opposed publication of my analysis, steadily growing more strident in his opinion that running such an article would severely damage TAC’s hard-won reputation; and therein lies a fascinating tale.

The American Conservative had been founded in 2002 as a rightwing alternative to National Review by McConnell, Pat Buchanan, and Taki Theodoracopulos, with Taki providing the financial backing. From its earliest days TAC had always represented “the Buchananite perspective” across both foreign and domestic policy, with McConnell having previously served as a senior advisor to Buchanan’s 2000 Presidential campaign, and Buchanan himself playing an early role as a guiding influence for the magazine, although without much day-to-day involvement.

Deep concerns over the dangers of non-European immigration had long been central to McConnell’s personal ideology, and the strength of his views had cost him his editorial position at the New York Post and his access to the pages of NR, after which he had joined with Peter Brimelow to co-found VDare, the hard-core anti-immigration website. Especially during its early years, TAC had often appeared as VDare’s somewhat more restrained print sibling, sharing many of the same writers, topics, and perspectives.

After various quarrels and disputes between the partners, McConnell was running the magazine by himself in 2006. As partial heir to the Avon fortune, he had invested a few hundred thousand dollars of his own inherited wealth to keep the publication alive, but was unwilling to contribute any additional funds and had decided to shut TAC down at the end of that year. I’d become slightly acquainted with him since 2000, and in late 2006 he desperately sought my financial help in rescuing his magazine.

TAC’s opportunity to escape its narrow rightwing niche had come from the reluctance of almost any American opinion magazines to strongly challenge President Bush’s foreign policy adventures during the early 2000s, which allowed the publication to draw in distinguished liberal and moderate contributors, eager for a print magazine platform enabling them to express their otherwise silenced views. I fell into that same ideological category and had been greatly impressed by TAC’s uniquely vigorous opposition to Bush’s foreign wars, which I regarded as totally disastrous for the country.

Thus, when McConnell approached me, I responded favorably, and soon afterward became TAC’s owner, eventually covering over $3 million of operating losses during the years that followed. Although McConnell had retained the title of editor, his involvement in the magazine’s operations had been rather meager for some time, with most of the work being done by Kara Hopkins, his exceptionally able executive editor. Our arrangement was that the two of them would continue to actually run the magazine, while I merely provided the necessary funding.

To my surprise, McConnell also named me publisher and put my name at the top of his masthead, presumably as a means of more firmly binding my crucial financial support to his publication. So I ended up with titular authority over a small DC opinion journal—almost invariably labelled “Pat Buchanan’s Magazine”—despite living on the other side of the country and being totally preoccupied with my own work. I don’t think I actually visited the TAC office more than once every year or two, when other matters brought me out to DC, though most weeks I did try to briefly touch base with the editors by phone.

An important aspect of TAC’s domestic policy agenda still consisted of strident criticism of non-white immigrants and their supposed incompatibility with American society, a position I found distasteful or even ridiculous, but a cross I was willing to bear on behalf of my far more crucial foreign policy concerns. During my discussions about becoming TAC’s owner, I had pledged to allow the editors a free hand to continue publishing their same domestic policy views, and I believe I kept that promise.

Indeed, just a couple of months after I assumed control, my commitment was tested when one of their junior editors angrily resigned from the magazine over what he regarded as a totally unfair cover story on Barack Obama’s personal racial identity, and soon after published a harsh denunciation of TAC’s racialist orientation in the pages of the prestigious Washington Monthly. Although my own perspective was actually along the similar lines, I never gave the TAC editors any problems over this unanticipated early scandal in the DC media.

In the years that followed, similar sorts of racial absurdities, sometimes backed by doubtful factual claims, would periodically appear in a magazine that bore my name at the top of the masthead, but I never made any complaints. After all, most other conservative political magazines also published such nonsense, though perhaps less extreme, while liberal and leftist publications usually maintained their own unrealistic dogmas on all sorts of subjects. TAC’s line on foreign policy remained excellent, and the publication therefore continued to attract submissions from numerous outstanding academics and journalists, many of whom probably shared my own feelings. I allowed Kara Hopkins and Scott McConnell to run the magazine as they saw fit, and was always extremely impressed by the general quality of the writing and editing of each issue I happened to examine

Throughout this period, my own foreign policy and national security views had remained identical to those of my old friend Bill Odom, the three-star general who had run the NSA for Ronald Reagan. Gen. Odom’s outspokenness was always an inspiration to me, and after the media revealed the vast scope of illegal post-9/11 NSA eavesdropping in 2005, he publicly declared that the NSA Director responsible for those violations should be court-martialed and President Bush impeached. My first and only article for TAC during this period was a tribute to his exemplary career after his untimely death in 2008.

For various reasons, TAC seemed to gradually soften its focus on immigration and other racial issues during the last three or four years, perhaps with my own early 2010 analysis of Hispanic crime rates causing some rethinking of long-held assumptions. While I welcomed this trend, I never pushed it along, aside from occasionally publishing articles presenting my own views. It is notable that two of DC’s most vilified recent figures—Jason Richwine and Jack Hunter—had both remained welcome in the pages of TAC during this period, the former with a lengthy review arguing that genetics explained the low IQ of certain racial groups and the latter as a regular columnist.

Given TAC’s long history of transgressing the boundaries of acceptable opinion on racial matters, what could possibly have been so disturbing about my own article? I had produced a careful 7,000 word quantitative analysis of public data that explicitly avoided suggesting causal explanations, while offering a variety of insights cutting across ideological lines. After all, the subject of race and crime soon dominated America’s headlines in the wake of the Zimmerman verdict, and several of Harvard University’s most eminent social scientists sent me favorable comments once they read my piece.

The topic is certainly a delicate one, but hiding from factual reality is hardly the best means of coping with social problems. Indeed, my introduction had actually cited the notorious case of the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, noting that the vicious attacks he received for his 1965 report on the grim state of the black American family had hardly been a proud day in American intellectual life. In past decades, I think my article might have found a natural home in the pages of The Public Interest, edited by Irving Kristol and Nathan Glazer.

I suspect that certain of TAC’s editors found my piece so alarming precisely because they feared that even a cautious and sober discussion of such racial matters might draw unwelcome attention to more than a decade of previous TAC articles in the same general area, many of them far less cautious and sober. The defensiveness and hostility that comes from having a very guilty conscience on racial issues is something I had previously encountered in American politics.

Consider the bizarre ideological contortions of the California Republican Party during the mid-1990s. For purely political reasons nearly all its prominent figures had wholeheartedly endorsed an appalling 1994 measure to summarily expel 300,000 immigrant children from their state’s local public schools, even though the majority of those children were native-born American citizens; the same law also mandated five-year prison sentences for any immigrant mother who attempted to prevent this. But once the inevitable backlash occurred and the Republicans realized they had set their state party on the road to oblivion, they desperately reversed every one of their related ideological positions. When I began my 1997 campaign to require that California not only enroll immigrant children in school but also teach them English, those same Republican leaders opposed my initiative with equal unanimity, sometimes darkly hinting that I was motivated by personal hatred toward immigrants or Hispanics. A few years later I described this ironic national situation in a WSJ piece entitled “The Bilingual Burden of Republican Guilt.”

Similarly, the legacy of having published a decade’s worth of mistaken and often inflammatory articles on racial topics had now convinced those same TAC editors that they must avoid the subject of race almost entirely, even when it moved to the absolute center of the national conversation. On the Monday following George Zimmerman’s acquittal, almost every media publication in America—left, right, and center—gave the topic wall-to-wall headline coverage. But TAC’s lead story that day discussed the Congressional Farm Bill, and it never ran a single major article on the subject, with its most substantial coverage being a later blog post by a recently promoted intern praising President Obama’s speech on the controversy. A couple of weeks earlier TAC had also completely ignored the crucial Supreme Court rulings on the Voting Rights Act and on the Fisher case challenging a half-century of affirmative action policies. Perhaps this was what Attorney General Eric Holder had meant when he criticized America for being a “nation of cowards” on the subject of race.

The collision between TAC’s editorial skittishness and my own work was inevitable, and sooner or later a conflict would surely have occurred. For the last twenty years, race, ethnicity, and social policy have been the main focus of my writings, and my personal website contains hundreds of articles and columns I have written on immigration, bilingual education, affirmative action, and other racially-charged topics. I have always found these issues both important and interesting, with the advantage that such dangerous minefields draw relatively few researchers, thereby providing me a less-crowded niche for exploration. And for better or for worse, my views have scarcely changed in decades, with articles I wrote long ago probably representing my current position almost as well as something I published last month.

Indeed, my first appearance in the conservative media came in the form of a lengthy letter on American urban crime and violence that run in a 1992 Commentary symposium, and I stand by those same words today. Although Commentary and TAC are usually considered ideological arch-foes, in 1999 I published a lengthy Commentary cover story entitled “California and the End of White America” while in 2011 I followed it up with an even lengthier TAC sequel bearing the similar title “Immigration, Republicans, and the End of White America.” American society had undergone significant changes across those dozen years and the two pieces differed in their focus, but otherwise their perspectives fit together as well as a matched set of book-ends. My opinions may or may not be correct, but at least they have remained consistent over time.

I believe my positions are based on evidence and solid analysis, and can withstand the criticism of my opponents. When my aforementioned Hispanic Crime article ran, it provoked a vast outpouring of exceptionally hostile responses both on the TAC website and across the Internet, which I later collected together as The Hispanic Crime Debate. Last year, my controversial Race/IQ series was just as strongly condemned by outraged racialists, and I gathered all their numerous attacks together in The Race/IQ Debate. I felt I had nothing to fear by assisting readers in considering all sides of these arguments and drawing their own conclusions. For the same reason I strongly supported TAC’s regular tradition of publishing a presidential endorsement symposium, in which a wide range of different perspectives were presented, some of which would surely never be found in mainstream publications.

In fact, I considered this part of TAC’s broader mission, namely to provide a congenial home for a wide variety of controversial or unorthodox views located outside the NYT-to-WSJ spectrum that represents permissible political commentary in our society. A magazine calling itself “The American Conservative” would naturally skew its perspectives toward the Right, but TAC could still provide ample room for opinions considered too far Left for DC respectability. In general, I think TAC did a pretty good job of fulfilling this goal during my time as publisher, though in hindsight that openness may have begun fading a couple of years ago.

In early 2011 we were contacted by Wick Allison, who introduced himself as the successful semi-retired publisher of D Magazine, billing itself as Dallas’ leading local guide to restaurants and nightlife. Allison had worked at National Review a quarter-century earlier and TAC was brought to his attention by his daughter, a recent college graduate then working as an intern at The New Republic. He told us he was close to TAC’s political positions, especially on foreign policy, and offered to become our CEO on a part-time, volunteer basis, providing the publishing expertise and fund-raising skills we needed to expand beyond our existing small-circulation niche.

Six months earlier I had converted TAC into a non-profit in hopes of obtaining outside financial support, and although some had come in, the donations were hardly enough to keep the publication going. Around the same time, we had suffered the severe loss of Editor Kara Hopkins, the shaping force behind each issue, who had been lured away by the U.S. government, thereby elevating her subordinate McCarthy to the top editorial slot. Since neither I nor any of the other board members were in a position to provide the time and effort to fill such an executive role and TAC’s tiny surviving staff was agreeable, Allison’s offer was readily accepted.

After some initial slow-going, he soon seemed to hit his stride and during a three month period, he raised several times more external funding than TAC’s entire total for the previous year, validating our hopes. Part of this support was earmarked to hire Rod Dreher, a popular blogger whose themes often related to Christianity; this represented something of a departure for TAC, which had never previously touched much on religious topics.

With Dreher’s personal following providing a major boost to TAC’s website traffic and early fundraising having gone so extremely well, Allison emphasized the need to build up TAC operations to the point where we could attract a multi-million-dollar capital infusion. Although a few of us had quiet misgivings about taking on these large additional expenses, months of highly successful fundraising made our doubts seem unreasonable.

Part-time and full-time staff and bloggers were steadily added to the payroll, and some salaries were sharply increased. The compensation of TAC’s business manager was tripled. Allison’s daughter went straight from an Andrew Sullivan internship to being TAC’s second highest paid editorial employee. The salary of one of TAC’s longtime bloggers was increased seven-fold, although his readership in mid-2012 was roughly the same as it had been in 2010 or 2011. During the course of about one year, TAC’s full-time editorial and business staff grew from two or three to a total of seven, while the number of its regular bloggers rose from one to four. I also later discovered that TAC seemed to be paying most of these bloggers five to ten times the going market rate relative to the traffic they generated. Hiring staff and raising salaries inevitably follows the Ratchet Principle: easy to increase but very painful and difficult to later cut. According to public IRS Form 990s, TAC’s operational expenses grew by two-thirds between 2010 and 2012, greatly increasing the burden of meeting every monthly payroll.

And unfortunately that early burst of large donations was never again matched, with top prospect after top prospect either turning Allison down or providing just a small fraction of the support he requested, while a direct mail appeal proved extremely unsuccessful. But TAC now needed to regularly obtain large donations just to survive. On a number of occasions, I had to write a sizable check to keep TAC’s lights on, and I became increasingly doubtful about the publication’s future, deciding that it had had a good run while it lasted.

In late 2012, Allison urgently sought an immediate $60,000 donation from me to bridge the financial gap until one of his strongest prospects came through. Then two weeks after I had sent my check he left me a phone message saying that TAC was totally out of funds, and therefore would be laying off its entire staff and shutting down. At that point I decided I had done all I could.

But as it happened, my 30,000 word article The Myth of American Meritocracy had just been published in what was scheduled to be TAC’s final issue, and the piece began creating quite a stir in the media, with David Brooks ranking it as among America’s best magazine articles for the year and The New York Times organizing a symposium on the college admissions questions it raised. On a more practical level, the thirty days that followed brought in as large a total of new donations as had arrived during the preceding nine months, together with an even greater sum in firm future commitments. After reaching the brink of extinction, TAC was now granted a second chance to achieve solid financial footing.

Such mundane financial difficulties experienced by a small business that over-expands are hardly of any interest to the outside world. But during 2012 and 2013 they probably had an increasingly pernicious impact upon the sort of articles TAC published, which constituted the sole reason for its existence.

A single example illustrates the problem. In late August 2012 TAC published “Revolt of the Rich” an outstanding critique of our corrupt economic policies written by a former longtime Republican Congressional staffer, and the piece quickly became the most successful in TAC history, generating enormous readership and attracting a great deal of attention. But when Allison soon afterward sought urgent funds from one of TAC’s larger donors, his request was angrily rejected on the grounds that the publication had begun promoting “class warfare.” We never received another dollar from that former contributor.

I learned of this unfortunate incident by chance, and I am sure there were many others as well, with various past or prospective donors complaining about particular TAC articles and writers whose material challenged their comfort zone. Few wealthy individuals do much independent thinking on ideology or policy so they tend to merely echo the views of the prominent Democratic and Republican pundits they follow in the mainstream media. TAC probably came under pressure to achieve greater respectability by doing the same.

For whatever reason, I began noticing over the last year or two that more and more of the bold voices whom I had first encountered at TAC no longer seemed to appear, and their places had been taking by establishmentarian commentary, much of which seemed to come from far down in the slush-pile of ordinary submissions to the op-ed pages of major American newspapers. I had often sharply disagreed with much of TAC’s material in the past, but had always found it interesting; now I encountered far fewer such disagreements, but the articles seemed dull and safely mainstream.

The growing desire of TAC to become a political “player” in DC circles was also problematic. Jack Hunter—a.k.a. “the Southern Avenger”—had gone from being a regular TAC columnist to becoming a senior staffer to newly elected Sen. Rand Paul, and with growing talk of Paul considering a possible 2016 presidential bid, Hunter apparently became a powerful influence at TAC, resulting in a great deal of Rand Paul boosterism. I also later learned that TAC had begun regularly rejecting articles critical of Rand Paul or his father Ron Paul, even if the material was original and important and might have gained TAC greater visibility in the larger media landscape.

Another factor that may have led TAC astray was its discovery that adopting “liberal” ideological positions tended to attract enormous temporary traffic. Articles endorsing Gay Marriage or advocating gun control drew huge attention from liberal outlets and pundits, eager to spread the word that “even Pat Buchanan’s rightwing magazine” now supported their position. The problem was that the liberal readers who arrived to read those articles gradually realized that TAC wasn’t all that liberal a website and soon departed, while much of TAC’s conservative readership was permanently driven away by such material. “Man Bites Dog” articles only gain attention a few times before they become passé.

This development also had an unfortunate impact upon the TAC’s influence on national security matters. As TAC increasingly rejected or avoided most hot-button conservative issues, fewer and fewer people continued to regard it as “conservative” in any meaningful sense, so TAC’s strong stance on American foreign wars or civil liberties concerns became no different from that of so many other liberal, moderate, or libertarian publications. Its unique value as a dissenting conservative voice was lost.

Certainly none of these venal sins were any worse than those regularly committed by so many other media outlets, but the only advantages enjoyed by a tiny publication such as TAC had been its journalistic integrity and its willingness to ignore the boundaries of respectable punditry and establishment media opinion. Former Bush speechwriter David Frum had famously issued a 2003 fatwa excommunicating all the “unpatriotic conservatives” aligned with TAC for their strong opposition to the Iraq War, but by late 2012 he was praising TAC for finally having become a responsible media outlet, which may or may not have been much of a compliment.

For years TAC had occupied an almost vacant media niche, but once so many of its articles began falling safely within the boundaries of mainstream media opinion, it began competing against dozens of other publications offering similar commentary on the Internet, many of them backed by vastly greater resources and featuring far more prominent writers. Dreher’s Christianity-tinged punditry remained hugely popular, but between November 2012 and June 2013 the remainder of TAC’s content traffic dropped by almost 60%, although no comparable post-election decline seemed to occur at some other political websites. Why would people read TAC if they had already read something similar in their morning newspapers?

As TAC’s publisher and largest donor, my own articles had mostly remained immune from these growing restrictions, which is why it took me so long to discover they were being implemented. Although none of my writings had ever neatly fit into TAC’s original rightwing Buchananite ideology, I also doubt that most of them could have appeared in a mainstream media outlet in anything like their existing form, and that probably contributed to their considerable success. During the past two years, I had published four TAC cover stories, and these had been ranked #1, #2, #3, and #5 in total readership, averaging more than eight times the traffic of TAC’s other cover pieces. Taking risks is the only way a tiny publication can have any impact, but the desperate fear of alienating possible donors forced TAC to move in exactly the opposite direction.

At the end of April, my “American Pravda” article critiquing our dishonest national media was scheduled to run as the cover, with the artwork having already been produced. But just before the issue closed, Allison demanded that it be replaced, arguing that the focus on old news was unlikely to attract much interest and the harsh criticism of The New York Times seemed totally unreasonable; I strongly suspect he actually feared that my controversial claims would scare off timorous donors. After a heated argument, I finally acquiesced, and the piece nonetheless quickly became my second most successful ever, attracting almost twenty-five times the readership of the bland hagiography of Ronald Reagan’s foreign policy that replaced it on the cover. That incident was how I discovered that so many other TAC writers had previously encountered similar problems.

It became obvious to me that financial pressures were a leading factor behind this growing reluctance to publish controversial material, and after I received my copy of TAC’s 2012 federal tax return, I was struck by the large growth in operating expenses. The existing staffing levels seemed completely disproportionate to TAC’s actual output.

Leaving aside the postings of its regular bloggers, TAC usually published just a single main article each day on its website plus a couple of short blog posts, with the material generally provided by outside paid contributors or sometimes even syndicated columnists. It seemed incomprehensible to me how this minimal workload required seven full-time editorial and business employees, or what most of them did each day. This was certainly a larger staff than had been necessary during the years when TAC published a meticulously edited 35-40 page print magazine every two weeks, with all the attendant effort of meeting strict deadlines in article solicitation, editing, layout, and cover design.

TAC’s print issue frequency had dropped to just six times per year and the website had become the primary means of its distribution, so it was obvious that staffing levels and costs could be drastically reduced without loss of output or quality, bringing expenses into much closer alignment with likely donations. In mid-May I was alarmed to discover that no significant new contributions had arrived since January. Therefore, I soon began pressing this issue with Allison, McCarthy, and my fellow board members. But people hate to admit that their aggressive growth strategy of the last year or two had ultimately proven unsuccessful.

Ideological organizations and publications often confront this exact dilemma. They can remain small, poor, and fiercely independent or they can take the path of growing in size and expense, hoping for greater impact and influence, but usually forcing them to make their peace with the wealthy sources of establishmentarian funding. My own opinion was that since American political journalism already contained such a vast number of different media outlets in the latter category, TAC should avoid merely becoming another one, but I can understand why others might see things differently.

During this heated dispute over TAC’s budgetary problems and strategic direction, I had also been completing my quantitative analysis of urban crime, and I finally submitted my draft at the end of May. If my American Pravda article had made Allison very nervous for its possible impact upon donors, my Race and Crime article must have terrified him, coming as it did soon after the Jason Richwine Affair but several weeks before the George Zimmerman trial eventually pushed that exact same subject to the top of every media outlet in America.

Even more importantly, Allison and my other opponents in the budgetary dispute surely saw denouncing my article as a perfect means of deflecting my financial arguments without addressing them, while undercutting my influence with certain of TAC’s board members and major donors. An accusation of “racial insensitivity” has become an extremely powerful political trump card to play against one’s adversaries in our society, not merely among liberals but these days among conservatives as well.

And that’s the story of why “Pat Buchanan’s Magazine” purged its publisher for submitting a Public Interest-style article analyzing urban crime in America.

Related Reading:

The Myth of Hispanic Crime

Race/IQ: The Jason Richwine Affair

Our American Pravda

Race and Crime in America

[anavoliselenu]

Release me chapter 1

1

A cool ocean breeze caresses my bare shoulders, and I shiver, wishing I’d taken my roommate’s advice and brought a shawl with me tonight. I arrived in Los Angeles only four days ago, and I haven’t yet adjusted to the concept of summer temperatures changing with the setting of the sun. In Dallas, June is hot, July is hotter, and August is hell.

Not so in California, at least not by the beach. LA Lesson Number One: Always carry a sweater if you’ll be out after dark.

Of course, I could leave the balcony and go back inside to the party. Mingle with the millionaires. Chat up the celebrities. Gaze dutifully at the paintings. It is a gala art opening, after all, and my boss brought me here to meet and greet and charm and chat. Not to lust over the panorama that is coming alive in front of me. Bloodred clouds bursting against the pale orange sky. Blue-gray waves shimmering with dappled gold.

I press my hands against the balcony rail and lean forward, drawn to the intense, unreachable beauty of the setting sun. I regret that I didn’t bring the battered Nikon I’ve had since high school. Not that it would have fit in my itty-bitty beaded purse. And a bulky camera bag paired with a little black dress is a big, fat fashion no-no.

But this is my very first Pacific Ocean sunset, and I’m determined to document the moment. I pull out my iPhone and snap a picture.

“Almost makes the paintings inside seem redundant, doesn’t it?” I recognize the throaty, feminine voice and turn to face Evelyn Dodge, retired actress turned agent turned patron of the arts—and my hostess for the evening.

“I’m so sorry. I know I must look like a giddy tourist, but we don’t have sunsets like this in Dallas.”

“Don’t apologize,” she says. “I pay for that view every month when I write the mortgage check. It damn well better be spectacular.”

I laugh, immediately more at ease.

“Hiding out?”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re Carl’s new assistant, right?” she asks, referring to my boss of three days.

“Selena Fairchild.”

“I remember now. Selena from Texas.” She looks me up and down, and I wonder if she’s disappointed that I don’t have big hair and cowboy boots. “So who does he want you to charm?”

“Charm?” I repeat, as if I don’t know exactly what she means.

She cocks a single brow. “Honey, the man would rather walk on burning coals than come to an art show. He’s fishing for investors and you’re the bait.” She makes a rough noise in the back of her throat. “Don’t worry. I won’t press you to tell me who. And I don’t blame you for hiding out. Carl’s brilliant, but he’s a bit of a prick.”

“It’s the brilliant part I signed on for,” I say, and she barks out a laugh.

The truth is that she’s right about me being the bait. “Wear a cocktail dress,” Carl had said. “Something flirty.”

Seriously? I mean, Seriously?

I should have told him to wear his own damn cocktail dress. But I didn’t. Because I want this job. I fought to get this job. Carl’s company, C-Squared Technologies, successfully launched three web-based products in the last eighteen months. That track record had caught the industry’s eye, and Carl had been hailed as a man to watch.

More important from my perspective, that meant he was a man to learn from, and I’d prepared for the job interview with an intensity bordering on obsession. Landing the position had been a huge coup for me. So what if he wanted me to wear something flirty? It was a small price to pay.

Shit.

“I need to get back to being the bait,” I say.

“Oh, hell. Now I’ve gone and made you feel either guilty or self-conscious. Don’t be. Let them get liquored up in there first. You catch more flies with alcohol anyway. Trust me. I know.”

She’s holding a pack of cigarettes, and now she taps one out, then extends the pack to me. I shake my head. I love the smell of tobacco—it reminds me of my grandfather—but actually inhaling the smoke does nothing for me.

“I’m too old and set in my ways to quit,” she says. “But God forbid I smoke in my own damn house. I swear, the mob would burn me in effigy. You’re not going to start lecturing me on the dangers of secondhand smoke, are you?”

“No,” I promise.

“Then how about a light?”

I hold up the itty-bitty purse. “One lipstick, a credit card, my driver’s license, and my phone.”

“No condom?”

“I didn’t think it was that kind of party,” I say dryly.

“I knew I liked you.” She glances around the balcony. “What the hell kind of party am I throwing if I don’t even have one goddamn candle on one goddamn table? Well, fuck it.” She puts the unlit cigarette to her mouth and inhales, her eyes closed and her expression rapturous. I can’t help but like her. She wears hardly any makeup, in stark contrast to all the other women here tonight, myself included, and her dress is more of a caftan, the batik pattern as interesting as the woman herself.

She’s what my mother would call a brassy broad—loud, large, opinionated, and self-confident. My mother would hate her. I think she’s awesome.

She drops the unlit cigarette onto the tile and grinds it with the toe of her shoe. Then she signals to one of the catering staff, a girl dressed all in black and carrying a tray of champagne glasses.

The girl fumbles for a minute with the sliding door that opens onto the balcony, and I imagine those flutes tumbling off, breaking against the hard tile, the scattered shards glittering like a wash of diamonds.

I picture myself bending to snatch up a broken stem. I see the raw edge cutting into the soft flesh at the base of my thumb as I squeeze. I watch myself clutching it tighter, drawing strength from the pain, the way some people might try to extract luck from a rabbit’s foot.

The fantasy blurs with memory, jarring me with its potency. It’s fast and powerful, and a little disturbing because I haven’t needed the pain in a long time, and I don’t understand why I’m thinking about it now, when I feel steady and in control.

I am fine, I think. I am fine, I am fine, I am fine.

“Take one, honey,” Evelyn says easily, holding a flute out to me.

I hesitate, searching her face for signs that my mask has slipped and she’s caught a glimpse of my rawness. But her face is clear and genial.

“No, don’t you argue,” she adds, misinterpreting my hesitation. “I bought a dozen cases and I hate to see good alcohol go to waste. Hell no,” she adds when the girl tries to hand her a flute. “I hate the stuff. Get me a vodka. Straight up. Chilled. Four olives. Hurry up, now. Do you want me to dry up like a leaf and float away?”

The girl shakes her head, looking a bit like a twitchy, frightened rabbit. Possibly one that had sacrificed his foot for someone else’s good luck.

Evelyn’s attention returns to me. “So how do you like LA? What have you seen? Where have you been? Have you bought a map of the stars yet? Dear God, tell me you’re not getting sucked into all that tourist bullshit.”

“Mostly I’ve seen miles of freeway and the inside of my apartment.”

“Well, that’s just sad. Makes me even more glad that Carl dragged your skinny ass all the way out here tonight.”

I’ve put on fifteen welcome pounds since the years when my mother monitored every tiny thing that went in my mouth, and while I’m perfectly happy with my size-eight ass, I wouldn’t describe it as skinny. I know Evelyn means it as a compliment, though, and so I smile. “I’m glad he brought me, too. The paintings really are amazing.”

“Now don’t do that—don’t you go sliding into the polite-conversation routine. No, no,” she says before I can protest. “I’m sure you mean it. Hell, the paintings are wonderful. But you’re getting the flat-eyed look of a girl on her best behavior, and we can’t have that. Not when I was getting to know the real you.”

“Sorry,” I say. “I swear I’m not fading away on you.”

Because I genuinely like her, I don’t tell her that she’s wrong—she hasn’t met the real Selena Fairchild. She’s met Social Selena who, much like Malibu Barbie, comes with a complete set of accessories. In my case, it’s not a bikini and a convertible. Instead, I have the Elizabeth Fairchild Guide for Social Gatherings.

My mother’s big on rules. She claims it’s her Southern upbringing. In my weaker moments, I agree. Mostly, I just think she’s a controlling bitch. Since the first time she took me for tea at the Mansion at Turtle Creek in Dallas at age three, I have had the rules drilled into my head. How to walk, how to talk, how to dress. What to eat, how much to drink, what kinds of jokes to tell.

I have it all down, every trick, every nuance, and I wear my practiced pageant smile like armor against the world. The result being that I don’t think I could truly be myself at a party even if my life depended on it.

This, however, is not something Evelyn needs to know.

“Where exactly are you living?” she asks.

“Studio City. I’m sharing a condo with my best friend from high school.”

“Straight down the 101 for work and then back home again. No wonder you’ve only seen concrete. Didn’t anyone tell you that you should have taken an apartment on the Westside?”

“Too pricey to go it alone,” I admit, and I can tell that my admission surprises her. When I make the effort—like when I’m Social Selena—I can’t help but look like I come from money. Probably because I do. Come from it, that is. But that doesn’t mean I brought it with me.

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-four.”

Evelyn nods sagely, as if my age reveals some secret about me. “You’ll be wanting a place of your own soon enough. You call me when you do and we’ll find you someplace with a view. Not as good as this one, of course, but we can manage something better than a freeway on-ramp.”

“It’s not that bad, I promise.”

“Of course it’s not,” she says in a tone that says the exact opposite. “As for views,” she continues, gesturing toward the now-dark ocean and the sky that’s starting to bloom with stars, “you’re welcome to come back anytime and share mine.”

“I might take you up on that,” I admit. “I’d love to bring a decent camera back here and take a shot or two.”

“It’s an open invitation. I’ll provide the wine and you can provide the entertainment. A young woman loose in the city. Will it be a drama? A rom-com? Not a tragedy, I hope. I love a good cry as much as the next woman, but I like you. You need a happy ending.”

I tense, but Evelyn doesn’t know she’s hit a nerve. That’s why I moved to LA, after all. New life. New story. New Selena.

I ramp up the Social Selena smile and lift my champagne flute. “To happy endings. And to this amazing party. I think I’ve kept you from it long enough.”

“Bullshit,” she says. “I’m the one monopolizing you, and we both know it.”

We slip back inside, the buzz of alcohol-fueled conversation replacing the soft calm of the ocean.

“The truth is, I’m a terrible hostess. I do what I want, talk to whoever I want, and if my guests feel slighted they can damn well deal with it.”

I gape. I can almost hear my mother’s cries of horror all the way from Dallas.

“Besides,” she continues, “this party isn’t supposed to be about me. I put together this little shindig to introduce Blaine and his art to the community. He’s the one who should be doing the mingling, not me. I may be fucking him, but I’m not going to baby him.”

Evelyn has completely destroyed my image of how a hostess for the not-to-be-missed social event of the weekend is supposed to behave, and I think I’m a little in love with her for that.

“I haven’t met Blaine yet. That’s him, right?” I point to a tall reed of a man. He is bald, but sports a red goatee. I’m pretty sure it’s not his natural color. A small crowd hums around him, like bees drawing nectar from a flower. His outfit is certainly as bright as one.

“That’s my little center of attention, all right,” Evelyn says. “The man of the hour. Talented, isn’t he?” Her hand sweeps out to indicate her massive living room. Every wall is covered with paintings. Except for a few benches, whatever furniture was once in the room has been removed and replaced with easels on which more paintings stand.

I suppose technically they are portraits. The models are nudes, but these aren’t like anything you would see in a classical art book. There’s something edgy about them. Something provocative and raw. I can tell that they are expertly conceived and carried out, and yet they disturb me, as if they reveal more about the person viewing the portrait than about the painter or the model.

As far as I can tell, I’m the only one with that reaction. Certainly the crowd around Blaine is glowing. I can hear the gushing praise from here.

“I picked a winner with that one,” Evelyn says. “But let’s see. Who do you want to meet? Rip Carrington and Lyle Tarpin? Those two are guaranteed drama, that’s for damn sure, and your roommate will be jealous as hell if you chat them up.”

“She will?”

Evelyn’s brows arch up. “Rip and Lyle? They’ve been feuding for weeks.” She narrows her eyes at me. “The fiasco about the new season of their sitcom? It’s all over the Internet? You really don’t know them?”

“Sorry,” I say, feeling the need to apologize. “My school schedule was pretty intense. And I’m sure you can imagine what working for Carl is like.”

Speaking of …

I glance around, but I don’t see my boss anywhere.

“That is one serious gap in your education,” Evelyn says. “Culture—and yes, pop culture counts—is just as important as—what did you say you studied?”

“I don’t think I mentioned it. But I have a double major in electrical engineering and computer science.”

“So you’ve got brains and beauty. See? That’s something else we have in common. Gotta say, though, with an education like that, I don’t see why you signed up to be Carl’s secretary.”

I laugh. “I’m not, I swear. Carl was looking for someone with tech experience to work with him on the business side of things, and I was looking for a job where I could learn the business side. Get my feet wet. I think he was a little hesitant to hire me at first—my skills definitely lean toward tech—but I convinced him I’m a fast learner.”

She peers at me. “I smell ambition.”

I lift a shoulder in a casual shrug. “It’s Los Angeles. Isn’t that what this town is all about?”

“Ha! Carl’s lucky he’s got you. It’ll be interesting to see how long he keeps you. But let’s see … who here would intrigue you …?”

She casts about the room, finally pointing to a fifty-something man holding court in a corner. “That’s Charles Maynard,” she says. “I’ve known Charlie for years. Intimidating as hell until you get to know him. But it’s worth it. His clients are either celebrities with name recognition or power brokers with more money than God. Either way, he’s got all the best stories.”

“He’s a lawyer?”

“With Bender, Twain & McGuire. Very prestigious firm.”

“I know,” I say, happy to show that I’m not entirely ignorant, despite not knowing Rip or Lyle. “One of my closest friends works for the firm. He started here but he’s in their New York office now.”

“Well, come on, then, Texas. I’ll introduce you.” We take one step in that direction, but then Evelyn stops me. Maynard has pulled out his phone, and is shouting instructions at someone. I catch a few well-placed curses and eye Evelyn sideways. She looks unconcerned “He’s a pussycat at heart. Trust me, I’ve worked with him before. Back in my agenting days, we put together more celebrity biopic deals for our clients than I can count. And we fought to keep a few tell-alls off the screen, too.” She shakes her head, as if reliving those glory days, then pats my arm. “Still, we’ll wait ’til he calms down a bit. In the meantime, though …”

She trails off, and the corners of her mouth turn down in a frown as she scans the room again. “I don’t think he’s here yet, but—oh! Yes! Now there’s someone you should meet. And if you want to talk views, the house he’s building has one that makes my view look like, well, like yours.” She points toward the entrance hall, but all I see are bobbing heads and haute couture. “He hardly ever accepts invitations, but we go way back,” she says.

I still can’t see who she’s talking about, but then the crowd parts and I see the man in profile. Goose bumps rise on my arms, but I’m not cold. In fact, I’m suddenly very, very warm.

He’s tall and so handsome that the word is almost an insult. But it’s more than that. It’s not his looks, it’s his presence. He commands the room simply by being in it, and I realize that Evelyn and I aren’t the only ones looking at him. The entire crowd has noticed his arrival. He must feel the weight of all those eyes, and yet the attention doesn’t faze him at all. He smiles at the girl with the champagne, takes a glass, and begins to chat casually with a woman who approaches him, a simpering smile stretched across her face.

“Damn that girl,” Evelyn says. “She never did bring me my vodka.”

But I barely hear her. “Justin Stark,” I say. My voice surprises me. It’s little more than breath.

Evelyn’s brows rise so high I notice the movement in my peripheral vision. “Well, how about that?” she says knowingly. “Looks like I guessed right.”

“You did,” I admit. “Mr. Stark is just the man I want to see.”

2

“Justin Stark is the holy grail.” That’s what Carl told me earlier that evening. Right after “Damn, Selena. You look hot.”

I think he was expecting me to blush and smile and thank him for his kind words. When I didn’t, he cleared his throat and got down to business. “You know who Stark is, right?”

“You saw my resume,” I reminded him. “The fellowship?” I’d been the recipient of the Stark International Science Fellowship for four of my five years at the University of Texas, and those extra dollars every semester had made all the difference in the world to me. Of course, even without a fellowship, you’d have to be from Mars not to know about the man. Only thirty years old, the reclusive former tennis star had taken the millions he’d earned in prizes and endorsements and reinvented himself. His tennis days had been overshadowed by his new identity as an entrepreneur, and Stark’s massive empire raked in billions every year.

“Right, right,” Carl said, distracted. “Team April is presenting at Stark Applied Technology on Tuesday.” At C-Squared, every product team is named after a month. With only twenty-three employees, though, the company has yet to tap into autumn or winter.

“That’s fabulous,” I said, and I meant it. Inventors, software developers, and eager new business owners practically wet themselves to get an interview with Justin Stark. That Carl had snagged just such an appointment was proof that my hoop-jumping to get this job had been worth it.

“Damn straight,” Carl said. “We’re showing off the beta version of the 3-D training software. Brian and Dave are on point with me,” he added, referring to the two software developers who’d written most of the code for the product. Considering its applications in athletics and Stark Applied Technology’s focus on athletic medicine and training, I had to guess that Carl was about to pitch another winner. “I want you at the meeting with us,” he added, and I managed not to embarrass myself by doing a fist-pump in the air. “Right now, we’re scheduled to meet with Preston Rhodes. Do you know who he is?”

“No.”

“Nobody does. Because Rhodes is a nobody.”

So Carl didn’t have a meeting with Stark, after all. I, however, had a feeling I knew where this conversation was going.

“Pop quiz, Selena. How does an up-and-coming genius like me get an in-person meeting with a powerhouse like Justin Stark?”

“Networking,” I said. I wasn’t an A-student for nothing.

“And that’s why I hired you.” He tapped his temple, even as his eyes roamed over my dress and lingered at my cleavage. At least he wasn’t so gauche as to actually articulate the basic fact that he was hoping that my tits—rather than his product—would intrigue Stark enough that he’d attend the meeting personally. But honestly, I wasn’t sure my girls were up to the task. I’m easy on the eyes, but I’m more the girl-next-door, America’s-sweetheart type. And I happen to know that Stark goes for the runway supermodel type.

I learned that six years ago when he was still playing tennis and I was still chasing tiaras. He’d been the token celebrity judge at the Miss Tri-County Texas pageant, and though we’d barely exchanged a dozen words at the mid-pageant reception, the encounter was burned into my memory.

I’d parked myself near the buffet and was contemplating the tiny squares of cheesecake, wondering if my mother would smell it on my breath if I ate just one, when he walked up with the kind of bold self-assurance that can seem like arrogance on some men, but on Justin Stark it just seemed sexy as hell. He eyed me first, then the cheesecakes. Then he took two and popped them both in his mouth. He chewed, swallowed, then grinned at me. His unusual eyes, one amber and one almost completely black, seemed to dance with mirth.

I tried to come up with something clever to say and failed miserably. So I just stood there, my polite smile plastered across my face as I wondered if his kiss would give me all the taste and none of the calories.

Then he leaned closer, and my breath hitched as his proximity increased. “I think we’re kindred spirits, Miss Fairchild.”

“I’m sorry?” Was he talking about the cheesecake? Good God, I hadn’t actually looked jealous when he’d eaten them, had I? The idea was appalling.

“Neither of us wants to be here,” he explained. He tilted his head slightly toward a nearby emergency exit, and I was overcome by the sudden image of him grabbing my hand and taking off running. The clarity of the thought alarmed me. But the certainty that I’d go with him didn’t scare me at all.

“I—oh,” I mumbled.

His eyes crinkled with his smile, and he opened his mouth to speak. I didn’t learn what he had to say, though, because Carmela D’Amato swept over to join us, then linked her arm with his. “Damie, darling.” Her Italian accent was as thick as her dark wavy hair. “Come. We should go, yes?” I’ve never been a big tabloid reader, but it’s hard to avoid celebrity gossip when you’re doing the pageant thing. So I’d seen the headlines and articles that paired the big-shot tennis star with the Italian supermodel.

“Miss Fairchild,” he said with a parting nod, then turned to escort Carmela into the crowd and out of the building. I watched them leave, consoling myself with the thought that there was regret in his eyes as we parted ways. Regret and resignation.

There wasn’t, of course. Why would there be? But that nice little fantasy got me through the rest of the pageant.

And I didn’t say one word about the encounter to Carl. Some things are best played close to the vest. Including how much I’m looking forward to meeting Justin Stark again.

“Come on, Texas,” Evelyn says, pulling me from my thoughts. “Let’s go say howdy.”

I feel a tap on my shoulder and turn to find Carl behind me. He sports the kind of grin that suggests he just got laid. I know better. He’s just giddy with the anticipation of getting close to Justin Stark.

Well, me, too.

The crowd has shifted again, blocking my view of the man. I still haven’t seen his face, just his profile, and now I can’t even see that. Evelyn’s leading the way, making forward progress through the crowd despite a few stops and starts to chat with her guests. We’re on the move again when a barrel-chested man in a plaid sport coat shifts to the left, once again revealing Justin Stark.

He is even more magnificent now than he was six years ago. The brashness of youth has been replaced by a mature confidence. He is Jason and Hercules and Perseus—a figure so strong and beautiful and heroic that the blood of the gods must flow through him, because how else could a being so fine exist in this world? His face consists of hard lines and angles that seem sculpted by light and shadows, making him appear both classically gorgeous and undeniably unique. His dark hair absorbs the light as completely as a raven’s wing, but it is not nearly as smooth. Instead, it looks wind-tossed, as if he’s spent the day at sea.

That hair in contrast with his black tailored trousers and starched white shirt give him a casual elegance, and it’s easy to believe that this man is just as comfortable on a tennis court as he is in a boardroom.

His famous eyes capture my attention. They seem edgy and dangerous and full of dark promises. More important, they are watching me. Following me as I move toward him.

I feel an odd sense of déjà vu as I move steadily across the floor, hyperaware of my body, my posture, the placement of my feet. Foolishly, I feel as if I’m a contestant all over again.

I keep my eyes forward, not looking at his face. I don’t like the nervousness that has crept into my manner. The sense that he can see beneath the armor I wear along with my little black dress.

One step, then another.

I can’t help it; I look straight at him. Our eyes lock, and I swear all the air is sucked from the room. It is my old fantasy come to life, and I am completely lost. The sense of déjà vu vanishes and there’s nothing but this moment, electric and powerful. Sensual.

For all I know, I’ve gone spinning off into space. But no, I’m right there, floor beneath me, walls around me, and Justin Stark’s eyes on mine. I see heat and purpose. And then I see nothing but raw, primal desire so intense I fear that I’ll shatter under the force of it.

Carl takes my elbow, steadying me, and only then do I realize I’d started to stumble. “Are you okay?”

“New shoes. Thanks.” I glance back at Stark, but his eyes have gone flat. His mouth is a thin line. Whatever that was—and what the hell was it?—the moment has passed.

By the time we reach Stark, I’ve almost convinced myself it was my imagination.

I barely process the words as Evelyn introduces Carl. My turn is next, and Carl presses his hand to my shoulder, pushing me subtly forward. His palm is sweating, and it feels clammy against my bare skin. I force myself not to shrug it off.

“Selena is Carl’s new assistant,” Evelyn says.

I extend my hand. “Selena Fairchild. It’s a pleasure.” I don’t mention that we’ve met before. Now hardly seems the time to remind him that I once paraded before him in a bathing suit.

“Ms. Fairchild,” he says, ignoring my hand. My stomach twists, but I’m not sure if it’s from nerves, disappointment, or anger. He looks from Carl to Evelyn, pointedly avoiding my eyes. “You’ll have to excuse me. There’s something I need to attend to right away.” And then he’s gone, swallowed up into the crowd as effectively as a magician disappearing in a puff of smoke.

“What the fuck?” Carl says, summing up my sentiments exactly.

Uncharacteristically quiet, Evelyn simply gapes at me, her expressive mouth turned down into a frown.

But I don’t need words to know what she’s thinking. I can easily see that she’s wondering the same thing I am: What just happened?

More important, what the hell did I do wrong?

3

My moment of mortification hangs over the three of us for what feels like an eternity. Then Carl takes my arm and begins to steer me away from Evelyn.

“Selena?” Concern blooms in her eyes.

“I—it’s okay,” I say. I feel strangely numb and very confused. This is what I’d been looking forward to?