#she gave foot to make a great example explaining my mom and the situation as a house that burnt down w me on it but i got pulled out

[the-acid-pear]

I love it when my therapist gets me so excited or... Immersed in a topic i stim. I used to hide that but now idgaf, i snap my fingers i rock in place i bounce my legs i play w the jean seems whatevah babey!!! I'm a joyful and perhaps also enraged little critter

[inspired-by-the-music]

For You: 4 O’Clock

Taglist: @jineunwootrash​ @jamies-kpop-reactions​

Chapter 15: Our Story

The mere seconds that Mom spent staring at me and Taemin, slackjawed in the doorway, might as well have lasted forever.

I think we wouldn't have looked half as guilty if we hadn't flinched lightyears apart from each other at her gasp, but it was our instinct to run and hide. As it turns out, we didn't melt or fade in the light of discovery, but we certainly did burn.

"Oops!" Mom almost giggled as she tiptoed back into the hallway and closed the door with a soft click. Like she had done something wrong, she apologized. "I'm sorry! Lei, I just came to tell you that dinner is ready. Come down whenever you get hungry!"

Before I could speak even in a timid squeak of a voice, I heard Mom's footsteps retreat down the stairs. Because tense silence had fallen over my room, I heard Donghae ask, "Where's Lei? Is she okay?"

And I heard Heechul say, "She's not curled up in bed with her radio crying her eyes out to SHINee again, is she? I thought we were past that phase!"

I went red in the face because I had certainly grown a bit past that phase, but only because I had Taemin— the real-life person— to curl up with. Thinking only that Taemin was a million times more comforting than any CD had ever been-- and that's really saying something since you know well that music was my best friend before Lucas— I glanced at him.

From the foot of the bed where he had tucked himself into a humiliated ball, Taemin sprang to his feet and started pacing around in the dark.

"Oh my God," he wheezed, nearly tripping over his shoes. "She caught us. Your mother— my manager— caught me in your room. She caught us kissing. She caught us kissing in your room. She caught me kissing you on your bed in your room. She caught me whispering into your mouth that I love you on your bed in the dark in your room."

I had been flustered before Taemin became a human embodiment of anxiety. A fact about me: I strive for balance in almost every situation. If somebody (take Lucas for example) is bouncing off the walls, I will sit perfectly still. If somebody is frowning, I am trying to make them smile, even if it's the briefest, dimmest sort of smile. If somebody (like Taemin was that night) is in a panic, I am level-headed.

So when Taemin tugged at his hair, whining, "She's going to kill me. And if she doesn't kill me, she'll make me break up with you, and then that's gonna kill me. Shit, shit, shit."

"She is not going to kill you," I said confidently because I knew Mom like the back of my hand. Granted, I didn't know every detail of her life before me, but I knew her well enough to know that she wasn't angry. Mom never apologizes when she isn't sorry. She never apologizes when she's mad.

I was kind of joking when I said, "If she wanted to kill you, she would have sent Heechul and Donghae flying up the stairs, and—”

"Shit!" Taemin hissed. Profanities didn't suit him. "Super Junior is going to kill me!"

Slightly wavering in confidence, I assured him, "No, they're not. Mom isn't going to say anything to Super Junior."

Besides, I rationalized to myself, Yesung, who would have posed the biggest threat to Taemin's life, already knew that we were together. If Yesung didn't kill Taemin at the Christmas party, I figured that we were in the clear.

If Taemin hadn't been pacing so quickly, I might have tried to catch him in my arms to kiss his worries away as he had done for me. Given that kissing had led to this tension, though, he might not have appreciated the affection. Maybe it's a good thing that I didn't try to kiss him.

Taemin collapsed onto the edge of the bed and buried his face into his hands. When moments passed in silence, I took the chance to say, "She won't make us break up either, Taem. She just-- she was probably just shocked because she didn't know you were here. On top of that, she has always thought that Lucas and I are a thing, so—”

Into his palms, Taemin groaned, "She probably thinks you're cheating on Lucas with me or something! That makes everything a billion times worse!"

"It's more likely that she just realized that Lucas and I were never together. I mean, I've told her often enough that the message was bound to sink in sooner or later." After pulling Taemin's hands away from his face, I laced our fingers together. I gave both hands a gentle squeeze. "I get that this isn't how we wanted Mom to find out about us, but she had to find out somehow."

To tell you the truth, I was relieved that she found out in this private aspect of life and not through a tabloid expose.

"I know that you wanted to keep this-- us-- a secret so we could be roommates on tour, but we couldn't hide in the dark forever."

And to tell you the truth, I didn't want to. I wasn't eager to pen some press release or anything, but I think I was outgrowing that compulsion, that dependence on secrecy and shadows; they didn't comfort me anymore.

From everything that happened over those past few months, I learned that secrets are damning. At least in my own home, I wanted to live openly and honestly. Maybe Mom's unexpected discovery made that possible.

Stunned by my lack of humiliation, slackjawed because, for the first time, Taemin was embarrassed while I was not, I realized out loud, "I think— I think I'm glad that she found out." Drawing a deep breath, the kind that makes you realize that you've been holding your breath for far too long, I admitted, "I think— I think I've wanted her to know for a long time. Maybe forever."

Silence ensued as Taemin breathed heavily. Deeply. Inhale, count to ten. Exhale, count to ten.

My mouth opened, probably to explain that I nearly told Mom all about us on the drive to Grandma's house on my debut anniversary, but Taemin's stare took my voice away. He blinked at me. The spark in his eyes made me think that he wanted to smile at me. In hindsight, I guess he didn't. Taemin always smiled whenever he wanted to smile, and he didn't offer me the smallest grin for the rest of the night.

"I have to go," he breathed before stepping into his shoes.

That deep breath I had just drawn passed through my lips all at once. I said the wrong thing. There is nothing worse than when the truth— the full and absolute truth that rings in the deepest part of your heart— is the wrong thing to say. How can anyone regret telling the truth? How can anybody want to snatch the truth out of the air once it has been released?

"O-okay."

My stutter did not pass unnoticed despite my efforts to hide it with a smile. Taemin sat back by my side, took my face into his warm hands, and pecked at my lips. The kiss was over before I even realized it was happening.

"I love you, baby," Taemin promised. I swooned less at the affirmation of what I already knew and more at the variation of his name for me. He tucked some hair behind my ear. "Go down to dinner, and I'll talk to you later."

Rising to my feet in time with him, I said, "I love you too. Forever, Taemin."

Because I didn't want to watch him scramble out of the window, because I was at great risk of begging him to stay for dinner with Mom and Donghae and Heechul and Lucas— my family— to once and for all drag our remaining secrets into the light, I walked away. From the vanity, I grabbed the old photograph that I had yet to return to Donghae. I don't think I closed the door behind me on my way out of the room.

I tiptoed down the stairs, quietly hoping that Taemin would follow. Or maybe I was hoping that I would return from dinner to find him waiting on my bed with open arms. In the end, I was disappointed, but I didn't feel like a fool for daring to hope.

. . .

It turned out that Lucas's description of the rivalry between Donghae and Heechul was not all that dramatized.

Sandwiched between the two men at the dining room table, Mom looked nothing like the fairytale queen I imagined she would become in her happy ending. The squabbling must have gotten under her skin, etched those lines into her forehead, weighed down on the corners of her lips, and sharpened the glare she hurled at Heechul for a (probably offensive) comment that I hadn't heard over my thoughts as I reached the foot of the stairs.

"Lei!" Lucas cheered, pumping two fists into the air, because he was no longer alone with the adults. "Where've ya been?"

I couldn't narrow or roll my eyes at Lucas. He had no way to know that I had been kissing Taemin all day. He didn't have any clue that Mom just walked in on the most intimate moment of my life.

Blushing slightly under everybody's stare— smiling only because Moms smiled first and reminded me that everything was okay— I hummed, "I was just counting the stars."

As I sat in the seat next to Lucas and across from Donghae, I sat the picture frame onto the table. I met Donghae's gentle gaze and nodded. "I believe this belongs to you."

"I believe it does!" Donghae beamed and took the photograph into his hands. "Is this a new frame?" He asked as his thumb traced along the infinity symbol.

"Yep!" I omitted the fact that I had broken the original frame on that night I peeled his poster off the wall. "I— I hope you like it." I would have bashfully dropped my gaze onto the table if Donghae were the kind of person anyone could look away from. He looks right through the soul, you know, and I was finally comfortable with that.

While he untied one of the white threads around his wrist, Donghae swore, "I love it, Lei!" He motioned for me to hold out my wrist.

I watched, smiling, as Donghae knotted the infinity bracelet for me. All I could think about was my ribbon around Taemin's wrist. All I could think was that Donghae's thread bracelet was a ribbon too. We were tied together. Soulmates. Forever.

Then, my eyes were drawn to his red thread ribbon. Mom wore-- wears— one identical to that. They were tied together too. Soulmates. Forever.

So don't fault me for disagreeing with Taemin's belief that everything was falling apart with Mom's discovery of our kiss. It was clear for anybody to see (if they knew where to look) that happiness wasn't contingent upon the idea that everything will be okay. Everything was okay. Everything is okay. Happiness had arrived.

Except it wasn't happiness. The warmth spreading through my chest and painting life-- which had gone from dull shades of gray to pale hues with Lucas to sporadic brilliant bursts of color in the night with Taemin— was named joy. I read once that joy is forever, and I believed it then, and I believe it still. So, for the first time in a long time, as I looked at Donghae and Donghae looked back at me, I was not afraid for the sun to rise. I was not anxious because the sun had risen.

"It's not fair!" Heechul shrieked, pounding his fists on the table. "I practically live here, and the girl still favors Donghae!" Staring at me so intently that I thought his eyes might pop out of his head, Heechul demanded, "How come we never exchange gifts at the table, huh? I've been crashing on that couch for however many years, and you've never given me so much as a high-five!"

I raised my hands in total sincere surrender. "Look, I'm not picking favorites. I love you both. And if you start getting annoying and demanding me to pick favorites-- well-- let's not get into this again."

Donghae pouted into his glass of water. "You mean Yesung is still your favorite?"

And Heechul groaned at the ceiling, "Why am I not surprised?"

And Lucas chirped, "You gotta love Lei's unfailing loyalty!"

As I started forking through my dinner-- a salad because a.) my mouth was entirely too sensitive to the spicy noodles everyone else could slurp without watering in the eyes, and b.) I was trying yet another diet-- Mom caught my eye. She was watching me, smiling knowingly, determined to see me blush.

Uninterested in attracting any of the boys' attention, I subtly raised my eyebrows, trusting that Mom wouldn't say anything to expose my intimate information.

"You're not busy tomorrow are you?" I swear, she winked at me and I almost choked. "I was hoping that you could meet with me tomorrow. Nothing too serious, just a quick check-in on that project you've been working on."

Obviously, there was no project. Mom was just trying to tease me a bit and ensure that I made time to tell her about the events that led to the kiss that took our breath away.

Donghae and Heechul didn't know any of that, though, and they started pestering me about the project— "Is it a new song?" Heechul asked, and Donghae guessed, "Is the agency letting you write a ballad?"— while Lucas watched me through eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"Would you two hush?" Mom hissed at Donghae and Heechul. "Just let Lei keep her secrets for now!"

Mom and I laughed together and the others looked at us like we were crazy. That's okay, though. I didn't mind their stares. I was too happy that Mom saw me; I was too happy that there would be no more secrets between us come tomorrow morning. If I had it my way, I decided, there would never be another secret between us for the rest of our lives.

"I always have time for you," I told her through a grin. "Just name the hour, and I'll drop everything for you."

I had until 9 o'clock in the morning to decide what I wanted to tell Mom. Once I walked into my bedroom, I flipped on the overhead light, nabbed an empty moleskine notebook from the bookshelf, and sat at the desk I hadn't used since the long past poetry-writing days. Having grown significantly since then, I had to pull that little lever that lowers the rolling office chair.

Several of the pens that I dug out of the top drawer had gone dry, but I finally found one-- a dark almost-black blue-- that worked. I used it to map out the constellations, everything that happened before the kiss. Debuting with SuperM, giving Taemin my ribbon, the first game of Truth or Dare, crying that night in the garden, falling asleep with Taemin every night in America, the NCT Dream VLive incident, the Great Come Apart in Grandma's dining room, the roller coaster that was the Christmas party, visiting the wishing fountain where Baekhyun gave me a flower crown, kissing Taemin throughout New Year's Night and into New Year's Day.

I poured all of myself into that story, this story. On these pages, you can find me: my fears, my dreams, my hopes. I hope you love me as much as I love you. I know you do, Mom. I know you do.

By the time I lay me down to sleep, it is 4 O'Clock in the morning. Now, I wait for the sun to rise so I can share everything.

[islamicrays]

Don't over-compensate with your kids. If you feel guilty over a deficit in one department of their life, don't go overboard to make up for it in another. You'll try to correct one initial problem, only to create ten extra problems on top of it.

I'll share with you two stories to show you what I mean.

A few days ago, I took my kids to the pediatrician for a routine checkup. We go to the pediatrician's office quite often, because between regular checkups, sick visits, and scheduled vaccines, for four different kids--we are there pretty much all the time! I bring all four kids with me whenever we go, and so the all-female staff and nurses and doctor have gotten to know us pretty well and know that we're a homeschooling family. They all love us there. :)

As we were getting my 4-year-old weighed and measured, the nurse and I had a serious conversation. She is a young Arab woman, only a few years older than me, with one 11-year-old son. We speak to her in Arabic whenever she's working at the office when we're there, and my kids delight in hearing her Syrian accent (in contrast with our Egyptian dialect).

She asked me, "I know you are homeschooling your kids...but why?"

I gave her a brief outline of my reasons for the decision to homeschool, citing the academic, religious, and social aspects.

She sighed. "Yes, I think I'm beginning to understand. This is a great idea. I wish I didn't have to send my son to public school, but that's where he is. He's 11, and he is getting more and more difficult by the day. I think he gets more unmanageable with every year that he's in American schools. Like you said, the social environment in schools is terrible! He learns from his classmates, so he's already cursing and saying the F-word, having conversations about girls and dating. Last year, this one girl had a crush on him and because he didn't like her back, she started calling him gay. He's also watching horrible shows on TV, and playing the worst games on his ipad and phone. I don't know what to do about it. I feel like I'm losing control of my son," she admitted sadly.

My heart went out to her. I nodded sympathetically, acknowledging the problem with her. "Do you think it's possible for you to cut back or even eliminate his access to all the gadgets? He's only 11 after all, and you are his mom. I know it's hard, but it might be the best thing to do for you to put your foot down and take away the smartphone and ipad. It might help mitigate his behavior."

She looked away. "I wish I could. It's kind of complicated. You see, I'm a single mom, because my husband is مفقود (lost). We came here from Syria when all the violence happened...without my husband. We don't know where he is now; we haven't heard from him since. My parents and siblings are here too, alhamdulellah, so they help me raise my son."

My eyes, at this point, were stinging with unshed tears. My heart was aching for her. I gave her a hug.

I said, "I am so sorry. الله يقرب البعيد (May Allah bring close the distant ones.) But alhamdulellah that you've got your family here to help."

"But they don't really help, not like you think. They are actually the ones who have given my son all the technology. They all feel bad for my son that his dad is gone, so they just give him a lot of stuff. When he's upset, they cheer him up by buying him a toy or a game or a gadget. When he gets good grades in school, they reward him with more stuff. My parents promised him that if he does well on his next test, they'll buy him the newest iphone. I keep trying to tell them that all these things are only making the problem worse, but they don't get it. My dad always says, "This poor boy is growing up without a father, and I don't want him to feel محروم, deprived. So we have to make it up to him." They make it up to him by giving him a lot of things."

I nodded, seeing her plight. "Well, their feelings are definitely understandable. But maybe instead of material things, can they just give your son time? Quality time together, having conversations, going places together, reading?"

She said, "No, they have everything but time. They own a limousine company, so they're always busy, always working. They are rarely around for that long. They have the business to run. I think that might be another thing they feel guilty about."

"Which helps explain further all the gifts," I said. "You know, this is a problem but insha'Allah it's fixable. It will require effort and determination, but you can do it insha'Allah. It's clear that deep feelings of guilt and grief are causing some serious overcompensating, which is only exacerbating the issue. You may need to have a serious discussion with your parents about how your son is doing, and the best way to come together as a family to meet his needs and to raise him in the healthiest way inshaAllah."

Unfortunately, this is not the only story I've encountered of a parent overcompensating when it comes to their child.

A few years ago, I met a mom of two young kids whose husband traveled a lot for his job. His trips (both in America and internationally) took him away from the family for long periods at a time. Just like the nurse at my doctor's office, this mother also had her relatives living near her, but they gave the kids free reign and tried never to deny them any requests, specifically because they felt bad that the kids were largely growing up without their dad present in their day-to-day life. So these kids ran rampant, acting entitled, demanding, and ungrateful.

The mother was complaining to me that she ends up bearing the brunt of the kids' behavioral problems, because she is the only one who attempts to say "No" to them. But the kids, beings kids, don't like to be said "No" to, and they often ignore her orders or whine or threaten to "tell Baba on her once he gets back!"

These kids actually threaten their mother with tattling on her to their father! This is straight manipulation.

The mother is now the bad guy. The absent father is the good guy, an image of him that's reinforced in his kids' minds every time he returns home with lavish presents and overblown gifts.

"My husband himself feels guilty about how often he's away," the mother told me. "So he overdoes it with the gifts for the kids when he comes back. He also lets them get away with murder, since he's not usually home to see them for long stretches at a time. So next to him, to the kids I look terrible! I don't shower them with gifts and I don't always say yes to their demands. So he's become this hero to them, and I've become a monster."

SubhanaAllah.

These two completely separate stories about two different Muslim families have one underlying factor in common: parental guilt, if unchecked, leads to overcompensating and major behavioral problems for children. There are so many cases like this.

You might think that you're helping the situation by giving the kids material gifts in lieu of the time or physical presence that you cannot give them--but in reality, this only makes the situation much, much worse. You are only alleviating your own guilt by showering the kids with more stuff than is good for them, while harming the kids even further by enabling their bad manners and steeping them in materialism.

Kids need more time than money from the adults in their life. When there is a problem, throwing money at it usually only makes it worse.

More than anything else, kids need our time and attention. They don't need as many gifts, or as many devices or gadgets or screens. They just need you, fully focused on them and present with them.

The solution to following unchecked emotion and over-compensating is to use reason and try to find balance. In the Quran, Allah the Exalted commands us often toward al-qist, القسط. For example, in the beginning of surat Ar-Rahman, Allah draws our attention to the perfection of the balance which He has sent down, by linking the notion of balance with the sky:

وَالسَّمَاءَ رَفَعَهَا وَوَضَعَ الْمِيزَانَ (7) أَلَّا تَطْغَوْا فِي الْمِيزَانِ (8) وَأَقِيمُوا الْوَزْنَ بِالْقِسْطِ وَلَا تُخْسِرُوا الْمِيزَانَ

"And the sky--He has raised it, and imposed the balance.

So that you don't transgress the balance.

So establish the balance with equity and don't make deficient the balance."

The sky and everything in it, everything about it, is precisely placed in a perfect balance. If the sun were just a tiny bit closer to the earth, we'd all be burned to a crisp. If the sun were just a tiny bit farther away from the earth, we'd all freeze. The sun, moon, stars, planets are aligned in a precise calculation, without shortages or imbalances. Everything within the skies is perfectly proportioned, and precisely measured. No transgressions, no excesses, no extremes.

No imbalance.

May Allah grant us the wisdom to ponder His ayaat and live them in our own lives, ameen.

Via Umm Khalid

[itsthejuggernautbitch]

You Look Like Trouble (Morning Glory Wine) - Cable/OC

Here’s chapter three! I don’t want to be that person but if you’ve got the time and the inclination, kudos would be great.

Also, here’s a playlist if you’re into that kind of thing. I make them for all my fics. Listen along if you like because the chapter titles correspond to the song.

Taglist: @this-that-and-every-thing-else  @ptite-shit  @lesbianyondu  @chromecutie  @gallifreyangrandtorino  @ra-ra-rasputiin  @akihecko

Mondays suck. The to-do list for the day is always too long, there’s always stuff left over from the weekend, and then there’s the whole week ahead. That's when you've got to go to all of your appointments, deal with life in general. Mondays were just too much.

This Monday, though, was Vivian’s day off. There was work to be done, but not the kind of work where she had to go into the office and hold down small children or bother grown men about taking their medicine properly.

Today, Vivian got to see her kids.

Vivian was in the middle of getting dressed when her doorbell rang. She tumbled out into the hall, tugging her dress down over her head and hopping on one foot to put her shoes on. There was no chance of anything more than a relatively professional dress, ponytail, and a spirited attempt at makeup. She couldn’t remember the last time she made an effort to dress up, but at least the dress was business-y.

The doorbell rang again. When she opened the door, Wade stood on the other side, dressed in the Deadpool suit. Looks like someone else had business to take care of today.

Wade whistled when he saw her. “Look at you! I thought the white coat just came included with the special features! What are you up to today?”

“Parent-teacher conference for Shelly at the middle school today,” Vivian replied, scraping her hair up into a fussy ponytail.

“But I thought you couldn’t - ”

“The ex-husband cannot be in attendance and apparently it’s urgent, so I get to go handle it. Restraining order is against him, not my babies.”

Wade held onto her shoulder so that Vivian could balance long enough to get her other shoe on. “So this is the first time in how long?”

“About a year.”

“Well, I’m sure it’ll be a fun conference. Tell your kids to stop setting off stink bombs or eating Tide pods or whatever it is that kids do for fun these days.”

Vivian was pretty sure that kids didn’t actually do any of those things for fun.

She snorted. “I’m hoping I can take them out for dinner afterward.”

Wade hopped on the couch and stretched out, watching Vivian attempt to finish getting dressed in a timely fashion. “You know where you should go after dinner?”

“Not Sister Margaret’s. It’s my night off.”

He hummed. “I was thinking more about Xavier’s mansion.”

Vivian stopped long enough to stare at him. “Absolutely not.”

“Oh, come on, Colossus wants to talk to you!”

“Yeah, I know,” she replied. “Captain Boy Scout has been trying to sit me down and talk to me about being the school nurse for years. Besides, when did you start rolling out the welcome wagon for the X-Men?”

Wade huffed. “Gimme a break! It’s part of training!”

“What, recruitment?”

“If you come, I don’t have to wear the yellow crop top!”

“Good thing you look good in yellow, because I’m not setting foot in that place,” Vivian replied, grabbing her keys. “Now, let me get out of here, I don’t want to be late.”

Wade opened the door for her, slamming it behind them. “Have fun! Tell the babies that Uncle Wade says hi!”

“They don’t call you Uncle Wade!”

Vivian stood in the school lobby, arms crossed, tapping her foot. She’d been waiting for a solid thirty minutes for Jack to bring the kids, but neither Shelly nor Benji were anywhere in sight. She couldn’t just find the teacher’s room on her own and take care of the problem. She’d never been inside of the middle school, so she didn’t know the whereabouts of the teacher’s classroom.

“Mama!”

A tiny, high-pitched voice preceded the appearance of a tiny blonde girl, like the sound of a bird chirping. Shelly ran towards her, all hundred pounds of middle school girl barreling towards Vivian like a bullet. Benji jogged along behind her, wearing the same grimace that Vivian always gave to Wade when he was overly enthusiastic about something.

She caught Shelly in her arms and gave Benji one of those side-arm hugs teenage boys give when they think they’re too old to hug their moms.

Shelly didn’t stop long enough for greetings. She wouldn’t let go of Vivian’s hand as she pulled her down the hallway. “Lets go get this over with.”

“Hold on, honey, what’s your teacher’s name?”

“Mr. Johnson. He’s kind of a twerp.”

“Why’s he a twerp?”

Benji rolled his eyes. “Shouldn’t you be telling her not to call people twerps?”

“Probably, but I’m your mom and you should be able to express your feelings in a safe, understanding environment. If your sister says the man’s a twerp, he’s a twerp, Benji,” Vivian said. “Why’s he a twerp, Shelly?”

“Well, he called this conference and I don’t think it’s that big of a deal.”

“I don’t even know what happened, Shel Dorado. Your dad didn’t exactly clue me in on that.”

“Dad didn’t even read the letter that got sent home with me?”

“No, Dad just didn’t give me the letter to read. We’re not really allowed to talk, remember?”

“Oh, yeah… Well, I guess Mr. Johnson can tell you,” Shelly said, coming to halt. “This is his room.”

Vivian walked in, Shelly and Benji trailing behind her. The room was the same stringent, basic setup as every other middle school classroom in America, purposefully bland and devoid of hope or fun. Desks were arranged in clinical rows. The teacher’s desk was arranged carefully in the front corner with two chairs across from the teacher’s computer chair.

Benji sat at a desk on the front row while Shelly parked herself in one of the chairs next to the teacher’s desk.

Mr. Johnson stood up and shook Vivian’s hand. “I was under the impression that I would be dealing with Mr. Thorn. We’ve had correspondence about Shelly’s behavior before.”

Vivian sat down in the chair next to Shelly’s. “Well, Mr. Thorn is presently unavailable, as he had something he deemed more important to take care of today. You’ll be dealing with me instead, so why don’t you enlighten me as to Shelly’s behavior.”

The teacher sat down in his chair and scooted it in close to the desk.“She’s been picking a lot of fights lately. I’m just curious as to whether this relating to something that’s happening at home?”

“I wouldn’t know what happens at home, being that Mr. Thorn and I are divorced.”

Mr. Johnson shrugged. “It could be your absence in the home that’s causing this…”

“Well, Mr. Johnson, why don’t you explain to Mr. Thorn that my absence in my children’s life is negatively impacting them so that he’ll authorize visitation,” Vivian replied, liking the teacher less and less with every passing minute. “This, I assume, would only be possible in the event you or the nearest other available pig grows wings and takes flight.”

“Ms. Sharpe-”

“Dr. Sharpe.”

“Dr. Sharpe, I meant no disrespect to you. I wasn’t insinuating anything.”

Yeah, right.

Vivian didn’t have a lot of patience to begin with, but he was testing what little she had. “Why don’t we ask Shelly why she’s acting out? It may be that you’re not addressing her needs as a student. Shelly, what’s going on?”

Shelly looked like she’d rather be anywhere else in the world at that very moment. “Tom and John made it a game to pull every girls’ hair, snap bra straps, pull down our pants. I’ve been telling Mr. Johnson that for months.”

There is a special kind of fury only felt by mothers of girls, because mothers of girls know exactly what kind of pain they’re going through.

“Is this true, Mr. Johnson?”

“She’s the only student who’s complained about this…”

If she didn’t have to set a good example for her kids, Vivian would have definitely punched him by now. “So, what? The testimony of one little girl isn’t enough to make you address this situation?”

“That’s not what I was saying…”

“No, you’re saying that these little boys are touching Shelly and you’re not doing anything about it.”

“She punched Tom Wells in the face and broke his nose.”

“Good,” Vivian snapped. “She did something about it when you wouldn’t. The only thing you’re doing is teaching my child that she won’t be taken seriously.”

“Dr. Sharpe, I have reprimanded them.”

“You gave those boys a slap on the wrist, but you pulled me and both of my children away from our lives to have a conversation about my daughter defending herself?”

“That wasn’t the intention.”

“I know what your intention was, Mr. Johnson,” she said. “I’m a thirty-four year old woman with a medical doctorate. I know exactly what she’s going through and how you’re responding to it because I’ve been dealing with the same thing for thirty-four years myself.”

“Well, if you’re not going to have a conversation with me, Dr. Sharpe, perhaps you should leave.”

“Oh, I think this was a great conversation, Mr. Johnson. And don’t worry, I’ll be pulling her from your class.”

“You can’t do that.”

“Oh, I can’t? Watch me.” She motioned for Shelly and Benji to follow her. “Come on, guys.”

Vivian held open the door so that the kids could walk ahead of her. She slammed the door behind her and stalked down to the lobby to take care of this problem. When you found the business office door, she pulled open the door and looked for the administrative assistant.

She found Lucy, the administrative assistant, waiting for her in her office. “I need you to take care of something for me.”

Lucy looked up at her over the rim over her glasses. “Switch Shelly to a different class? Way ahead of you.”

“How’d you know?”

“I just needed consent from you or Jack to get her out of that class,” Lucy replied, already typing away at her keyboard. “It’s like the more she fights back, the bigger the target on her head.”

“Well, get her off the firing range. She’s got a target on her head because that teacher isn’t doing anything about it.”

Lucy nodded. “I’ll get it taken care of, Viv.”

“Thank you, Lucy. Can you send me updates on things?”

“I will.”

“Thanks again. I’ll see you later.”

Vivian left the office decidedly calmer than she expected to. She motioned for Shelly and Benji to follow her out. The kids followed Vivian out to her car.

Shelly grabbed Vivian’s hand and swung it as they walked. “Can you come to all the teacher conferences from now on?”

Vivian pulled Benji into a one-arm hug as she walked, despite the fact that he looked like he was going to die of embarrassment. “Of course I can. I didn’t even know all of this was going on or I would have been crawling his ass long before now.”

“Language, mom,” Benji said. She was vividly reminded of a smaller, less shiny Colossus as that moment.

“Sorry, honey.”

Vivian climbed into her car and waited for the two of them to climb in behind her. They both slid into the backseat, shoving each other for elbow space. She started the car, put it into gear, and sped off towards the exit.

“Hey, mama?” Benji asked. Vivian’s heart melted a little bit. She hadn’t heard Benji call her that in years . “Can you get me put in a different English class? She gives pop quizzes.”

“No, Benji. Pop quizzes are good for you,” Vivian replied, searching absently for the street she needed to turn onto. “What do you two want for dinner?”

“Pizza,” they said in unison.

Vivian sighed. “How many times have you had pizza this week?”

“Three.”

“Wouldn’t you rather have something healthier?”

“No.”

“What does your father feed you? Jeeze. Pizza it is, I guess.”

Vivian could see why Wade harassed her about getting sleep. If she slumped any lower in her chair she was going to hit the (very bloody) floor.

It was a slow Friday night, which was rare. Friday nights usually meant a steady flow of wounds to stitch up. Thank goodness she’d only had a couple of patients, though. There was no way she would have been able to deal with the Friday night load in her current state of overwhelming exhaustion. Of course, even though it was a slow night, she’d had two difficult patients. Both of them bled everywhere (as is the nature of stab wounds), which only exacerbated her exhaustion. She got both of them stable and stitched up, though.

The time was drawing close to two a.m. She was only sticking around so that she could pay Cable, whenever he decided to show up. Cable didn’t seem like the kind of guy who would skip out on a payment, so Vivian was a little worried that he might have forgotten his deadline, or worse - that he might have had some trouble with his mark.

The mark in this instance was the man Vivian bought all of her medical supplies from. He never stiffed her on numerical counts, but she had long suspected that he was buying the lowest quality items and pocketing the different. Distasteful, unethical - not technically illegal, but none of these practices - his or her own - were legal anyway, so she could do something about his poor business practices. She suspected that it was his doing that all of her supplies had been substituted out and replaced. She wasn’t exactly surprised that he did it - more annoyed than anything. That was fine. She had learned over the years that one must fight back in order to accomplish anything.

She knew how to fight all too well.

Really, she shouldn’t have been worried that Cable forgot his deadline, or failed to meet it. She realized that when the medical room door was thrown open, and in stepped Cable and the mark.

Cable dragged the guy in by his ear and shoved him towards Vivian. “Jimmy here’s got something to say to you, Dr. Sharpe.”

Vivian bit her lip to keep from snorting. She was pretty sure she’d never seen a grown man’s ear twisted like a bad schoolboy’s by another fully grown man. “What on Earth is going on here?”

Cable flicked the man’s ear. There was a little blood. “What do you say, asshole?”

“I’m sorry, Dr. Sharpe!” Jimmy said, grimacing when Cable twisted his ear again. “I’m sorry I switched out your supplies!”

“What else did you want to tell her?”

Jimmy flinched, shying away from Cable as far as he could without running the risk of being flicked on the ear again. “I’ll get you what you paid for, no charge!”

“And?”

“And I’ll buy the placebos back!”

“ And? ”

“And I won’t do it again, I swear!”

Cable slapped him on the back of the head, pushing him towards her. “Now give her the money.”

Jimmy tossed Vivian a hefty roll of cash, which she caught easily. She didn’t bother to count it. Cable would have made sure it was the correct amount.

Cable grabbed Jimmy by the back of his shirt and pulled him towards the door. “Get out of here, and make sure I don’t have to come after you again.”

Jimmy scurried out of the bar, spurred on by bar patrons throwing beer bottles at him. They’d all heard that he’d stiffed their doctor (thanks to Weasel’s loose tongue), and they weren’t happy about it. Who else was going to remove their stitches without pulling and not charge them thousands of dollars like real hospitals do?

Vivian stuck her head out the door to watch him run off, chuckling when she caught sight of the wet spot on Jimmy’s jeans. To be fair, peeing himself was the appropriate response.

Vivian shut the door behind her. “I don’t think I’ve ever had a merc make a mark apologize to me.”

Cable shrugged. “Yeah, well, he was a scumbag. Needed to learn a little humility.”

Vivian couldn’t disagree with that. Most of the people she associated with were scumbags - some more so than others. And yet, some of them weren’t so bad.

Vivian supposed she should pay him for a job well done. She peeled off a section of the roll of cash. “This is what I owe you. Count behind me and make sure it’s right.”

He waved her off. “Keep it.”

What was it with Wade and his weird friends not letting her pay them?

Vivian sighed. “Between you and Wade, I swear… I’ll get a bad reputation if people keep doing work for me for free.”

“I didn’t do it for free,” Cable said, staring at her with those piercing eyes. “You stitched me up the other night. Damn good job, too. The scar’s not even that bad.”

Vivian shook her head. “Wade took care of your bill last week. Next excuse?”

He huffed. “Well, I just…”

Cable didn’t give her an answer, just shuffled from one foot to the other, looking just past her. Vivian suspected that Cable had several reasons for not taking payment from her. Maybe he had some kind of sense of loyalty for Wade, maybe he had some feeling of duty towards her. Damn mercenaries never could talk about their feelings. Whatever the reason, she knew she was going to have to bother him to take her money in the future.

Perhaps in her determination to read his emotions, Vivian stared Cable down too hard. Everything about him was just… entrancing. A little terrifying. Exhilarating. He caught her stare and didn’t look away.

Out of the corner of her eye, Vivian caught blood dripping from his ungloved hand.

“Give me your hand.”

Cable didn’t ask why, he just held out his hand (albeit warily). His knuckles were split and scraped, like he’d tried to swing on someone and hit a wall instead, probably done while dragging Jimmy into her medical room. Vivian took his hand between her own and did her best to look away from his face.

She held his hand for a full minute and let the cold energy emanating from her hands wrap around his. He jumped when his hand got cold, but didn’t pull away.

When she released his hand, he pulled away, hand completely healed. He inspected the fresh pink flesh covering his knuckles. “You’re a healer?”

“Only a little bit. It’s just a secondary ability.”

“Why don’t you use it more often? Seems like it would save some time instead of poking and stabbing all these people.”

“I’m kind of stretching to do it now, honestly. I have the ability to reject events - trees falling over, pianos falling out of windows. It doesn’t work with organic material, for the most part.”

“So how are you doing it now?”

Vivian shrugged. “I don't know. Sometimes it just works. Usually, I have to be pretty stressed, or… really need it to work.”

“Well, I know you’re pretty stressed…”

Ah. So that’s why he wouldn’t accept his payment. She hadn’t pegged Cable for a sentimental type, but that just added a new layer to his otherwise gruff and stoic facade. A shame; it made it that much harder for Vivian not to like him.

Vivian quirked an eyebrow. “Alright, what’s Wade told you?”

Cable grimaced. He must have realized that he’d hit a nerve. “Enough.”

“Explain.”

He explained in that sort of way that Vivian could only describe as infuriatingly stoic. She was beginning to think that this was his own special brand of macho. “Two jobs, two kids, and you never sleep.”

“That it?”

“Isn’t that enough?”

So Wade must have left it at that. Very few people were privy to the full situation. He might have loose lips sometimes, but Wade was unfailingly loyal.

Good boy, Wade.

“And that’s why you won’t let me pay you.”

Cable looked like a man who’d been cornered. Which, he had been. “I didn’t really have to do much. Not like ol’ Jimmy was was hard to bring in or anything. You’ve got other things to worry about that paying me for that.”

Vivian was accustomed to fighting for every good thing in her life. Perhaps she was finally being given something good for once.

“You have a good heart for a mercenary,” she said, folding her arms across her chest. “Wade keeps good friends.”

He gave her the tiniest of smiles - so small that she would have missed it had she not been physically unable to look away from his face. “If you need me to do anything else…”

“You’re first on the list, Cable. Thank you.”

Vivian had met Cable three times now, and in those three times, she’d figured out pretty quickly that she was going to have a tough time keeping her head on straight where he was concerned. She’d been denying herself the prospect of dating or even feeling for so long; denying the desire for emotional or physical care. She had an undeniable attraction to Cable; he was gruff, stoic, intense . It wouldn’t be so bad if he was attracted to her, too…

Vivian had never made a single decision that wasn’t calculated and planned down to the minute. She’d learned the hard way that missteps could be fatal, and she couldn’t afford to lose anything else.

And yet, as Cable turned to leave, Vivian made one of the most impulsive decisions she’d ever made in her entire life.

Vivian called his name and stopped him. “Can I buy you a beer?”

“No…”

Vivian couldn’t pretend that didn’t sting a little bit.

“… but you can let me buy you one.”

He grinned. Not the tiny half-grin from a minute ago, but a real smile. And just like that, Vivian knew she wouldn’t be able to guard her heart from this one, not if he wanted it.

[youswiminmywater]

new perspectives on loneliness

it’s important to try to stay away from your bed sometimes. i never used to be the type to spend the entire day locked away in my room, but the past few months have been exactly that. i even rearranged all of my furniture one day just to change things up, update and organize everything in a way that made more sense. pointed my bed towards the tv. put my clothes in the closet, in my bed drawers (which is astoundingly a habit i’m still keeping up!). organized, alphabetized, and filtered through all of the stuff on my bookshelf, made better use of the space in my room. there’s still some stuff to throw out. there’s still dust accumulating. but it’s a snail’s step, a healthy move inside of a swampy situation. i don’t want this room for much longer, or at least i don’t want to be trapped in it all the time, but i’m glad i fixed it.

the other day, i went down to the cafe to get a salad and try to read a little in public, which is generally my go-to outing for when i want to get out of my house. it’s important to get out of the house sometimes. i’ve been trying to slog through “the faerie queene,” which is an old renaissance epic poem about knights and chivalry and greek mythology splashed into a weird christianity-focused landscape. i’m reading it most because i can, because i know what words like “weet” used to mean, because i’m comfortable reading spenser’s intentionally bizarre spelling and letter-swaps. just for context, here’s an example:

Nathlesse the villen sped himselfe so well, Whether through swiftnesse of his speedy beast; Or knowledge of those woods, where he did dwell, That shortly he from daunger was releast, And out of sight escaped at the least; Yet not escaped from the dew reward Of his bad deeds, which dayly he increast, Ne ceased not, till him oppressed hard The heauy plague, that for such leachours is prepard.

and i’m also reading it because the stories are fun to retell in my own words, whenever i can find an ear to gab into! a lot of old literature is like that, surprising you with a fun story. so i took my massive old book with queen victoria on the cover, got my salad, and decided to sit nearby a couple that looked like they were on a date so that i could eavesdrop on them.

boy is it easy to judge strangers! from what i could tell, he was an older guy, maybe grad student age, clad in nouveau punk garb, the band shirt with sleeves rolled up to his armpits, the rolled up jean shorts, stompy boots, thick rimmed glasses, the side shave haircut that everyone seems to be sporting these days, tattoos up his arms and half way up his neck. he was talking very adamantly about his classes, particularly with a recognizable pretension about how much of an intensely emotional and intellectual endeavor it is to both READ and WRITE in the modern age. something or other about how his professors just Don’t Understand, how they’re Taking the Magic Out of It. he was very particular about the genres he liked to read, and very particular about explaining it to her with confidence, caution, and exactness. she, meanwhile, was at least a few years younger than him (in fact, i’m pretty sure she was an acquaintance of mine, knew her tangentially through people i knew in high school), and it seemed like she hadn’t been to at least a traditional college in several years. the last i remember, she worked at this kind of odd farm-fresh fast-food joint, where they make you wear blue bandannas instead of brand hats. she looked like she went to art school maybe, studied photography. she was very supportive of his opinions on reading books, or whatever, and tried her best to come up with things to share back on the subject, but it was clear she wasn’t really That Into reading. she ran with the crowd that was used to doing, parties and skateboarding and concerts, not sitting at home over a notebook.

it just seemed like the kind of pairing that didn’t have much in common, but they were still fresh and enthusiastic and willing to blow past differences and have some fun for a while. in any case, i was in true goblin form, hunched over my salad, building stories for each of them in my head, telling myself they were communicating poorly and failing to connect with each other, telling myself they’ll be over and done within a few months, maybe more if the circumstances call for it. a stupid grin slapped across my brain while i half-read about some sinful queen named “lucifera,” who embodied Vanity itself in every way, even carrying around a hand mirror just to admire herself.

this is the cafe i used to work at, and so i knew a lot of the patrons and just about all of the employees; i spotted one person, the “new girl,” also enjoying a salad off duty a few tables away from me. she had been hired shortly after i left, though the two of us had developed a little bit of camaraderie between my frequent visits. i called her bree-bree, she called me bri-bri, it was something cute and fun  between us. one of the few fond connections i have with the world outside my bedroom. 

i made my way to the door, pretended to notice her, and sat down in the seat across from her, imposing in probably a very trumpian way, though she didn’t seem to mind, wasn’t nose deep in a book like i pretended to be. we got to immediately gossiping about the couple i was just eavesdropping on, my favorite hobby, talking about dating and relationships from a safe and frankly lofty position, dragging someone into my holier-than-thou mindscape to bond with them. it’s the magic of people-watching, really, and sharing that experience with someone makes you feel so much less like a wretched lonely creep. she nodded sagely when i talked about talking but not communicating, first dates in the cafe.

she told me a story about how she was on a first date with a guy and kept asking him questions expecting him to toss the ball back into her court, but at the end of his several monologues, the only thing he was able to bring back to her was “so, any more questions for me?” i told her he was probably trying very hard to impress her, and maybe felt interrogated. like it was his time to make a splash and show her how good and smart of a boy he was! and probably terrified out of his mind. you can’t chalk everything up to male vanity. she shrugged a maybe-probably. i declined to tell her a story about some of my first dates, not wishing to mirror the guy she just described to me.

i learned that she was dating one of the other guys that worked at the cafe, who was working there that day, though the whole thing was a sort of semi-hush. she said they dated but she didn’t really talk about it. she just gazed at him over my shoulder, dreamy-eyed. how do you get a girl to look at you that way? i admired it, appreciated it. i turned around and announced to the guy “i didn’t know you two were dating!” made him blush, show him that i was Aware and not threatening anything by having an intimate salad talk with his girl right in front of him. she told me she was moving to Cleveland in two weeks, and was bad with long-distance. she didn’t seem that bothered by it, though i still sympathized, knowing by now how those relationships end, the early 20s flings that always get bashed backwards by college schedules and other necessity. 

her mentioning it gave me an opportunity to talk about vivien, for a moment. i told her i was a long-distance veteran. i forcibly showed off pictures of vivien, of the two of us together, because i was dying to show at least one person, even someone who could be barely considered a friend. i don’t know why i wanted to; maybe another opportunity to say “just so we’re clear, i’m not trying to come onto you, here’s a girl i already like!” or maybe it was a way to legitimize a connection in my life that seems to slip away more and more every day.

i offered to give her a ride, probably a minor misstep. she said she preferred walking, good exercise. i agreed, told her i wanted to ride my bike more often too. she insisted i make some desserts for her and the cafe before she had to leave, and i promised i would. left.

i had something of a panic attack that night. i don’t like calling it that, because the feeling wasn’t...well, maybe i’m just unfamiliar with panic. it was intangible. i was feeling manic, i could hear myself breathing, i wanted to get out of the house again (this was now around 11pm or so). i was feeling trapped, claustrophobic, lonely, forgotten. i went to a 24/7 gyro place to tap my foot, pick up dinner for me and my mom. wrote an obscure facebook status. sent a few oblique text messages. wanting attention but not wanting to attract it. wanting someone to care about me and show concern but feeling selfish and childish by offering out my hands.

i had a phone conversation with a friend of mine just before. my best friend, or at least someone i used to be really close with, now feeling more and more like a stranger, more like a burden, more like i destroyed something that was taking a painstakingly long time to fully implode. i was becoming less and less to her, and it showed in our conversation, and showed even more when she was telling me about other friends she was starting to hang out with more, or when she was having a conversation with her boyfriend that was so much more lively than the one she was having with me. it used to be the other way around. i sat on the phone and let my heart break, realized i was becoming alone again, and ended up at this gyro place an hour later.

it’s not that i’m particularly going to miss the life i’ve been living the past few years; i really hate feeling stuck, even if i had some great company while doing so, and shared a lot of myself with someone who has been very important to me. but trying to move on has blasted away a lot of stuff i took for granted, or didn’t realize i depended on so heavily. so i guess i had a panic attack, on both ends. i felt empty and heartbroken looking back on my past friendship; i felt worried and alone looking forward. i’m still not sure if i’m moving into anything real or not. 

maybe i’m once again too much in my own head, but sometimes i get the feeling vivien is already done with me. we don’t really have any plans when it comes to moving closer to each other; i’m not even sure what she wants for her own life sometimes. we’ve both been through our own gauntlets, and we know long-distance isn’t really something we have the energy for anymore. all i know is that we happen to have landed in the same spot, together, right now. but i don’t know if we’re both going to leave this place together, or if we’re going to be facing the same direction when we do. we’re certainly not going to stay here for much longer. i only hope she isn’t already through with me. sometimes i feel like a needy puppy, begging for her attention, putting effort into something that i maybe shouldn’t be. i truly do adore her, and we resemble each other so much; we sometimes joke about being each other’s “twin flame,” soulmates. it still feels that way. but soulmates aren’t always lovers.

i’m just preparing myself for the worst. i don’t want it to be over yet.

today i listened to an “etiquette podcast” on the way home. it’s really hardly about etiquette most of the time; it’s just this married couple that started a podcast together, likely because the wife felt left out of her husband’s podcasting career and wanted an excuse to hang out with him. they pick random topics, the wife goes into a brief “history” of the thing, and then they talk about “the best way to blank,” “when is the right time to blank.” how do i ask for a raise without coming off as bossy? what’s the best way to end a phone call? what’s the proper thing to say when i fart on the train? 

this week’s episode was about naps. the wife went into a personal yarn about how she had postpartum depression and took frequent naps that just felt Very Bad. like gigantic naps that felt too good, wasted the whole day. the husband likened it to eating ice cream when you’re starving. just the wrong medicine for the occasion. 

when i got home, i took a 6-hour nap. i was still riding the wave of sadness from the day before, though without the manic energy. just the overwhelming feeling of aloneness, having no one to share anything with anymore. being alone really makes a lot of things feel pointless, when you’re in the headspace of, i want to do things so i have something to share with people. suddenly reading feels stupid. endeavors to work out feel pointless. long naps are a brief fast-forward through something that feels like it ought to blow away at some point. and it really doesn’t, at least, not in the way you expect it to.

i woke up and checked my e-mails, my school e-mail in particular, to remind myself that i was still a student and had responsibilities beyond trying to find love and companionship to enrich my future (snort!). cracked open my textbook, a chapter about plate presentation, and got quite lost flipping between dessert possibilities. really inspiring stuff, even though the book is a little outdated:

i’m sure this is somewhat a product of my mood...but looking at these foods made me really want to dive into my work as a pastry chef. become good at something, make all these sauces and coulis and collect a bunch of chocolate shavings and such and try out some plate designs for myself, likely in very bizarre, personal ways. “here you go mom, i made dessert, and i bought a special plate to put it on!” i mean, how else is a boy to practice? it’s a relief seeing stuff like this, because the class i’m taking right now makes me believe cake decorating is the alpha and the omega of pastry learning. and i just hate cake decorating! my boss told me that some people are decorators and some people are producers, and that i’m a producer. i feel good about that role. it’s encouraging.

i’ve written pretty freely and frequently about this belief i have, that people have a built in “fail-safe” system that keeps them from tolerating a bad feeling for too long. some motivation inside of them that keeps them from stewing in depression until they disintegrate. in the past, i’ve taken opportunities like this one i’m in to go on impulsive bike rides, usually in the dead of the night. i felt the same impulse washing over me today; however, i knew that my bike tires were flat and needed a pump. this is essentially the extent of my bike-repair expertise, so if they didn’t stay inflated, i was probably done for without a real concentrated effort to fix the damn thing.

i went outside to our backyard shed to try and find the bicycle pump. no luck. and our backyard was starting to look and feel overgrown, plants poking through fences and coming up to the windows. my mom says she likes the overgrown because it grants privacy, but i hated it in that moment. i wanted to clear everything away. in lieu of finding my bike pump, i grabbed some forgotten rusty shears instead, and just started going to town on these masses of towering plants. snipping bit by bit, shoving them into mossy old yard bags, grabbing thorns and twigs barehanded in my sleepwear and clogs. just fed up, burying my feelings in the impulse.

i started to imagine, maybe this is what i need to do from now on. just focus on cleaning the house, yard work. eventually move on to working out, getting stronger arms, losing weight, eating healthier. if i’m going to be a shut-in for the rest of my life, maybe this is the secret to accepting it. just obsessing over some kind of work and never thinking about loneliness ever again, except maybe by accident late at night, in moments of stillness. it made me feel kind of like boo radley. it was a familiar place, like one that i had recognized in writers and poets, or any other person that was considered isolated, in solitude. like a retired old dad, feverishly picking up hobbies to keep himself busy. emily dickinson with her botany and gardening (did you know she had a 66-page leather-bound book of pressed plants? it’s called an herbarium). or like a robert frost type, hauling wood to a cabin, reveling in the simplicity of it. after all, it’s easier to tear weeds out of the ground than it is to make friends. maybe it’s the kind of life i need to embrace, constantly becoming better and healthier, more useful, stronger, but for nobody. building a nice home and a nice life and only sharing it with someone if i get really lucky. 

i didn’t really hang out with my dad much after my parents were divorced, and now that i’m older, and i’m realizing how badly i wanted someone to teach me how to be a guy. all the things i remember doing with him when i was younger, fishing, flying kites, swimming, are distant memories. i’m rusty. i’m gonna take my kids to do these things with nostalgia and fumble at it, because it fell out of my life a long time ago. i feel like being outside again, getting bug bites, tearing up the yard and putting it back together again...it’s a way of being a dad to myself. or i feel like my dad was supposed to teach me this stuff, like it’s a old secret, “now son, when you grow up and your life isn’t what you wanted it to be, just build a birdhouse. it’s the best remedy for depression!” 

or maybe it was just a manic episode, me out there chopping away at the bushes. a cathartic release that’ll sink back into its deep slumber again come tomorrow. it was a shift in perspective, another way of making loneliness OK, a different kind of ocean to drown in. i wouldn’t mind if it stuck around. 

i know i really don’t deserve much, i’m not exactly a very good person. but if i can find a way to turn all these feelings back in on themselves, and just focus on something...manual and productive, i think it’s a life i’d take. just needs some motivation.

[darkestbefore]

Just past 3AM. Listening to midnight aura jazz hop on Youtube. Good stuff. Cracked open the window because I just finished a “workout” and wanna cool off before I hit the hay. Push ups again, 3 sets of 20. Pistol Squat progression attempts, not really counting but alternating legs to see how they feel. And then pull ups for the lats. Tomorrow it’s back to...chin ups for biceps, push-ups again, and that ab wheel. Not bad for a home work-out. They tend to get put off all day and then I do ‘em at night while everyone is asleep. But since I’m up and have nothing better to do, it’s almost perfect timing because instead of making some excuse about it, I just rest and wait between sets...and then go do it again. 

I did end up tucking the divorce forms in a binder to save. That workshop isn’t until the 14th of next month. A couple days ago, Amy’s parents suggested counseling. Eric passed a contact of his to me. He said she was very helpful when he was going through some tough times in his life. Which makes me wonder, is she older? She’s probably not between my age and Amy’s. Probably not in either decade near us. I just worry that there is a bias with older folks. But I’m not the professional here. It’s probably better to have input from someone than no one. 

Amy and I aren’t really talking. We say things in passing. Most of her words over the past two days have been “Where are you going?” And it was always either to grab food or coffee, or go for a run. I did my second run this week, came out around 40 minutes. Not bad but I got a blister under my right foot beneath the arch. It’ll go away in a few days. I wanna say that’s somewhere between four to four and half miles. Could be more like 3 accurately but time-wise, it feels like the former. 

Anyway I keep waiting for the right moment to break the ice again. We have to talk at some point. We’re not flat out ignoring each other...actually, yeah we are. Unless we’re spoken to, we don’t have conversation. We don’t talk other than answering necessary questions. I described two soups to her today. And I scolded Luther right after she scolded him. More like, on top of. It happened right as I was reading about disciplining children in 12 Rules For Life by Jordan Peterson. Great book, by the way. I’m on Rule 6 now. He’s hard to follow at first but once you get into a groove, you can follow his train of thought. He’s really perceptive and when he paints a picture and really gets into something, you have to rationally follow him to the end of that thought or argument or example. 

I’m thinking about Amy’s cousin. How he’s been with his current girlfriend for over 4 years, has an ex-wife with two of his kids who he’s not supporting. I asked why they didn’t split yet. At first it seemed like he was brought up on not ever doing that kind of thing. But then I realized he just didn’t want to pay for support. At least that’s what it seemed like. Regardless of his reasons, I wonder...if I know in my -mind- that I eventually want to split with Amy, is it okay to put it off til later? Does knowing what I want now make a difference? Or would I dig myself another hole back into trying to make this work?

I think the way I was raised, it’s also hard to try to get a divorce. No matter what my parents went through, it never happened. As a kid I do remember wishing for it a lot. Now that I’m past all that, I’m glad my parents are together. But as a kid, it was scary. There were moments where my mom, sister, and I would run back to our old house. Or when my dad would leave our house for a few days because of how mad he was. My mom was so lost, she started writing in a journal. It was bad. As a scared kid, I remember just wanting him gone. In my mind, I wasn’t sure what the future would hold. Obviously things would be different. Harder. Tougher. It’s weird trying to go forward without a dad. Especially if he leaves on bad terms. But that ended up not happening. 

Fast forward to now, I think best case scenario is to go back to co-parenting. But why call it co-parenting, it should just be called parenting, right? We are, after all, his parents. So how do we do this peacefully? Without fighting? And if possible, without being together? It’s what we should have done to begin with. But then I also argue the other way, that even if marriage was the front for convenient co-parenting, it was necessary. I kept saying it took a village to raise Luther but maybe I’m the one who needed the village. Maybe Amy too. Maybe we all did. None of us were truly prepared. Luther wasn’t, Amy wasn’t, and I wasn’t.

We sort of have an overall handle on the parenting life. Marriage, on the other hand...has gone to shit. I look around and see so many backwards things. Luther and Amy sleep together in one room. I sleep in another, on a couch. All within her parents’ house. I had two bartender jobs which meant coming home late at night. So crawling into bed with her wasn’t quite the right option..for her? I don’t know. My life didn’t vibe with being a husband. Father? Sure. 

I tried to teach him to sleep in a crib. I tried to lay him down for his naps. I tried to create space and time for us in that way. Amy cock-blocked us both, I think, by wanting to co-sleep with him and carry him during his naps. So she and I don’t really have time together. Sometimes grandma watches Luther and we have a night out. And she used to watch him during the day and we’d have a few hours in. But all in all, it just seems like Amy is 99% focused on Luther. She’s preoccupied, overwhelmed, but unrelenting. She doesn’t really look at me or try to engage me. She’s not interested in me sexually and she keeps wanting to cut my growing hair. I grow more undesirable by the day. 

It’s probably a thing that goes both ways. I’ve become more distant. Disconnected. Must have been all the fights in the past where I walked away thinking, “I don’t want this anymore. I can let go of this fight but know deep inside I hate being here, with her.” Could have been that. Or it could have been all the recoil from all of my attempts to train Luther a certain way, only to have them crushed because they didn’t match the way she wanted to parent him. It could have been all my attempts at sex only to be dissuaded because she wasn’t in the mood or she’d make me lose my mood by trying to control it and/or rush me into finishing. 

It could have been the weird casual conversation that we’d have. Sometimes it’s lighthearted but challenging. Like Amy would say things that would offend me. Or say things that somehow showed her lack of understanding. For instance, if someone did something stupid on the road and it was obvious, she’d sometimes come up with a list of extenuating circumstances for that person. She’d do this to a lot of arguments regarding other things as well, somehow playing devil’s advocate or annoyingly saying “Or maybe...” followed by some ridiculous idea. 

She’d make faces or react in unpleasant ways whenever I’d push for something I wanted like going to the gym or to play basketball. But often times I’d offer her time to do such things and she’d pass on them, giving some excuse about why she could do it the next day. And this would go on and on until, over time, it seems like I’m the bad guy hogging all the alone time. Of course I have the majority of it because she watches Luther most of the time. But it’s not that I don’t offer it. On top of that, she could always just tell me if she had plans. 

The shitty part is it’s not the snapping and the fights that make this a bad marriage. It’s the fact that even in the “peaceful”/happy times, we still somehow don’t connect. I rarely find myself engaged in any conversation Amy likes to have with me. It’s so strange, nothing that comes out of her mouth interests me. If you really think about it, we don’t share that many interests. Unless it’s about Luther.

I don’t love jazz -that- much but I remember her being super excited hearing about a jazz show at the Handlery Hotel and wanting to go do something romantic like seeing that with me. Then one day, I asked again if she liked the idea and she wasn’t super into it. She doesn’t like jazz, I guess. She doesn’t like the food that I like, she likes maybe three things off of a Vietnamese menu and then fuck Japanese or Korean food or anything that has soy. Amy used to say she didn’t care where we ate and that she could always find something on a menu. But eating with her enough times has shown me that if you want her to be happy, you just take her to the same old places where she doesn’t need to find alternatives. That leaves the rest of the foodie stuff to my solo outings, or sometimes with Luther. 

We don’t read too much of the same books. We don’t like the same music. She hates explicit music. Doesn’t care about singalongs. A little disco and mo-town is cool for her but overall, we just don’t vibe that well together. We don’t even pick the same movies in theaters. 

On top of that, I don’t think she understands me sexually as a person. Which means that she overall does not understand me as a person because I think I’m just that sexual. This trait turns into a fault of my own somehow and somehow too often. So...maybe it’s my fault I’m a certain way. I don’t blame her for being her, I just know that what it ultimately means is that we don’t mesh well romantically. Or sexually. She dominates in the bedroom and out of it. I let her but...it’s more like what I’m seeing is that it has to be her way or the highway. And I’m taking the highway. 

I think if I met someone else someday, I’d feel more comfortable if they gave me more control. Were more submissive. Less dominant. Less argue back, trying to dominate the parental situation, or the conversation period. Amy just doesn’t stop talking sometimes. And she always has to be reasonably right. Like the reason this most recent fight happened is because I was explaining everything my mom cooked to Eric and Velma and Amy kept interrupting about how we should finish the older food first, except she was cooking eggs. I wasn’t even talking to her. I got annoyed and said “Why don’t you eat some of it then?” knowing full well she avoided the majority of the other food for obvious reasons: fried, carbs, doesn’t fall under her minimalist diet. She had a passive-aggressive implosive moment where she yelled and threw open the dish washer, pushing the fridge door back on me. Then she threw the wok, which had the eggs in it, in the sink. I called her a fucking hypocrite for wasting food when she was trying to tell us what to eat first. 

Little things like that. This is a vicious cycle, though. The last time, I think -I- was the one that snapped and I just said that I couldn’t keep doing this. I wanted a divorce because everything just kept getting swept under. And it continues to do so. Even now, neither Amy nor I have addressed what happened a couple days ago. Have we calmed down? Sure. Do we plan on working this out? I don’t know. I’m gonna say I think...not. 

Because working it out doesn’t mean working on why this one scenario played out the way it did, it means working out why this keeps happening between us every time. And to really examine that, we have to call in that counselor Eric recommended. 

So...at some point it’s either that. Or I reach for the papers and continue. Although, they’re not mutually exclusive. They could both happen. I think what would be best is that if I know for a fact that I want out and that I can’t handle Amy anymore, then we need to go ahead with the counseling. I can’t pull the trigger without at least showing that I’ve done due diligence and everything else I could. Maybe it’ll even give me more insight into why I’m doing it. 

I think back to that cousin. Putting off the divorce and just waiting. Theoretically, I could do that, and just maintain my distance from Amy and make it subtly clear that there’s no coming back from this. I’d just be cold to her. I wouldn’t show any signs of recovery from our situation. And we’d interact how we have been for the past two days, except we’d do it for months, maybe a year or more even...until it becomes too apparent that we -need- to divorce. The only problem with that plan is that there’s no way I can carry that option out living under her parents roof. I can’t leave this at an impasse. Some sort of action needs to be taken. 

And soon. Regardless, we’ll have to start by communicating at some point. Which brings me back to cracking that ice again with her. It’s hard. We have to play nice, be understanding and empathetic...especially if -I’m- going to bring up the subject of splitting at some point. This needs to be as peaceful and stress-free as something this stressful could be. I don’t even know if I should just wait and see through the counseling before I mention anything else. I’ve already planted the seed in my anger, I don’t want to bring it up again. She knows I’m thinking it. 

Perhaps it’s best to start the sessions without that hanging over our heads. Maybe it’s just a marital crisis, they all think. We’ll see how it turns out. 

[youthincare]

3 Reasons Traditional Parenting Doesn’t Work With Kids From Trauma.

by: Mike Berry

If you’ve parented a child from a traumatic past for any length of time, you already know that traditional parenting techniques do not work. But, have you ever stopped to consider why, or what you could do differently?

Kristin and I both grew up in traditional households, with parents who used traditional techniques in raising us both. There were rules and restrictions, guidelines and boundaries. And if said rules, restrictions, guidelines and boundaries were crossed, BAM, consequences were enforced. No questions asked. From all accounts, these techniques worked. We both grew up to be responsible adults who knew the difference between right and wrong. But, we also never endured significant trauma as children.

And that was the game-changer. When we first became parents, 15 years ago, we thought we had a healthy understanding of how to parent. We thought we knew how to discipline, how to enforce consequences, and even how to get our point across. In 2004 a little girl and boy came to live with us through foster care and, soon after, became a permanent part of our family. When the little girl turned 7 I caught her in a straight up lie. When I asked her why she lied, she just stared at me. So, logically, I continued to question her…and question her…and question her. This caused her eyes to start darting around the room. She wouldn’t look at me. Only a worried look on her face.

She would open her mouth to speak but nothing came out. I’d love to tell you my heart gave way and I stopped. Not the case. I became more frustrated. Finally, I’d had enough and marched her off to her room. The night was over for her. In my mind, she was content with her “bad behavior,” and thus, needed a stiff consequence: time away from others to “think” about it. For several more years I parented this way. If you screwed up, BAM, consequences! It’s how I was raised…so you better believe it was how my children would be raised.

But, mind you, my childhood was different. I was never starving. I never bounced from foster home to foster home before finding permanency. I never witnessed domestic violence. I never grew up in an orphanage or group home. My mom and dad always took care of me, more importantly, were always there for me. All of the ways children bond with their parents from the get-go, were missing for my children early in their development. And the result was deep cavernous wounds in their minds. Truth is, they’re often the very things we gloss over when we are attempting to enforce a consequence or get our point across when our child has screwed up. When I finally realized this, it changed the way I approached my children, and reacted to what I thought was just bad behavior.

I’ve discovered that traditional parenting, the way I was parented, just doesn’t work with our kiddos. Here are 3 reasons (out of many) why this is the case…

Trauma changes the brain. If your child was drug and alcohol exposed in utero, subject to abuse of any form before coming into your care, malnourished, neglected, or in and out of foster homes before arriving into your care (just to name a few), their brain has been altered by this trauma. They don’t see the world around them the same way a child who has not been through significant trauma does. Nor do they behave the same (more on this in a minute). They are thinking, behaving, reacting, and surviving out of loss, most of which has occurred in their mind. That’s why you cannot look at your child and ask, “What were you thinking?” Chances are, they don’t know. And if you continue to demand an answer, or lecture, you will continue to get less answers, or simply, blank stares.

Their behavior is a voice. For years I thought my son’s choices, reactions, and attitude, were coming from a bad kid who behaved badly. I disciplined him according to this belief. And then one December night, I stood indignantly in my upstairs bathroom while he threw the mother of all tantrums and attempted to tip over a solid steel claw-foot bathtub. I was furious. I wanted to ground him for life. He was traumatizing my other children and causing me to miss out on a relaxing family movie night. But then suddenly, in that moment, like a lighting bolt striking a tree, a thought struck my mind. While he was behaving badly, it wasn’t due to him being a bad kid. His behavior was a voice from his traumatic past. It was an outcry. He was in a fight…not against me, but against an intense situation that he could not process. When I realized his behavior was actually a voice, I started disciplining and enforcing consequences differently.

Fight, flight, or freeze. Inevitably you’ve heard of this survival mode, whether you’re parenting a child from trauma or not. This is used to explain how every human being reacts to major traumatic, terrifying, dangerous, or intense situations. We see a fight break out on an airplane, we respond in one of these three ways. We experience something devastating or deeply traumatic, we respond in one of these three ways. Someone yells “bomb” or “fire” and we shift into survival mode. While these are very common human reactions when the heat is on, they also help us understand a child who’s come from trauma. This is how our kiddos respond to intense situations (i.e.- when they’re caught in the act of doing something they shouldn’t do). If you’re a lecturer (like we are), you’ve probably noticed it doesn’t work. But, you’ve probably also noticed these three reactions on display. In their mind, when we are lecturing (for example) a series of alarms are going off in their mind, telling them to either fight back, run away, or shut down. It was their defense mechanism when they were in the midst of their highly traumatic past (i.e. abuse, neglect, or witness to something dangerous). In the case of me lecturing my daughter, all those years ago, after she was caught lying, she shut down (or froze). It’s not because she wasn’t smart, or incapable of speaking. She was in survival mode.

I could write a book on all of the many reasons we can’t parent our kiddos with traditional parenting techniques. I’ve heard from hundreds of thousands of readers who have realized this truth but struggle to help their parents, grandparents, coaches or youth leaders understand the same thing (simple because of the way they grew up, or the generation they’ve come from). However, when you can grasp the reality that traditional discipline, lecturing, time-outs, restrictions, boundaries, and consequences just don’t work, you open up a entirely new horizon for yourself and your children.

You may be asking yourself, “Well, then what should I do when my child blows it, or makes a bad choice? If traditional discipline doesn’t work, what does?”

Great question! Before I attempt to answer, I am going to default to the best resources I know, that are available today…

The Connected Child, by Dr. Karyn Purvis. This is the foremost resource on understanding children from trauma and learning how to connect to them through trust-based relational intervention (TBRI).

Beyond Consequences, Logic, and Control by Heather T. Forbes. To answer the big question of “how?,” when it comes to discipline and structure with children from trauma, this is our highest recommendation.

Born Broken: An Adoptive Journey, by Kristin Berry. I recommend Kristin’s book to better understand what parenting children from trauma looks like from the trenches. This is more memoir than how-to.

Why Traditional Parenting Doesn’t Work For Our Kids- Tapestry’s Empowered To Connect Podcast. Our good friends Ryan and Kayla North from Tapestry share some valuable advice and principles in this podcast episode.

Question: Are you parenting children from trauma? What are some roadblocks you’ve encountered in disciplining and reinforcing consequences? You can leave a comment by clicking here.

[camdallasfanfics]

What now? - Chapter 10*

Cameron Dallas fanfic - Sequel to I’m not that kind of girl

*WARNING SMUT (barely)

Word count: 1′858

Previous Chapter

We were interrupted by a gasp. We quickly pulled away. „Oh hell no.“ I heard her say. „Y’all are fucking again. Not in my house. NO!“ Sam started to exaggerate, as always. „It was a kiss!“ Cameron chuckled. „Yeah and next thing you know you’re doing it in the bathroom or god forbid you’d dare to step a foot in my bedroom.“ She squinted her eyes.

„Who said we haven’t done that before?“ Cameron challenged her pulling me closer. I immediately pushed him away. „Ew. No! Sam we never did that.“ I looked at her with wide eyes. „I know. You would’ve told me. No worries.“ She shrugged grabbed a few champagne glasses out of a cupboard and walked out the kitchen.

„Ew? Really?“ Cameron looked at me in disbelieve. I shrugged and started to walk out of the kitchen when he grabbed my wrist. „Hey. Hold on. This is not done yet.“ He pulled me into his chest and smirked. „Oh hell yeah it is.“ I pulled away, again. „That’s not what you were saying in New York.“ He said pulling me back. „Or in my apartment.“ He now whispered in my ear. I chuckled. I felt his warm breath on my neck. „We should get back to the living room.“ I said under my breath.

I escaped his grasp and found the living room and soon he found it as well. I avoided him. I talked to Ethan. To his parents. To Sam’s parents. To her older brother. To basically everyone but Cameron. I didn’t want to. Well maybe I did. But I didn’t.

It was time for dinner and I sat across  from Sam and Ethan. I was hoping for my sister to sit next to me. But something about the smirk on Sam’s face was telling me that the one sitting down next to me wasn’t my sister. I glanced over and saw him already looking at me. I ignored him and started to talk to Sam about whatever. We started to eat when I felt a hand on my thigh. I shot Cameron a glare and he was smirking.

„Cameron. What’s up in your life? Doing anything exciting soon?“ Ethan started and I turned my head to looked at him. I didn’t want to be completely rude. „Uhm I’m bringing back MagCon soon. So that’s something.“ Ethan nodded. „Cool.“ I looked over at Sam and she was just smirking. I felt his hand go up higher on my thigh. I just took a bite when he went up even higher and squeezed my thigh. I choked, mind that it was not really discreet.

„You okay?“ I heard Cameron chuckle. „I’m fine, you idiot.“ I mumbled when I stopped coughing and pushed his hand away. But soon enough it was back in its original place. I ignored it for the rest of the dinner. „Y/N how’s it going with Danny?“ Sam asked smirking. My eyes grew wide. „Danny?“ I heard Cameron ask. „Her friend from New York?“ Sam said more questioning than answering.

„You’ve met him at the screening. You thought that we were a couple, remember?“ I explained to him and he nodded. He clenched his jaw and didn’t say anything. „Also Sam. I don’t know what you are talking about. We went out on one date that was it. He asked me out. I didn’t want to be rude. That’s it.“ I sighed in annoyance. Why do people still think that it’s okay to get involved in my love life? „Just checking. Because last time we talked-“ Before she could continue I kicked her in her shin. „Ouch.“ She mumbled.

Thing is: Danny and I went on a date. We made out and one thing led to another and we ended up hooking up once or twice. But that was it. I didn’t want Cameron to know for whatever reason. I didn’t want to make him jealous. Things were awkward enough. I wouldn’t know what to tell him or how he would feel. We were a couple never the less. I would be hurt to hear the same about him.

„I guess I’ll take that hint.“ Sam mumbled under her breath. „Better take it.“ I glared at her. I was done with my meal and excused myself. I found the bathroom and locked the door behind me. I did my business and was just washing my hands when I heard a light knock on the door. „One second.“ I said when I dried my hands. I opened the door and was about to walk out when he pushed me back in closing the door again.

„What are you doing?“ I asked him. „I want to talk.“ He shrugged. „About?“ I raised my eyebrows and leaned against the counter. „Danny?“ He stepped closer to me. „What about Danny?“ I crossed my arms. „Are you dating?“ He tilted his head. He is unbelievable. He trapped me in-between his arms, supporting himself with his hands on the counter. We were inches apart. „Would I have kissed you if I was dating anyone?“ I said in a quiet voice. He nodded. „Good point.“ He inched even closer to me.

Our bodies were touching on all kinds of ends. „So? Anything else, besides you being jealous?“ I tried to lightly push him away but he didn’t budge. „I’m not jealous. Just curious.“ He smirked. „Hm. Jealousy doesn’t really suit you. Curiosity does.“ I stated. „I just wanted to make sure you’re with no one else before I do anything.“ I felt his hands on my waist. He picked me up so now I was sitting on the counter. „Do what exactly?“ I challenged him.

Before I knew it he kissed me. Rough. My hands found his hair pulling onto it. His tongue slid down my bottom lip. I didn’t give him the satisfaction he wanted. Instead I pulled away. „Cameron we-“ I started but soon was interrupted with him kissing me again. This time he pulled away. „We what?“ He smirked pecking my lips. „We are not doing this.“ I mumbled and pecked his lips. Something about him made me crave any kind of touch of his. 

„Who said that?“ He questioned and I felt his hands slowly traveling up my dress pulling it up to my waist. „We can’t.“ I breathed against his lips. „Oh babygirl. We can.“ He responded before kissing me again. It was less rough than the first time around. My hands reached down to his pants undoing them. I pushed them down far enough. I started to palm him through his boxers which earned me a moan.

Before I knew it he pulled his boxers down and pulled my thong to the side. „Hold on.“ I pushed him away. First he looked confused but than caught on. He reached down to the back of his pants getting his wallet out. He wrapped himself up and we were good to go. I pulled him closer to me.

He was whispering profanities in my ear and I bit into his shoulder as usually trying to cover up the moans. We were nearly done when someone bursted through the door. „Oh my god!“ I heard her scream. I look up and see my mom covering her eyes. „Oh god.“ I groan hiding my face. I feel Cameron pulling out pulling up his pants.

„I’m so sorry I-I…“ Before she finished the sentence she left the bathroom closing the door. „Great.“ I mumbled adjusting my thong and jumped off the counter. I adjusted my dress and fixed up my hair. I heard Cameron chuckle. „This is not funny!“ I turn to him and hit his chest. „Yeah it kinda is.“ He started to laugh. „No it’s not. We got walked in on. BY MY MOM!“  He continued to laugh. „See. That’s funny.“ His laughed died down and he pulled me closer.

„It’s no biggie.“ He whispered in my ear and left a kiss beneath it. „It is.“ I answered and pulled away from him. „We should go downstairs.“ I tried to walk past him but he pulled me back. He left a small kiss on my lips. „Okay. It is a big deal. But it’s gonna be fine.“ I sighed and we left the bathroom.

When we got downstairs no one seemed to be faced. But that changed when Sam came at me. „I told you not to!“ She said pointing at Cameron, who was standing right behind me. He simply chuckled. „You could have at least locked the god damn door! You idiots!“ She was angry. Real angry. 

„I’m sorry we didn’t mean to-“ I apologized but she interrupted me. „Sure you didn’t mean to. I got engaged. Today was a great day. It was one of the most important days of my life. And you two steal the show!“ Now she went over board and Ethan stepped in.

„Sam. Calm down lets just go out for a bit. Take a few deep breaths. What do you think, huh?“ Sam was so lucky. Ethan was handling the situation so calmly. He was great for her. They were great together. „Sure.“ She huffed and they left the room. I sat down on the sofa next to my sister who was on her phone.

„Who are you texting? Your sweetheart?“ I joked but she looked at me with this annoyed face. „Shut up. You were just hooking up with your ex.“ My eyes grew wide. „Damn. Chill a little, would you.“ I knew this would be a big deal. I just knew it. I stood up and walked over to my mom.

„Mom I wanted to apologize for my behavior tonight. I didn’t mean to-“ Yet again I was interrupted. „You don’t have to apologize. You are a grown woman. I am not telling you what to do anymore.“ I was startled. What? Did she just say that? Was this a trap? 

„Emma. I wanted to apologize. It was my fault. I pushed it. I knew this was immature. I am so sorry.“ Cameron butted in and apologized to my mom. She nodded. „It’s fine. You are adults. Do whatever. But next time lock the door.“ She gave us an awkward smile.

„I’m gonna go now.“ I announced. I said bye to everyone and just left the house when I heard him calling after me. „Y/N! Wait!“ I turned and smiled at him. „I wanted to ask you something.“ He came to a halt in front of me. „When am I gonna see you again?“ I shrugged. „I don’t know.“ He squinted his eyes. „Can I see you in the next few days?“ He asked and I didn’t know what to say.

„I am flying back to New York soon. Maybe we can meet up. I’m not sure. I’ll have to see because of the holidays and-“ Yet again I was interrupted but this time with a kiss. What’s all the interrupting today? Although I can’t really complain about this one. I pulled away with a small smile. „I’ll see you soon.“ He whispered and than turned back to the house.

Next Chapter

A/N: I’m aware that the chapter got shittier. I am officially apologizing. I am really sorry. Also I can’t post next Sunday. So heads up on that one. Tell me what you thought, for example if you think it’s a shit show now is the time to tell me!

[laisribeirodaily]

Lais Ribeiro talks about Victoria's Secret and sensual shots: 'I'm all clumsy'

RIO - ‘Mom, are you famous or something?’ Asked Alexandre, the 8-year-old son of Lais Ribeiro, after seeing a photo of her in a magazine. The piauiense, 26, explained that the story is not quite so, that she is just a model. A top model – at that – with perfume campaigns for the brands Tom Ford and DKNY in the like, and a handful of shows for brands like Givenchy, Balmain and Gucci. Oh, of course, there’s also that pompous angel contract from Victoria’s Secret, signed in 2015, which put her on the same level as Adriana Lima and Alessandra Ambrósio.

“I just renewed my contract with the brand for two more years,” Laís reveals, as if this were a commonplace thing. “Victoria’s Secret has changed my life socially and financially. It gave me security. I do not have to be in a rush every month.”

While she is being made up for this cover story, photographed at the Cais Studio, in the dock area, the top model does not remember anything about that hurricane feeling that usually appears at the American lingerie fashion show. Which is not to say that her typically Brazilian beauty is not disconcerting, even while she is static, sitting in the makeup artist’s chair. But it is at the time of the photo that the magic, in fact, happens. Untiring, Lais tosses her hair, makes faces and mouths and even jokes. The model dominates the scene, using monochromatic looks, that pass away from the monotony with necklines and adjusted forms. Through the corners of the studio, the team never tires of extolling the sculptural body of the top model, singled out as one of the hottest in the fashion industry by the website Models.com. In action, Lais Ribeiro is pure explosion.

With her voice hoarse because of a flu, the model recalls adolescence between Miguel Alves, her hometown, in the interior of Piauí, and Brasília, where she lived for more than 10 years. In college she was called Olívia Palito and beanpole, a script similar to the one lived by other models. But she did not cower, she was going up.

“I was aggressive, I wanted to fight with everyone,” she says. “I did not think I was sexy before I moved to New York. In Miguel Alves, thinness was not synonymous with beauty. In the United States, with the compliments I received, I changed my mind.”

ON THE GROUND OF GIVENCHY

Lais Ribeiro says that a career in fashion was not always an option. At 19, she wanted to be a nurse. She even went to university. But a friend who was a model insisted that Lais look for an agency, and she was convinced. With a child of a year and a half to raise, she understood that this would be a great chance of her life. She did not hesitate: she left college and, in 2009, began to explore this new world.

In early 2010, Lais walked more than 50 fashion shows between Rio and São Paulo. She then conquered Manhattan. In the New York shows for winter 2011, she was escalated to the shows of Marc Jacobs, Michael Kors and Vera Wang, for example. She had the charisma and the perfect measures for the catwalk in her favor, since she did not speak a word of English. In the same season, she was seen at Dolce & Gabbana, Blumarine and Roberto Cavalli in Milan and dressed in the creations of Dior and Givenchy in Paris:

“I still remember Givenchy’s fittings, which was scheduled for 10:00 pm, but ended in the morning. I was outraged. I called the agency complaining. Finally I slept on the floor of the studio. I have a picture covered with a coat that the casting director put on me.”

A SLAP ON THE WRIST

After a first-time fashionable moment, Lais Ribeiro saw her career take off again in 2010. Confirmed at the Victoria’s Secret parade, she welcomed the hotshot brand, who invited her to sign the angel contract in 2015. For her, the wings that she wore in the first show helped.

“They were very heavy. I had purple bruises on my shoulder,” recalls Lais, who has since been absent only in 2012.“ I fell and twisted my foot in the rehearsal. I could not walk. On the day of the show I went backstage, but there was no way. I would of opened the segment on which Rihanna sang “Diamonds,” then Behati Prinsloo replaced me. Later, in anger, I ate all that I could.

With laughter, Lais reveals that she has been given a few tugs on the ear from the Victoria’s Secret team. She thinks she’s posing topless too much.

“How do they get the girl who has the most chest to pose like that?” She asks. “For the other angels, it’s simple to cover their breasts, but I’m all clumsy trying to hide the situation with one arm. People think I have silicone implants or that I wear push up bras. But I’ve never had plastic surgery, thanks to my good God.

DISCRETE FRIENDS

Lais Ribeiro may want to reduce topless shots for Victoria’s Secret, but it’s a fact that her angel-sculpted body catches everyone’s attention. And it was precisely her breasts that made her “break the internet” in September last year when she stripped off for the French magazine “Lui,” known for their sexy photos.

“It must have been because my front was showing,” she teases.

Lais, who dates American basketball player Jared Homan, confesses that he is discreet and prefers the company of friends he has made outside of the fashion world. His routine in New York includes, for example, the Sunday Mass in St. Patrick’s Cathedral. All because the model makes sure not to be dazzled.

“We need to have a bit of reality. Some people lose their notion in this environment. Being a mother helps me keep my feet on the ground, I know why I’m doing this job,” says Lais, who does not rule out being an actress. “It was not a plan, but who knows, if I do make a movie?”

[tinamotherhood-blog]

The Ex Factor Guide | How To Turn A Woman On

Are you tired of guessing what women want?

Confused about what turns women on?

Let me put your mind at ease with three guaranteed ways to turn women on. These aren’t Kama Sutra moves. They’re a way to get her attention and make her want to be around you.

How To Turn A Woman On In Three Steps

I can’t count how many times my male clients have come to me utterly confused about what women want.

Here’s the catch, though: most women don’t really know what they want.

And when it comes to turning them on, it isn’t always something sexual that makes them feel turned on and attracted to you.

Sometimes women get turned on by the simplest gestures. The first thing you can do to turn a woman on, in fact, has to do with how you dress.

Win Her Over With Your Style & Fashion Sense

The way you dress can turn a woman on from a mile away, so this should be your first consideration when leaving the house.

Men are often surprised that women like a lot of the same things they do. Women are turned on when you show skin, wear tight (but not TOO tight) shirts and pants, and dress well.

Many women find seeing a guy’s forearms and hands extremely attractive, so wear short sleeves or roll them up and wear a watch to draw her eye where you want it.

Believe it or not, a lot of women like a little leg, too, so when the sun is out short shorts are the way to go.

Now I don’t want to get too graphic here, but if you really want to get her excited, grey sweatpants tend to flatter a certain aspect of the male anatomy… *nudge nudge, wink wink*

Another school of thought is to dress in a way that says something about you as a person. This is the idea that “women love a man in uniform.”

Don’t go down to the thrift shop and pick up some second-hand fatigues, but consider dressing up in different ways to turn her on.

This could mean adopting a preppy look for girls who are impressed by that kind of college-boy swagger. Or dressing in a button-up to subtly hint that you’re a successful mover and shaker in the business world. (Think Don Draper.)

This kind of look works best when it’s subtle. It shouldn’t look or feel like you’re wearing a costume.

All that aside, you should dress to accent your best attributes.

RELATED: How To Get A Girlfriend

Do you have great hair? Don’t hide it under a hat. Beefy forearms? Roll up those sleeves. Do you have a cute butt? Wear some tight-fitting jeans.

Don’t neglect your appearance generally. But when it comes to fashion, in particular, there’s a number of easy ways to make a woman attracted to you just by wearing the right outfit…

Things To Say That Will Drive Her Wild

Women want you to be knowledgeable and passionate.

There’s nothing sexier than a guy who can speak well about something that he cares about. Make sure it’s something that is interesting to her, as well (but it doesn’t have to be politics or the environment or something equally cliché!).

She’ll be impressed that you can speak at length about anything intellectual or interesting.

That could be as simple as explaining what you’re studying in school, talking about a big project you were part of at work, or the latest urban planning experiment you’re passionate about… really, most subjects and topics will work, as long as you’re clearly informed and excited about the topic.

There’s an easy way to turn a woman on in conversation without saying anything at all.

That’s right, gentlemen… I’m talking about listening.

If you ask her questions about herself and honestly care about what she has to say, she’s going to be instantly attracted to you because you’re not one of those guys who only talk about themselves. It’s this process of active listening that will really make all the difference in how she feels about you.

And don’t forget that a surprising and unique compliment goes a long way. She’s heard that she has beautiful eyes countless times. Look for something about her that makes her different from others and shout it out.

Don’t be too forthcoming with your compliments, though! It’s definitely great to use some flattery now and then, but you shouldn’t be afraid to tease her or disagree with her, either. Both of those can also be great ways to build attraction and turn a woman on.

If you listen carefully enough, it will be easy for you to spot signs that she wants to be more than friends.

Turn Her On With Touch

When she’s comfortable with your presence and your advances, you can start to incorporate touch into the equation.

Sexually, women need more of a build up than men do. Turning her on through touch is also about teasing her. It’s as simple as rubbing her arm and/or running your hands through her hair as you kiss her. Think foreplay.

Once you understand what makes your girl tick, she is putty in your hands, literally.

Women are aroused by many things aside from a stark-naked man, which is actually lucky for you, because it means that we’re open minded about what turns us on.

These are some great starting points to drive her wild, but there are some big things you can do through your behaviour to take it to the next level.

What Turns A Girl On More Than Anything Else?

These tips are things I hear again and again from my clients that make them swoon. Try them today. You’ll be surprised how easy they are to pull off.

Get her out of her own head.

A guaranteed way turn a woman on is to get her out of her own head. That is to make her be present in the moment. You can do this through telling a joke or doing something silly that just makes her laugh.

Most women have a tendency to over-analyze everything. And when I say everything, I mean EVERYTHING—from the way that the postman looked at her, to the tone of a text with a best friend.

RELATED: How To Go From Friends To Dating

When you’re in your head that much, you spend a lot of time worrying and stressing over menial things. Because women are a detail oriented species, this can sometimes affect their mood.

Your goal in getting her out of her head is to focus on you and the moment that you two are sharing, not on the problems of her day.

If you can get a woman out of her head, she will have more time to focus her attention on you. This might not sound like the sexiest way to turn a woman on, but it is the best first step.

The way to a woman’s heart is through her mind. Penetrate her thoughts, and you will be well on your way to arousing her feelings.

Take control of the situation.

Taking control of the situation is one of the best ways to turn a woman on because it achieves many things.

First of all, it shows her that you are confident.

If you can control the situation and make decisions without hesitation, you remove some of the pressure on her. This is a trait that almost all women find attractive, so don’t be shy when it comes to taking the lead and playing an ‘alpha male’ role.

For example, if you’re trying to decide on which movie to go to, instead of engaging in a back-and-forth dialogue and asking what her preference is, what time she wants to go, which theatre to choose… just make the decision and pose it as a statement rather than a question.

“Let’s go to the 7 p.m. showing of [insert movie title].”

Doing this also shows that you’re thinking about her and know how to make her life both simpler, and more enjoyable.

Here’s a real example from my experience as a relationship coach on how taking control of the situation can really drive a woman wild.

CASE STUDY: Ben & Natalie

One of my clients, Ben, just recently updated me on the state of his current relationship. Ben was confused about how to win the attention of his very busy co-worker, Sara, whom he had casually been dating for a few months.I suggested that he cook her dinner one night. But Ben took this a step further.

First, a bit of background: Ben’s girl, Natalie, works 40 hours a week, so Ben and Natalie have found it hard to find time to spend together.

Ben finished work before Natalie and asked her if he could crash at her house for the night, as he had to work early the next day. Natalie obliged and gave him the keys.

What Natalie didn’t know was that Ben had planned out a surprise for her.

Ben didn’t go right to bed. No, he went out, and bought groceries and made Natalie dinner. When Natalie got off at 9 p.m., she arrived at her apartment to a home cooked meal.

(I should mention that Natalie was taking things slowly with Ben because she had just gotten out of a tumultuous 3-year relationship. A relationship where she tried to be the sole provider and ‘Suzie homemaker’.)

So when Ben surprised her with dinner, she was completely shocked by this gesture of kindness. She was elated that someone had thought about her needs for once. And, ultimately, she was turned on by his thoughtfulness.

It showed that he has been thinking about her and wanted to help to remove some of the pressures from her life by doing something as simple as making her a home cooked meal.

For a woman, when someone cares about your well-being and wants to contribute to your happiness, it is a huge turn on.

Bonus: A Secret Turn-Off

There are countless ways to turn women off, but here’s one that’s often overlooked. It’s something that will make you look sexist (and have women thinking about anything but sex).

I’m talking about speaking negatively about other women.

Whether it’s your ex girlfriend, your mom (big red flag!), or just women in general… bad-mouthing another woman is a real turn-off for most ladies.

Saying that “all your exes are crazy”, or just making any sort of generalization about the differences between men and women, is dangerous. This is a classic blunder that makes women think that you’re sexist or chauvinist.

So, in summary, avoid saying anything overly critical or negative about the female sex (either as a whole or in regard to individual women in your life).

The last thing you need is to put your foot in your mouth by insulting a woman — that’s really not a very good way to turn her on! Instead, stick to the tips and advice I’ve provided above, and you’ll be a regular Casanova in no time…