#sometimes good things acn be found on reddit | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

skzhabibi · 4 years ago

Text

An Old Crush (A Long, Bittersweet Personal Storytime/Rant)

When I was in Junior High, I had really, REALLY low self esteem. I was still very much in the awkward phase of puberty and all of those hormones paired with the fact I was having lots of problems at home resulted in some pretty severe mental health issues (which I won’t get too much into, because I don’t wanna trigger anyone). Not only that, but I’m naturally pretty sensitive, so any negative comments people had made about my appearance in the past, whether they were trash talking my hand-me-down clothes, pale ass skin, acne, big nose, etc., it really stuck with me. I was a mess, basically. And I’m part Arab on my mom’s side, so seeing a psychiatrist was never really an option.

Anyways, I was 13 or 14 (8th grade) when I took my 1st Spanish class. This had a bunch of the more “popular” kids in it, because they were trying to get the credit out of the way before High School and there were only 2 teachers who taught Spanish at my school, so it was bound to happen. There was a popular boy in my class, called T for the sake of the story, who sat a seat in front and to the left. I don’t know how we first started talking, but it was probably because of many factors. I laughed at his jokes, he sat near me in Spanish and English which we had right after, I was pretty solid academically at the time and he wasn’t, we had a couple mutual friends/acquaintances, etc... I guess it’s also good to mention he was known for his good looks and the fact he was A-string quarterback on our shitty little football team while I was kind of a social floater; a decent amount of people knew of me, but not many people actually knew me well, if at all.

I didn’t really pay him any mind in a romantic way at first, to be honest. I just thought he was reasonably attractive, but I figured he’d think himself “too cool” to be associated with me since that’s the vibe a lot of the other popular boys in the class had given me if I ever tried making friends with them. People really just gave me the cold shoulder in general, which hurt my feelings, so I wasn’t gonna risk it anymore. But what really made that first little crush for him start was when one day as I was rushing to get out the door first after the bell rang (which I always did because I’m impatient as fUCK and hate that huge ass crowd you had to shove through or come out last), he rushed forward, squeezing through the door around the other jocks and practically pushing them out of the way, to catch up to me and ask me to walk to English together. As an inexperienced little simp, that shit really looked like something out of a movie. It gave me such a needed boost of confidence that I actually started beaming, which was REALLY out of character for me (I’ve always been known for my “resting bitch face”).

So this became such a regular thing, walking to English, that we actually began waiting for each other by our desks to pack our stuff up, and we were usually around the last 2 to leave the room. At some point I finally plucked up the courage to ask him for his number, which was TERRIFYING because I’d never done anything like that. I think I made some excuse that since we had 2 classes together if we forgot about the homework we could remind each other (holy shit I was such a nerd). We texted a few times, but it never got super deep that I remember. I never really initiated the conversations because I didn’t want to make it seem like I liked him even though at this point I REALLY did; I even told a couple of my friends, which I didn’t normally do either. I was always someone to bottle up that shit and bury it so it never saw the light of day because I was so fucking afraid of rejection (Fragile Ass Self Esteem wants to know your location).

I literally thought that I was unlikeable in every sense of the word, so a bunch of the signs that he liked me back at the time never dawned on me. He could’ve literally screamed in my face that he liked me and I’d probably be like “As a Friend, right???”

I guess I’ll just take this moment to tell you about a bunch of the things that should’ve bee HUGE ASS signs he liked me:

1.) This girl on the volleyball team at our table in English that T knew would make passes about how he was really sought-after by a shit ton of girls and then look at me. He also looked at me afterwards like he was shy but gauging my reaction. She had a sort of Jade from Victorious vibe to her so I figured she saw through me and was trying to embarrass me by getting a reaction, so I kept my face straight.

2.) He would compliment me more than anyone else I spoke to (which was uhhhh never. I never got complimented.) For example: He was always calling me smart or a “try hard” to joke with me. I took it as an expression of friendly jealousy. When I curled my hair one day he noticed and literally said, “Can we all take a moment to appreciate (my name)’s hair?” It made me blush so hard, but I thought he was making fun of me. He would also insist on reading my shit or me reading his when the English teacher made us peer review/journal check and would compliment the work I did or my handwriting or how organized it looked. Living that emotionally stunted Y/N life.

3.) The Spanish teacher made us partner up any time there was group work, and she moved his seat to right next to mine every routine seat change. I was gullible as shit thinking that that was coincidental when he had other friends in class. I figured it was cuz I was good and he sucked at Spanish lmaooo. I’ve since read posts on reddit where teachers have confirmed that they can tell when kids have crushes on each other and they’ll play wingman/woman. When I read that I was like WAIT A DAMN MINUTE. Mrs. G was a real one and I was so fucking oblivious to it.

4.) Another girl on the volleyball team asked if he and I were dating. I was taken aback and said no, we weren’t (conveniently leaving out the “I wish”) and asked why she would think that. The reason she gave was that since people saw us walk together between classes, a lot of people figured we were together. I chalked it up to stupid gossip that had no roots in anything he said, so I laughed it off to keep from getting my hopes up.

5.) A similar thing happened AGAIN with a guy who was also on the football team. When he learned my name, he was like, “Wait, (my first and last)?” And I was like yeah wtf how did you know my last without me telling you? And he’s straight up like, “Oh, you’re the girl T has a thing for.” AND I WAS SO FUCKING BLIND OMFG I was just like well he’s never told me he likes me so even though multiple people at this point have said something I think that is completely baseless fake news.

6.) One of the MOST telling signs: he would always say hi to me outside of classes when I was alone. He found me outside my locker one day and started talking to me. The coaches would make the kids on sports teams run back to locker room, and one day he was doing that when he saw me at my locker (which was right by the sport locker rooms since I was in girls’ athletics). His teammates would glance at me while they ran by, and he told me to wait for him while he changed so we could walk to Spanish (1st period) together. Ngl, this really sealed the nail in the coffin for my huge ass crush on this kid. I was taken aback because I thought our friendship was just for convenience and he didn’t actually see me as a real friend he would be seen outside of class with. But in the end I still psyched myself out by saying I was just something to entertain him.

7.) One time in the library, I was working on printing out some paper. An annoying ass kid who was overly friendly and rode the bus with me was talking to me a lot, and I was pretty clearly not interested in my mind at least. T walked in for some reason and smiled and said “Hey, (my name)” pretty loudly. I wasn’t expecting to see him, so I was just like “Oh, hey, T,” because I lack social skills. He glanced at the kid and back at me and his face kinda dropped before he kept walking. I think the kid asked me to hang out with him and our mutual friend and I was basically like no thanks man I’m kinda busy.

8.) Other times he would do this as well. One time my girl friend and I were sitting across from each other at a lunch table in the morning after getting off the bus. Out of LITERALLY NOWHERE he just swoops in and sits next to my friend across from me and starts talking to me about some project in Spanish he finished, showing me excitedly what he wrote and asking if it was right. He pretty much ignored my friend, and she was hella socially anxious and knew about my crush on him so she kinda got huge eyes and shut down socially. He and I talked for a bit before it got awkward because we ran out of shit to say and it was awkward now that we had an extra person and we pretty much only talked to each other without anyone else in the conversation. He left after that and my friend and I freaked tf out.

9.) One time while I was waiting for the bus in the cafeteria after school, I was alone because my friends were taking too long. I was on my phone when he comes up and starts talking to me. I was hella fucking awkward because for some reason I‘m always a fucking stiff around the person I like. Then my guy friend who rode the same bus came up and cock blocked the shit out of T because he’s super fucking loud and just starts fucking around. He and I are super close even to this day and I guess T got intimidated by how easily we were joking around and kinda saw himself out before I could say anything.

10.) THIS LIST IS GETTING TOO LONG SKDJDJASKDJDJ BUT I FUCKIN FORGOT whenever we would walk between classes we would sometimes not even talk. Like whenever the conversation died we would just kinda stare into each other’s eyes 😂 I thought I was just being creepy, but he fucking smiled at me when it happened why am I so dUmB fUUUCK. Also sometimes the popular kids would run up behind us and fuck with him like make fun of him or make some sort of awkward pass that I wouldn’t react to before running down the hall ahead of us. My guess now is that he was meaning to make a move but my neutral reaction to whatever dumbass thing they said made it impossible to tell if I felt the same so he chickened out.

ANYWAYS I think our little friendship/mutual pining fizzled our after one time he made a more up front attempt because at this point he was probably fed up with waiting for me to get the hint but this exchange really fucking backfired:

Basically he got a girlfriend, this girl on GUESS WHAT??! THE VOLLEYBALL TEAM. I heard about it straight from him while we’re walking to English together and that shit hurted but I was like whatever I still want him as a friend and this pretty much confirmed in my mind that he NEVER liked me. So basically he’s talking about how he’s been seeing her to pass the time but he doesn’t actually like her. And I was like why not? She’s really cool/nice and REALLY pretty. But if you don’t like her then why date her? Seems like a waste of time. He’s like yeah well basically she said she liked me so I asked her out but tbh I think she’s annoying. And I’m like what did she do something on a date that was annoying? STILL UTTERLY CLUELESS AND HES DEADASS LIKE what are you jealous like in a flirty way and my DUMB. ASS. Is like.... WHATTTT PSHHH NO I MEAN WE��RE JUST BROSSS AHAHA.

Can I get an F in the chat pls?

Basically we just stopped talking after a while. I think my friend texting his brother officially knifed the shit out of that ship’s sail. Years later I confessed that I liked him back then and asked if he liked me back back then so I could stop worrying about gaslighting myself and he’s basically like yeah I would’ve tried something with you (came across really unenthusiastic). And then one time in like my freshman year of community college I was with my bio study group in the library going to where we were meeting up for a project when I felt eyes on me from the computers and literally LOCKED EYES WITH HIM AND HES JUST LIKE 👁👄👁

LMAO I PRETENDED LIKE I DIDNT KNOW THAT BITCH

OH TO SEE WITHOUT MY EYES

1 like = 1 smash of your head against the wall at my fucking idiocy

5 notes · View notes

artigas · 5 years ago

Note

i've been trying to build a skincare regiment but i just have no idea what sources to trust or what products to use, there are so many names! how did you figure out your skincare regiment?

another anon message: pLEASE tell me how to build a skincare regiment! ;o; my face is a mess most of the time, but i still don’t want to put fucking walnuts on it

Hello!! Forgive my late response, friends!! I hope you are still around and following my blog to see this. Skincare is intensely personal and because it’s your skin and you do not want to harm it, you have to proceed cautiously. I’m no dermatologist! But I do think there are a few things I can share. First, I figured out my skincare regiment by breaking down my major concerns: I had an oily t-zone (meaning: my forehead, my nose, and my chin) and extremely dry cheeks. After I began using makeup, I would sometimes have pimples and texture. I also knew my skin was sensitive. Knowing your needs is an intrinsic part of knowing what you want to address. I will say that I have no experience with acne or with major skin problems- if what you’re hoping to address is a bit more difficult than issues like: dryness, oiliness, breakouts, fine lines, etc than you should really speak to a professional, I think! After I boiled down my issues, I did research. There’s a great app called Think Dirty that runs through the a broad range of skincare, hair, and beauty products and tells you which ingredients raise any red flags and why. Generally speaking, you should avoid skincare that contain needless fragrances as much as possible, as this can often irritate the skin and sneak in some Not So Rad ingredient into even an otherwise wonderful skincare regimen. Speaking from my experience, I find that those who have sensitive skin may esp. feel irritation from added fragrances. I personally wouldn’t suggest abrasive face washes and exfoliates, like Kylie’s Infamous Walnut Scrub, because you don’t want to cause damage to your skin through small micro-lesions, scrapes, and cuts that are caused by rubbing these materials against your skin aggressively. This is especially damaging to dry areas of the skin, pimples, etc. While exfoliation is, imo, a great way to get rid of dead skin cells, brighten up the skin, etc, I personally prefer a chemical exfoliate and find these more effective at cleaning out my skin and showing long-term results. Still, if you opt for physical exfoliate, it should be as gentle as possible- nothing involving shells, hard salts, sharp or shard-like materials of any kind! Also, make sure to read the ingredients in products like skin-peels: if you have sensitive skin, retinols especially can feel very irritating. Another quick tip: if you have oily skin, guess what? Moisturizing your skin is not your enemy. Moisturizers don’t have to be greasy. Look for a moisturizer that’s labeled non-comedogenic, which means it won’t clog pores, and steer clear of mineral oil, cocoa butter, lanolin, and petrolatum. Alternatively, reach for moisturizers that contain ingredients such as glycerin, hyaluronic acid, aloe, and squalane, which won’t trap oils in your pores.Again, I can only speak for myself. My regimen looks like this: Every morning and night I wash my face with a Lush charcoal soap (charcoal can be tricky and also abrasive, so proceed with caution- I find that Lush’s formulation is both soft and non-drying, so that’s just what works for me). I then apply The Ordinary Niacinamide 10% + Zinc 1% to address oiliness and outbreaks, Hyaluronic Acid 2% + B5 to address dryness, and Argireline Solution 10% for fine lines. After that, I slap on some face cream and sunscreen! I have found that this routine has absolutely changed my skin. On top of that, as a makeup user, I make sure to really clean my face after makeup use: never sleeping in makeup, using both a makeup removing soap, washing my face, and then using micellar cleansing water. I know this can be a lot, but my reasoning is this: If I can spend X amount of time applying makeup, I need to be willing to spend more than a minute removing it. Makeup is nice, but healthy skin is important.

I’ve recommended The Ordinary to a few people before and so far, I’ve only ever heard good things from my friend- the beautiful, wonderful @crucifythenburn included! The Ordinary is cost-effective, but instead of selling one product with multiple uses, they essentially sell the building blocks. You have to develop your skincare regimen yourself, so you’ll often end up using several different items to target your concerns- or not! My friend simply uses The Buffet and she’s been swearing by that product alone for three years now! If you’re interested in checking them out, here are some recommended articles: (A) (B) (C).

From what I understand, you can reach out to The Ordinary for guidance. As a quick heads up, be mindful of what products should not be mixed- article B has a section on it, but I always remind people that products containing Retinol (Vitamin A) shouldn’t be mixed products with Vitamin C. Also, all skincare products should be tested first! Do a little patch test. See if you feel irritation. The idea that “if it stings, that means it’s working!” is not my mantra. There is a difference between a product giving you a tingling sensation and burning. A skincare product should never cause pain. Frankly, I don’t even play with that whole tingling shit. At the end of the day, your skincare is super individual. If you want my recommendations for skincare products from The Ordinary specifically, hit me up and I’ll try my best- but don’t forget to look up reviews on reddit, look up youtubers who might provide honest reviews (I personally adore Gothamista and I’d stay away from folks who receive a lot of PR), and just exhaust your avenues. You do wanna be careful about what you introduce to your skin, but the resources are out there- I know it might seem daunting, but you can do this! Hit me up if you need anymore help!!

#entering my inbox late with fridge-cold pizza #Anonymous #here's the mail it never fails #ONE MORE THING:#petroleum jelly does NOTHING to add moisture to your lips!!!#if you use chapstick or any kind of lip product please keep in mind that petroleum is only an effective barrier and not very much so either #if anything use it on already healthy or moisturized lips when youre headed out in the cold #as a barrier between your lips and cold winds and harsh temperatures

6 notes · View notes

omegaling · 6 years ago

Text

Allez Cuisine! ~Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Seventeen: Biscuits and Double Doubles

The chicken in the hot skillet popped, and the only thing that saved Rey’s cashmere sweater from being ruined by flying globs of molton butter were reflexes earned from working with spitting meats, roiling hot broths and sauces for a living. She glared at the offending pieces of poultry, still plump and pink and unassuming as they sizzled away. She already knew that wearing nice clothing while cooking came with considerable risk; she didn’t need to be reminded of it by her own dinner.

It wasn’t as though she didn’t have other clothes to wear. However, it just so happened that all her casual day-to-day clothes were in desperate need of a wash (she hadn’t planned on doing her laundry until Monday, because who washes clothes while on vacation?). So that left her to choose between faded sweatpants and over-stretched sweatshirts or the outfits she saved for more formal occasions. Since she had sworn long ago that the former was saved only for the comforts of home and in the presence of close friends, she had no choice but to wear one of her nicer sweaters and pair of jeans tonight. It certainly had nothing to do with the fact that Kylo was coming over for dinner.

The same went for the hours she put into vacuuming and dusting the apartment and scrubbing the kitchen counters and cabinets until they gleamed. It was just one of those things she kept putting off that needed to get done.

It was a little harder to make excuses to why she decided to shave her legs in late November, when it would be at least another five months before she wore anything resembling shorts again.

She didn’t even attempt to justify her choice to wear makeup, or in why she was wearing her sexiest bra and panties.

The watch on Rey’s wrist chirped the hour, and her grip on the tongs in her hand instantaneously tightened; Kylo was due to arrive at any moment. If she was going to be completely honest with herself, she still wasn’t entirely certain if inviting him to dinner was the smartest thing to do. True, he apologized about being an ass about her humble upbringing, but there was still that small, unsavory detail about their last face-to-face when she hurled his real name at him before she left. The memory of the look he gave her before she walked out his door haunted her for days afterward. She had expected rage and shock and indignation, but what she hadn’t expected was… She couldn’t quite put it into words, but the closest emotion she could compare it to was fear. As though that by saying his name had consequences she didn’t understand.

Against her better judgement, Rey did a Google search for Ben Solo and was surprised to see that it yielded very few relevant results. The top results were only a handful of articles from culture and entertainment publications, all of which were at least ten years old. When they did refer to Ben, it was only as a passing mention as the only son of Leia Organa and Han Solo, as though he was nothing more than an afterthought, or maybe a footnote. There were even fewer pictures of him; just a few shots of a tall, gangly teenager with his eyes cast to the ground, trailing behind a smartly dressed woman who held herself with all the grace and confidence of royalty. In the captions, he was simply referred to as “Leia Organa’s son, Ben,” as though he were a mere accessory.

Rey did come across some old interviews done with Han Solo when Going Solo was still being filmed, but those were even more disheartening. While Han always told the journalist yes, he would love to take his family with him on his travels and that he believed the bonds formed on the open road were priceless, Rey wondered how much of an effort was really made in getting Ben on the show… or what discouraged him from ever bothering to try.

What Rey didn’t find was anything touching on the fact that Ben Solo and Kylo Ren were the same person: no gossip, no fansite conspiracies, no comment from some random bloke saying Kylo looked like someone they went to high school with. Even sites like Twitter and Reddit were strangely mum for once. It was almost as if Ben Solo was phased out of existence, fading further into obscurity with each passing year, and for whatever reason, being reminded of who he once was scared Kylo something awful.

Rey’s grip tightened around her tongs as a wave of indignant anger welled up in her. Though she had no evidence to back it up and no reason to believe it, she knew deep in her gut that Snoke was behind it. How could he not? She did not know how Snoke managed to turn the son of his greatest rival to his side, but if half of what Rey heard about that horrible man was true, she could not imagine how deep he had his claws in Kylo to ensure remained loyal to him, no matter what. The fear in his eyes was testament enough to that.

A knock on the front door nearly sent the tongs flying from Rey’s hand, her mind rapidly flashing “he’s here he’s here he’s here” like an over-excited teenager going on her first date before she reigned it in. She had to make herself not sprint to the door, but instead to calmly turn the chicken over, confirm she was satisfied with the golden-brown hue it had taken on, then calmly walk to the entryway. Her hands had a small tremor in them, but that was quickly done away with by rubbing them against her jeans. By the time she opened the door, she was confident that she was composed enough so at least the night wouldn’t start on an awkward note.

Kylo stood in the building’s hallway, once again immaculate in a finely woven sweater, smartly creased pants and hair falling to his shoulders in soft waves. In one hand he held a bottle of white wine, and in the other…

… a bouquet of sunflowers and yellow roses.

Rey felt her heart seize and stutter, regaining its normal rhythm just before it stopped completely.

Shit.

So much for keeping the night casual.

It’s finally happened. I’m turning into my father.

To say that Kylo had few fond moments of his father was an understatement. Long before Going Solo was ever pitched to a network, Han had been a fleeting presence in Ben Solo’s life; at home only when he wasn’t off gallivanting around with Lando Calrissian or Tobias Beckett on whatever new scheme they cooked up. Things would be good for a few weeks - Ben could almost fool himself into thinking they felt like a real family, and maybe this time it would stay that way.

Then the arguments would start. At first they would be small, over things that should have been inconsequential, but soon they’d grow in frequency and intensity until his mother and father’s voices filled the house. Something would break, a door would slam shut, his mother would cry in whatever chair was closest for her to sink into, all the while Ben huddled in his closet with his hands over his ears, waiting for it to be over. The next day his mother would try to reassure him that she and his father really did love each other, and that sometimes adults had issues they needed to figure out by themselves. Then she would throw herself into her work, leaving him largely in the care of nannies as she visited the trendiest new restaurants, made appearances at press events and gave interviews. Or, she would simply shut herself up in her office for what seemed like days on end, working on her articles.

Then, after a month or two of hearing nothing from him, Han would reappear on the doorstep of their brownstone with a bouquet of flowers for Leia and a treat for Ben from wherever he’d been: Moon Pies from Tennessee, Garett popcorn from Chicago, maple sugar candies from New Hampshire. And, like a couple of idiots, he and Leia welcomed him back every time and the cycle would start all over again, when what they should have done was slam it in his face.

Rey didn’t slam the door on him, but the bewildered look on her face made the palms of his hands slick with sweat and his heart do a weird little stutter behind his ribs. Had he somehow misread her texts? There wasn’t a lot of ways to misinterpret “come over for dinner” and “be here at six,” yet in that moment, as they stared at each other from either side of the threshold of her apartment, he was convinced there was something he got wrong.

“Flowers.”

Kylo blinked, the one word stopping his spiraling thoughts before they descended into full-blown panic. “I’m sorry?”

“You brought flowers.” Rey’s words had no tone or infliction in them, which meant Kylo had no way to gauge her reaction. Was she surprised? Annoyed? Offended? Her eyes were so wide he could see the reflection of the bright yellow petals in them. Kylo was known around the culinary world for his cuisine that awoke desire and lust in even the most prudent of diners, so people naturally assumed that being a Casanova in the kitchen meant being one in all aspects of his life. If any of his peers found out that he was really as suave as an acne-ridden teenager out on his first date they’d laugh until they pissed themselves.

Suddenly Rey jerked as if something had jabbed her which - embarrassingly - made Kylo jump in turn. “Oh, shit!” she exclaimed before dashing back into her apartment, leaving him to stand alone and confused in her building’s hallway. He was just about to leave when he heard her shout “You can come in!” from somewhere inside her home. Sighing in relief, Kylo stepped into her apartment.

Rey’s apartment that she shared with a roommate was exactly as Kylo pictured it (not that he dwelled on how she spent her time when she wasn’t cooking, thank you very much). The modest space was filled with an array of furniture that looked to have come from second-hand stores: the cushions of overstuffed couch were frayed and the arms threadbare in some places; the surface of the coffee table had a map of old scars from coaster neglect that not even a fresh coat of polish could hide; a bookshelf filled with an array of Blu Rays, video games, and books, with framed photos and an assortment of trinkets and brick-a-brac took up what free space was left. A candle burned in the center of the coffee table, giving off a subtle scent of pumpkin pie spice and cloves, and a lighted fall garland draped over the entertainment center gave off a warm, cozy feeling that embodied the holiday season. It was all so wholesome: relaxed and lived-in, where friendships were cultivated and fond memories created.

It was a stark reminder of how much Kylo did not belong here. In Rey’s world: in her life.

There were personal touches and details throughout the apartment that hinted that its occupants were not typical 20-something college students. All art hanging on the walls related to food in some form or fashion: vintage prints of French pastries, art nouveau green fairies, watercolor paintings of herbs, charts showcasing all the different varieties of sushi and pasta, and stylized baking utensils with short, motivational quotes such as “life is short, lick the bowl!” A smaller bookshelf situated between the dining table and the kitchen counter held not only an array of cookbooks ranging from horderves to Chinese cuisine by region, but also a number of chef autobiographies, books on culinary history, and stacks of magazines stuffed in the bottommost two shelves. The pots and pans that hung neatly from hooks on the kitchen walls definitely did not come from Target, and he knew for a fact that most people wouldn’t be able to identify half of the utensils and knives he saw at a cursory glance, much less know how to properly use them.

Rey was in the apartment’s small kitchenette, transferring golden-brown chicken breasts from a frying pan to a glass baking dish. There was something different about her tonight; Kylo had noticed the moment she opened the door. It was only as she busied herself with dinner that Kylo risked a glance to determine what it was. It did not take him long to figure it out: it was evident in the dusky pink sheen of her lips and the hint of smoky shadow on her eyelids and the tan cashmere sweater outlining the gentle swell of her breasts and hips, not obscuring them as most of her clothing did.

She looked nice. Not just pretty as she always did in her casual, au natural way, but done-up nice. Date nice.

Suddenly there wasn’t anything Kylo wanted to do more than throw the flowers into the nearest garbage can. He could only imagine what Rey must have thought when she saw them. He had only grabbed them on a whim as an apology for being such an ass, hence their color (never mind the fact that the sunflowers made him think of her the instant he saw them). Then again, she had obviously put time into her appearance before he arrived, not knowing he’d be bringing flowers. Had she just been nervous about being the host for once and wanted to make a good impression? Or what if - like his flowers - there was a subconscious reason for doing what she did, and did not realize it until they were standing face-to-face?

When he was about five or so, Han nearly drove Ben insane with the age-old “chicken or the egg” debate. Now, thirty-something years later, he was feeling much as he did then.

“Sorry about running off like that,” Rey said as she set the pan down on a cool burner. “Nearly forgot I had chicken on the stove. Then again,” she added with a small laugh with just a touch of nervousness in it, “it wouldn’t be Maz’s golden mushroom casserole if the chicken wasn’t slightly overcooked.”

“No, it’s fine,” Kylo said absently, mostly because he wasn’t sure what else to say. He did, however, notice the rest of the ingredients neatly lined along the countertop: several cans of Cambell’s golden mushroom soup, a bottle of inexpensive sauvignon blanc, and a bowl piled high with a mix of shredded yellow and white cheese. An automatic rice cooker ticked away by the sink, occasionally emitting up puffs of steam. “So I get to try this infamous dinner tonight?”

“If you knew that’s what I was making, would you still have come over?” Rey was rummaging through one of her cabinets so her voice was muffled, making it nearly impossible for Kylo to determine her tone of voice.

“Of course I would have,” he answered, and he meant it. Rey could have told him she was heating up TV dinners in her microwave and he still would have accepted her invitation without hesitation.

Rey emerged at last from the cabinet, a glass pitcher in hand. “I thought I had a vase lying around somewhere, but I guess not,” she said, more to herself than to him. She filled the pitcher with water, then motioned for Kylo to pass the flowers to her. He obliged, their fingers brushing as the bouquet passed from his hand to hers. He immediately dropped his hand to his side as she arranged the flowers in the pitcher, flexing it and unable to ignore how his skin tingled where it had touched hers, even for that brief instant.

He was so screwed.

At a loss for what else to do or say at the moment, Rey offered Kylo to have a seat and returned to finish their dinner. It wasn’t easy, not with Kylo sitting at her counter, looking almost too big for her modest-sized apartment. It was even harder to not show how nervous she felt. The same hands that could de-bone a duck or french a rack of lamb in less than five minutes now shook so bad as she measured the amount of wine she needed to mix into the soup that some of it sloshed over the side of the cup she was holding.

(She was suddenly very glad she didn’t choose to make anything more complex, otherwise tonight might have ended with a trip to the ER).

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

Thankfully, Rey didn’t jump; if she had, then she would have showered the whole kitchen with a giant handful of cheese. “Oh...um…” she stammered, thinking fast. “This is practically done, it just needs to go in the oven. However,” she added quickly, “there’s a tube of biscuits in the refrigerator, if you want to get those ready. The baking sheets are to the right of the oven. Unless you think that’s too many carbs with the rice.”

“I don’t mind,” Kylo said as he joined her in the kitchen. “The war on carbs was a dark time in culinary history. I knew quite a few Italian chefs and bakers who almost had to close their businesses because their food was seen as ‘bad’ thanks to a few choice buzz words from companies pushing their low-carb products on people who didn’t know better.”

“And how can anyone possible refuse a basket of hot bread with real butter when it’s right there on the table? That’s just not right. If there was such thing as a perfect food in the world, that’d be it.”

“I think I have to contest that,” Kylo said with what could have been a chuckle, but Rey couldn’t sure since his head was currently in her fridge.

“While you’re in there, can you grab me a Yuengling? You can help yourself to one too if you’d like. I know you brought wine, but I figured we can save that for dinner.”

Kylo emerged from the refrigerator, a tube of Pillsbury biscuits in one hand and two green bottles dangling by their necks in the other. He pushed the door closed with his elbow, then paused. Rey looked up from the oven as she pushed the casserole in, then froze when she realized what he was looking at. It was a photograph of three Ghostbusters, one Stay Puft Marshmallow girl and a Sumerian demigod, inebriated and excited from having just placed in a costume contest. Rey loved that picture, even though she looked positively unflattering with her disheveled blonde wig and suggestively licking the blaster of her Proton pack. She could only imagine what it must look like to Kylo, or what he was thinking seeing her with Finn and Poe. She did, however, hope that knowing she was friends with them outside of work didn’t sour the evening, but she braced herself for an abrupt end all the same.

To her surprise, Kylo only said, “That’s a good look for you.”

A laugh escaped her. “Glad you think so. I was pretty hammered at that point,” she said, closing the oven door and standing up. “I don’t even remember that picture being taken.”

“I could never get Phasma or Hux to do anything like that. Well, maybe Phas if the conditions were right. Hux is about as much fun as an intestinal parasite, and he’d probably try to contract one just to get out of it.” Kylo handed the beers over the Rey. She quickly popped off their tops with a bottle opener and passed one back to him, telling herself that she was not disappointed when their hands didn’t touch again. “Do you spend a lot of time with Dameron and Trooper outside of work?”

“Considering Finn’s my roommate and Poe’s his boyfriend, just a bit,” she answered, hoping to keep her tone light. Then, feeling a little bolder, she continued: “I’d like there to be a time when I don’t have to keep meeting you in secret. That there’s some kind of neutral ground all of us can find. Not any time soon. Just… some day.”

Rey knew she was poking a hornet’s nest; Kylo’s shoulders instantly tensed, and a very long moment passed before he spoke.

“Someday. Maybe. I wish I could give you a better answer Rey, but right now I can’t. It’s...complicated.”

It’s Snoke and the leash he’s keeping on you, you mean, Rey wanted to challenge, but she was done testing her luck for the night. She only nodded and said, “Someday is a good enough answer for me right now if it’s good for you.”

Before they could lapse back into silence, Rey quickly changed the subject to more familiar territory. “So,” she said, hoisting herself onto the counter on the opposite side of the sink. “You said you didn’t agree with my claim that bread and butter is one of the most perfect foods. What then, in your infinite gastronomy wisdom, is?”

“An In ‘n Out Double Double animal style, of course,” Kylo said, opening the can of biscuits with a wet, airy pop.

Rey couldn’t help the astonished noise she made. “Doth my ears deceive me? The great Kylo Ren’s favorite food is a fast food burger?”

“You’ve obviously never had an In ‘n Out burger,” he chided. “To be honest, if you had asked me that same question a few weeks ago, I would have given you a completely different and horribly clique answer like I would for a magazine interview; just some fabrication of what people want to hear, and not what I really think or feel.” He stopped placing the biscuits on the baking sheet and looked at her, his eyes so intensely focused that it took her breath away. “You changed that.”

Rey swallowed thickly, taking a sip of her beer to hide what that gaze did to her, inside and out. “Oh? How did I manage to do that?”

Was it her imagination, or did his eyes wander down the length of her body, taking in the way her neck arched when she drank from her bottle to how her jeans conformed to the curve of her thighs and calves? Rey never was very good at picking up on cues when people genuinely flirted with her, and she was even worse when trying to flirt with someone herself. Was she reading too much into that look, or not enough? She barely managed to hold her shit together when he showed up on her doorstep with flowers, and now he was damn near looking at her like he had when he spoke of Hades and Persephone on Iron Chef America. If he made any kind of real move…

Luckily (or unluckily; Rey wasn’t quite sure which) she wouldn’t be finding out, because he returned to the task at hand. “Because you were right,” he continued. “People shouldn’t disown their pasts. Especially chefs. For most of us, our passions were born from the kitchens of our mothers and grandmothers, learning what was passed down to them from their grandmothers and back through generations. Other chefs always return to that one defining moment when they discovered food was special. Important. That sharing the right meal with the right person can make it feel like all’s well in the world.”

Kylo’s voice grew so soft that Rey wondered if he was only talking to himself. She wanted nothing more than to slide from her perch and wrap her arms around him, but she didn’t want to risk him withdrawing back into himself because of her unwanted advances. When he didn’t say anything else, Rey gently prompted, “So which one are you? The pupil of generations past, or a single moment of epiphany?”

“It was a boy and his father sitting on a pier in Southern California, eating fast food burgers and watching the sun set over the ocean and seagulls fighting over dropped fries. And the boy thought, maybe if he learned to make food just like that hot, greasy, wonderful sandwich, maybe the father would stick around for a change.”

Rey’s body moved on its own accord, sliding off the counter and crossing the kitchen to lay her hand on his: their first true intimate touch.

He wouldn’t look at her.

“Is that what happened to Ben Solo? Is he still on that pier, waiting for his father to come back?”

She waited for him to answer, but the oven timer went off instead.

“I’ll go set the table,” he said softly, his hand sliding out from under hers as he moved toward the cabinets where she and Finn kept the dishes. Rey’s heart ached for him, but at the same time she could not deny that she also felt a little happy, as selfish as that was.

Kylo was opening up to her. More importantly, he wasn’t running away.

For now, that was enough.

“How did you find out?” Kylo asked, passing Rey a dinner plate freshly rinsed of suds.

“It turns out that my foster mother knew your father from way back,” Rey said, accepting the plate and attacking it with her dish towel. “Do you happen to remember Maz Kanata?”

Kylo made a noise that was somewhere between a laugh and a groan. “Oh yes, I remember old Maz. And I can already hear what she’ll say when you tell her you proved me wrong about her cooking.” Rey giggled, recalling how Kylo unabashedly accepted seconds of the steamy, cheesy concoction that he once deemed sounded “revolting.” “Did she say anything specific about me, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Rey shrugged with one shoulder. “Not really. Only that you were a scrawny kid and you need to call your mother,” she said, taking another dinner plate from him. “But I’m assuming that’s another complicated issue?”

“Very,” Kylo agreed solemnly, and Rey took that as a cue that that particular part of the conversation was over.

“It’s funny, though, how things like that come full circle,” Rey mused. “Your dad and my mom were once friends, and now here we are, cooking for each other and washing the dinner dishes afterwards.”

Like friends. Maybe even almost like a couple.

Kylo grunted in affirmation, scrubbing at the crusty cheese that ringed the baking dish. The sleeves of his sweater were rolled up to his elbows, and fluffy soap suds covered his forearms. Maybe it was the earlier beer and half a bottle of white bordeaux in her system, but Rey suddenly felt devilishly mischievous. Reaching across the sink, she caught of blob of bubbles on her finger and then dabbed it on the very end of Kylo’s nose.

Kylo jerked back as if he’d been shocked, and the look he gave her was so incredulous that Rey couldn’t help but burst out laughing.

“What was that for?” he demanded, hastily scrubbing the bubbles off.

“You’re just so serious all the time,” Rey said through her mirth.

Kylo turned away, but before Rey could wonder if she’d gone too far he scooped up a handful of bubbles and smeared it in her hair.

Rey practically shrieked and threw herself at him, armed with a softball-sized ball of bubbles. Before she could reach her intended target - Kylo’s aggravatingly handsome face - he effortlessly caught her wrists and pinned her arms behind her back, her forward momentum causing her to crash against him.

Rey’s breath hitched in her chest, which only made her more acutely aware of the way her body was pressed flush to his. It was impossible to believe there was a time he was made up of anything other than knees and elbows, not when he felt like a living mountain against her own softer curves, his thick arms on either side of her efficiently trapping her. How many times had she imagined herself in a situation just like this with him, with the fingers of one hand curled inside her and the other on her breast as a cheap mockery of his sensual mouth? How would this night end if she rolled her hips into his, or if she pushed herself up on her toes and closed the space between their lips? If the dark light in his eyes was anything to go by, he was thinking the exact same thing.

That was until he cleared his throat and released her hands, taking a step back. “Truce?”

“Sure… Truce,” Rey agreed reluctantly. “I can finish the dishes later. Do you maybe want to watch a movie or something…?”

“Actually, I should get going. Vader is hosting its first major executive Christmas party this week and there are a few kinks in the menu I still need to work out.”

Rey hoped her disappointment wasn’t too evident as she walked him to the door. He shrugged into his coat and put on his shoes, but as he reached for the doorknob he paused, looking back at her.

“Maybe after the new year and our schedules clear up we can do something together. Something non-food related, I mean.”

Rey’s heart skipped a beat. “You mean like a date?”

The tips of Kylo’s ears turned red. “Yeah, I guess I do mean like a date.”

Rey smiled, causing Kylo’s ears to go even more read than before. “I’d love to.”

Kylo took Rey’s hand and raised it to his mouth, brushing a kiss over her knuckles. He thanked her again for dinner and left.

As soon as the door clicked shut, Rey raised her hand to her mouth and gently pressed her knuckles to her lips, breathing in the lingering scent of Kylo’s aftershave hanging in the entryway and wondering if, some day, the same scent would be left on her pillow too.

#reylo #reylo fan fiction #reylo au #reylo chef au #allez cuisine!#omegaling writes

10 notes · View notes

mc-dude · 7 years ago

Text

grandma’s snkincare (snail skincare) routine

got an anon asking about my skincare routine, so here it is!

note: I have very dry (not oily) skin and am not prone to cystic acne (ever since I did accutane in college.. which seems to have nuked whatever ability my face had to produce horrible cystic acne.. horrific, but effective i guess). i mostly just get hormonal acne breakouts around my lips/chin area and closed comedones on my forehead/chin (those are like little hard bumps that never turn into pimples, just stay... bumpy)

the resources i use to optimize my routine when i was starting out are reddit.com/r/skincareaddiction (yes, i know it’s reddit but everyone on there are just wonderful supportive women so it’s Safe) and reddit.com/r/asianbeauty which specializes in asian products mostly catered for sensitive skin (which i have).

i guess the biggest thing i realised that really helped me out when choosing products was that my skin wasn’t oily because i have oily type skin, it was just oily because my skin was so dry that my body was overproducing oil to compensate for how dry it is. sounds counterintuitive, i know, but it really changed the game once i stopped nuking my skin with drying ingredients and learned how to moisturize properly.

anyways! after much trial and error my current routine is:

remove shitty makeup with micellar water. i use this shit i found in germany but any micellar water will do they’re basically all the same and will take off makeup super efficiently. idk how well it works for eye makeup since i don't wear any but for bb cream and foundation it works great!

cleanse with Hada Labo Tokyo Gentle Hydrating Cleanser which I found out about on that asianbeauty subreddit i mentioned above. it’s really great for dry skin and doesn’t have any fatty alcohols which I realised my skin was sensitive to. sometimes people’s skin love fatty alcohols! just not mine lol.

every other day use Paula’s Choice 2% BHA. this is what gets rid of my closed comedones (the little bumps on forehead and chin) and keeps them away. chemical exfoliants are much more gentle on your skin and will actually benefit you way more than a physical exfoliant (aka something like apricot scrubs.. ow!) in the long term as physical exfoliants will cause small micro-abrasions and increase the amount of wrinkles on ur face over time. also they are super drying!

use my Curology (this is my referral link lol give me that $$ discount) mix of 8% Azelaic acid (a chemical exfoliant for improving skin texture aka my skin is super smooth and nice feeling all the time), 1% Clindamycin (a minor antibiotic for preventing acne), and 0.25% Zinc Pyrithione (an antifungal thing for getting rid of acne). I just found out about Curology like a month ago and holy shit, it’s amazing. It’s $20/month for access to an actual Dermatologist that you can message every day if you want who will send you personalized prescription cream for you to use on your face every day. Trying to get an appointment for a dermatologist in the US takes like, a year for where i am so this is a lifesaver. i’m loving their service so far and will continue to use for a long, long time. the first month has a trial btw that’s only $5 so you can try it out and see how you like it. most dermatologists on there will respond to you within one business day. super awesome! i just read that they don’t ship out of the US, unfortunately, so if you need another option.. vv

if you can’t afford the monthly curology thing or its not available where u are, i would recommend replacing this step with another AHA type acid like The Ordinary 10% Azelaic Acid Suspension or Paula’s Choice 10% AHA. Finding which acid works for you is just trial and error, but don’t apply it that frequently or else your moisture barrier will be damaged and your skin will get tight and oily once again. I would recommend starting using it once every 3 days and then working your way up from there if needed. These might seem expensive but I have a 10% AHA bottle that has lasted me for like.... over a year. so it’s actually really cost effective lol.

after my curology mix I then break out the SNAIL MUCUS! this is a recent addition that i honestly am loving so much. I’m using corsx Advanced Snail 92 All-In-One Cream after my chemical exfoliant which helps to heal old & new acne scars/wounds and improve the feeling of my skin to give it a sorta healthy glow. it basically just helps accelerate healing, so if you have a healing pimple area it will disappear wayyyy faster with this on than without. it’s amazing! thank u snails! i slove (snail love) u!

after, if I’m really needing some more moisture (bc my skin dries out so much in the winter time in this dry dessert environment i find myself in), I use Neutrogena Hydro Boost Water Gel which is another fatty-alcohol free moisturizer for sensitive, dry skin. i love this! it’s so cool feeling too, like sticking your hand into a lovely little pillow of moisture. my dermatologist on Curology recommended this to me and i can’t get enough. this is kinda expensive tho so if u can find a cheaper alternative than go for it (and also let me know lol)

last and not least, if I have a pimple that needs to Go I will gently pop & drain it (ew) and then apply a hydrocolloid bandage on top, which basically are made for gross wounds like burns and things that are very.. liquidity.. and will basically suck out all the liquid from the pimple and make it heal super fast. honestly if i pop a pimple the night before and slap on of these on it’ll usually be flat and well on its way to healing when i wake up. this is the best discovery ive had in my years of skincare and it’s a total gamechanger. i get the duoDerm ones which come in a pack of 10 sheets that I just cut little squares from. they are super duper cost effective. one box will last like over a year! super good investment tbh. also if i have a particularly bad pimple that doesn’t go away over night sometimes i’ll just leave it on throughout the day and if anyone asks what happened ill just be like ‘oh, i stabbed myself with a pencil’ or something and ppl will just shrug. sometimes i’ll also just be like ‘i got a giant pimple’ and people will nod empathetically, also. it depends on who u are as a person

and that’s my routine! remember when adding new products to always test it out before slapping it all over your face to see if it’ll break you out or if you’re allergic to it. i’m really bad at this tbh but i’ve seen so many horror stories of people just developing horrible cystic acne from new products so remember! to! patch! test!

if you have any questions feel free to send me an ask!

#skin care #acne #feel free to send me any questions!#i've had a long trial and error process so i kinda know a lot more than i should about skincare at this point #there u go anon.. Enjoy..

4 notes · View notes

tophateliquids · 6 years ago

Text

What is CBD Vape Oil

When you look through the vape communities, CBD appears more and more often in recent months. Meanwhile, the vape companies have started to innovate the vape devices for CBD vape oil. Forbes estimated the CBD market generates $2.1 billion by 2020.

What is CBD? Why does CBD become such a popular thing? Is it related to marijuana or other addictive substances? Why there are so many people starting to vape CBD? Here is an introduction of CBD vape oil, and if you are wondering if CBD vape oil is safe or not. Many studies and tests indicate that CBD can provide health benefits, so CBD vape oil has grown immensely.

What does CBD stand for?

CBD is the short form of cannabidiol, found in hemp and marijuana plants. CBD oil is the concentrated form of cannabidiol in a liquid form; you can also ingest orally. CBD vape oil is the term among vapers. It’s mixed with PG or VG, the based liquids for e-juice. It is used to describe any CBD-based product that has been made specifically for vape pens or vaporizers. You can inhale through the vape pen or vaporizer. Unlike THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), CBD cannot make the users high.

However, synthetic CBD contains concentrated THC or other hazardous substances. If you need to pass a drug test, do use the CBD oil from natural plants. Besides, artificial cannabidiol can cause headaches, nausea, vomiting, and dizziness after inhaling.

Why have so many people started to vape CBD?

Let’s start with the advantages of vaping CBD. As the studies show, the benefits of CBD oil are mainly in the medicinal field. To some extent, CBD can relieve these conditions:

Epilepsy

Insomnia

Stress and anxiety

Skin

Acne

Chronic pain

Rheumatoid arthritis

Inflammatory bowel disease

Fighting cancer

High blood pressure

Alzheimer disease

Recovering alcoholics

PTSD

…

Vaping is considered a potent and tasty way to consume CBD. Compared with cannabidiol oils and gummies, CBD vape oil can be quickly absorbed, this is because CDB can reach the bloodstream directly through the lungs rather than the digestive system. When you ingest CBD, you are absorbing the anti-inflammatory properties. CBD can help with the conditions like anxiety, pain, and insomnia etc. People who feel anxiety, stress and reoccurring pain can sometimes feel relief at once. Some research also shows that vaping CBD can have higher sustainable bio-availability.

Millions of people in the US take CBD as a perception for their health conditions. Some don’t want to take capsules or tinctures in public because others may guess their health conditions. Then vaping with CBD vape juice is a discreet way to utilize it. People who inhale CBD vape oil say they feel focused, relaxed and sleep better. Some cases also show that people who vape with CBD are more likely to quit smoking and get rid of nicotine.

Choose CBD vape oil carefully

Many kinds of CBD vape juice are available on the market. If you want to have quality, effective and safe products for yourselves, you should know the difference about them. Currently, the CBD market lacks regulations. Think twice before you buy any without a good knowledge of CBD, or you may face hazards to your health and life. First, I would like to discuss the types of CBD vape liquid that you may find on the market:

Pure CBD oil, also called CBD isolate oil, is extracted from the flowers, stalks and leaves.

Cannabis CBD oils contain high levels of THC, in most situations. On the other hand, there are CBD oils that contain plenty of CBD and zero THC, and these strains are used to produce high-quality CBD vape oils, which are only available at licensed dispensaries in States that allow recreational and medical marijuana use.

Most CBD hemp oils for sale are extracted from industrial hemp, which is bred for its tough fibres, nutritious seeds and CBD-rich flowers.

Then, let’s talk seriously about cuticle waxes. They are the oily outer layer of lipids that cover the surface of most flowering cannabis plants, including hemp. Since these plants are used to smoke, the waxes can melt as the temperature becomes high. However, cuticle waxes may not burn during the vaping process. They may gather and settle in the lungs over time, which can lead to long-term health issues.

Though there are not enough clinical studies to prove this point, you don’t want to risk your life. Next, you can check if the production process of CBD vape liquid involves winterization, a process can remove all or a high portion of the waxes. If there is no information on the package or the product webpage, then ask the companies. If the answer is vague, don’t buy from them.

Potential side effects of vaping CBD

Just like other drugs, CBD also has side effects. Sometimes you may experience ill effects if you continually intake high dosages of CBD, effects such as irritability, reduced appetite or higher than normal urination. One should also be careful about DRUGS INTERACTION. If you are using other drugs, CBD may interact chemically with alcohol and other drugs and cause a negative reaction. For example, opioids, sedatives, antidepressants, drugs that affect blood sugar levels, and drugs that lower blood pressure, etc.

Although CBD is relatively safe for most vapers, it is not wise to combine various medication and potentially high risk of causing adverse interactions. CBD that is sourced from hemp without a prescription is legal in the US. Therefore, people are likely to overdose on CBD. What’s more, don’t try to vape an oral CBD tincture since there are no two base liquids PG and VG as we mentioned above, or vice versa. The vape juice doesn’t taste good if you place it under your tongue or swallow it.

Where can you purchase CBD vape oil

If you are based in the US, you can have hemp-derived CBD vape oil in the vape shops since marijuana is legal in some places there. As far as I know, some vape stores in some European countries sell the CBD vape oil as well. Also, you can go online shopping and choose reliable brands.

Do the job in research before you decide to purchase CBD vape oil. You can look around at what people are discussing about their experiences in vaping CBD on the relative forums, this way you can avoid being fooled. I would suggest you go for big name companies. Since this industry is very new and few restrictions or regulations have been placed on this field, the market is full of low quality things. Some CBD vape oils have been mixed with other harmful chemicals, which may impact the compatibility of your vaporizers and shorten the life span of coils.

How to vape with CBD

You can choose pen-style vape for CBD vape juice. The heating coil can vaporize the concentrated CBD isolate. You must change the coil after repeated use, although the coil life can be extended by only using pure CBD isolate. Or, the coil can speed up the oxidation due to the leftover flavour additives and impure CBD.

The tank-style vape device is also one of the choices available. However, you should be cautious about a burnt coil and tank leakage, just as all vapers do. Also, you need to clean the vapes regularly and change the coil and other accessories in the vape device if they don’t work well.

How many times should you vape CBD each day? It varies from the individuals’ needs. People on Reddit suggest that they vape as long as they have anxiety or chronic pain until it works for them. Though I still support the control of the dosage of CBD and frequency of vaping it. Some vapers may increase the dosage and use of CBD as they constantly feel pain or stressed, you’d better set a bottom line for yourself, and try not to cross it.

What is CBD Vape Oil was originally posted by E-Sigaret Nieuws

#E-Sigaret Nieuws

0 notes

lavergebi1970-blog · 6 years ago

Text

The creation of art, as well as the marketing and purchase of art, are outside the bounds of the "regular" market. Art is not usually made as a result of corporate investment, artists do not generally get an hourly wage for their labor and the price of art is not set through competition in the way other products' prices are determined. The art market is different and it shapes the prices artists can set and expect for their labor.. 10 points submitted 5 days agoWeird thing about Solstice Scents, I have so many amazing scents by them but forget how delightful they are until it literally on my body!! I wearing Rose Custard Kulfi and it is soooo yum and beautiful. I do have a thing for pistachios lately, the haircare company Function of Beauty has a 강릉출장안마 very heady macaron scent that would totally compliment this.Rosewater, saffron, cardamom, coconut vanilla custard, caramelized sugar, dates, pistachios, lime zestI also tend to impulse buy things that I seen get a lot of hype whenever they on a really good sale. I rarely buy anything at the full price. A favorite food, a video game you can replay again and again. A meme sub to laugh on (the spongebob one: r/Biknibottomtwitter perhaps? Good one if know the source, but if not that's fine. There's bound to be on out there is r/garlicbreadmemes exists. I had read that to remove waxiness from hair you can rinse with an egg yolk mixed into a cup of cool water, then wash your hair with it and rinse with cool water. I did this and it was AWESOME. Made my hair so shiny and cut a bunch of the waxy transition buildup I was having without stripping the sebum. I just found out about this too! D: I have stash for now til mid next year, and then after I will still try the reformulation once to see if it still suffices, but I am so bummed D: It been a part of my routine consistently for almost five years now. That like what 15 20 bottles I gone through. It like the thing to use when my skin is being super sensitive and everything else stings, I hate it if the reformulation ends up not working, since I not sure what I can replace it with.. 3 points submitted 1 year agoThose random areas are promo spaces it where extra items that don have a usually go. It meant to be just for sets and things that come in for a promotion/event/unused returns from web orders/etc. Most employees aren told when an item is being put on clearance (the task team usually handles most of that), so sometimes those items get mixed in.There really no way to tell if an item without a price sticker will be clearance or not from a promo area. Vitamin A derivatives are used to treat skin disorders. Isotretinoin acne medicine is an oral medication used for severe cystic acne. Because of the possibility of such serious side effects as liver damage and elevated blood triglycerides, a doctor must closely monitor treatment with this medication. (Memory button is pretty awesome lol.) It also seems like there is a large fan art community on reddit which is exciting. I am convinced not to delete. Haha. But my grandmother was worst she hates my mom because when she was born my grandfather loved her more than her and treated her bad all her life until she got married. Yes her favorite children are the ones that have a boy one aunt has 4 another one has 2 and 2 boys the 3 have 1 each. In 2013 my 강릉출장안마 mother was pregnant didn't tell me anything until the day she told me to go to the hospital because she was bleeding we went.

0 notes

theconservativebrief · 6 years ago

Link

For those who know their skin care products, Sunday Riley is a beloved brand. Good Genes face acid is a best-seller at Sephora and frequently hailed as a holy grail product. But the company got some unwelcome scrutiny this week after a former employee shared an email directing employees to open fake accounts and leave glowing Sephora reviews of new Sunday Riley products, on the subreddit r/skincareaddiction. The post shocked customers and served to highlight the questionable trustworthiness of online product reviews at retailers like Sephora.

Online reviews are really important to brands. Studies have shown that customers trust products that have a lot of reviews, and it’s human nature to look to peers and “real people” for their opinions. It’s why, especially for makeup and other beauty products, so many people follow bloggers, YouTubers, and Instagrammers. They’re perceived to be authentic (though recent drama in that world has revealed that their reviews can sometimes be purchased for a lot of money).

This is not the first time the authenticity of online reviews has been called into question. Amazon has been singled out frequently in stories alleging that brands pay people to write reviews. It happens enough that there are now even plenty of tips for recognizing when a review might not be what it seems.

In 2017, I reported on this phenomenon in the beauty industry for Racked. There are a variety of companies that offer free products in exchange for “honest” reviews, and small brands admitted feeling pressure to solicit fans to leave positive reviews. But this is the first time a major brand has been called out on the practice, with receipts. It provides insight into the way the beauty industry sells products, and how cutthroat and dishonest it can be.

A user and supposed former Sunday Riley employee calling themselves “throwawayacctSRiley” posted on Reddit and shared a copy of an email that clearly shows that employees had been asked by the company to register as fake Sephora users in order to leave glowing reviews for new acne products that the company was launching. The email lays out in great detail how employees should register as reviewers to avoid having their IP address traced back to the company, and to leave reviews on other brands as well to avoid drawing suspicion to themselves. It was recommended that employees set up several different profiles and “mix and match your identities.”

The most eye-opening section of the email reads:

It helps to make yourself seem relatable — like you know how hard acne is and you’ve tried everything, and this one actually works or mention things like, yes it’s a little more expensive but works incredible [sic] well compared to the cheaper masks out there. If you need any help with things to come up with to say, feel [sic] to ask myself, Sunday, or Addison. As reviews come in, read them too. If you notice someone saying things like I didn’t like “x” about it, write a review that says the opposite. The power of reviews is mighty, people look to what others are saying to persuade them and answer potential questions they may have.

It caused a huge commotion in the beauty world, racking up over 500 comments on r/skincareaddiction. And the news only got bigger when Sunday Riley confirmed that it was true. A brand representative wrote in the comment section of the anonymous beauty industry watchdog/gossip Instagram account Estee Laundry:

As many of you may know, we are making an effort to bring more transparency to our clients. The simple and official answer to this Reddit post is that yes, this email was sent by a former employee to several members of our company. At one point, we did encourage people to post positive reviews at the launch of this product, consistent with their experiences. There are a lot of reasons for doing that, including the fact that competitors will often post negative reviews of products to swing opinion. It doesn’t really matter what the reasoning was. We have hundreds of thousands of reviews across platforms around the globe and it would be physically impossible for us to have posted even a fraction of these reviews. Client word-of-mouth, sharing how our products have changed their skin, has been the cornerstone of our success. In the end, our products and their results stand for themselves.

(Sunday Riley did not return Vox’s request for comment by publication time.)

Responses were swift and decisive. Fans of the brand on Reddit commented things like, “Joke’s on Sunday Riley, even if they actually have good products now I’ll never believe it because of their manipulation” and “As someone who suffers with acne, I find this extremely upsetting. Advising your staff to write a review saying a product cleared your acne is preying on the vulnerable.”

People have strong attachments to brands, especially when it comes to skin care. This was largely seen as a breach of trust.

Sunday Riley is likely not alone here. “This happens a lot. Sephora puts the pressure on brands — they really ‘encourage’ reviews,” says a beauty industry source who wished to remain anonymous so as not to jeopardize their relationship with Sephora and beauty brands. “When you have a new launch, the sales will increase with a ton of good reviews. I do want to reiterate how common this practice for brands is. Sunday Riley just got caught. I’m not defending it, but it’s a vicious cycle.”

Caroline Hirons is a popular and well-respected UK-based skin care blogger and beauty brand consultant. She posted a sponsored video with Sunday Riley a few days prior to this controversy and worked as a consultant to the brand five years ago. She says she was never asked by the brand to post any sort of fake review, and wouldn’t ever agree to do so. But she concurs that it’s a common practice in the industry.

“It’s not the brands. The direction comes from the retailers,” Hirons, who has called out the practice in the past on her blog, says. She notes that she’s never had a request quite as detailed as the Sunday Riley email, though. “I’ve never come across anything that organized. I’ve just had verbal requests in retailer meetings.” (She also clarifies that she’s never heard those requests from UK-based retailers like Space NK, Cult Beauty, or department stores like Selfridges.)

In Hirons’s skin care fan group on Facebook, which has almost 10,000 fans, a user shared a screenshot of communication she had supposedly had with Sephora’s customer service department after she’d asked about the Sunday Riley issue. The email read: “Thank you for taking the time out of your day to reach out to us about this matter. We have recently found out about it and we are looking into it. We do not condone this type of activity. Rest assured we are working diligently on this.” It was signed “Jazlyn, Sephora Client Services.”

A screenshot of the Sephora email, with the customer’s name erased for privacy. Facebook

Sephora declined to comment for this story, but a representative offered the following comment in the 2017 Racked story about its reviews policy: “The goal of Sephora Ratings and Reviews is authentic client experiences that can inform fellow beauty fans on the product solutions and benefits based on their concerns. Reviews are monitored and if needed, removed if they are truly not centered around the product experience, therefore not a benefit to the larger community.”

The shelves of Sephora are crowded, and competition in the beauty industry is fierce. Brands, especially small ones, are under a lot of pressure to sell and to conform to the whims of retailers. Retailers often hold a lot of the cards. Read this cautionary tale about Sephora and the now-defunct makeup brand OCC for an example of how this can sometimes play out.

A small brand owner who wished to remain anonymous wrote in an email to Vox, “We are under a lot of pressure to drive reviews for our products on Sephora.com, but Sephora’s site is also really good about weeding out reviews that aren’t legitimate, so it’s very hard to build up a product page by leaving a large number of ‘fake’ reviews.”

Sunday Riley has struggled in the past few years, facing a lawsuit about false advertising, which was eventually tossed out. It also launched a foundation called The Influencer earlier this year, which no longer appears to be available. But it’s also been actively trying to build its business in the UK, launched a wellness-focused beauty box, and relaunched its website. This will likely be a setback, at least temporarily, but it’s a case that shines a brighter light on how retailers can manipulate customers.

It’s all just a modern-day example of the old adage, “Buyer beware.” As one redditor suggested, perhaps be wary of any review that’s too glowy, and head for mediocre territory: “This is why I tend to trust only the reviews that are 3 stars. That’s where the honesty is.”

Want more stories from The Goods by Vox? Sign up for our newsletter here.

Original Source -> A leaked email reveals why you can’t always trust Sephora product reviews

via The Conservative Brief

#IFTTT #The Conservative Brief

0 notes

jackfollmanwriter-blog · 6 years ago

Text

The Yearbook

All Luke left in our old apartment for me was a single banker’s box of what he considered to be “my possessions.” One of those white cardboard boxes with the handles built into the side, the box truly signified that I had been fired from my seven-year relationship.

The move was cruel and calculated, but it was factual. A Texas vagabond who never left owned enough possessions to where she couldn’t pack up and move to another town at the drop of a hat, the few things which were truly mine sat cased in that box.

I tipped the contents of the box out onto the floor to take stock of my arsenal. A hairbrush, a stick of Secret with only 25% remaining, a frayed toothbrush, a half-filled pint of cheap vodka and a few changes of clothes (unwashed) fell out onto the stiff carpet. Stuck in the bottom of the box were my only non-essential possessions that Luke returned to me - my high school yearbooks.

I laughed out loud when I saw the yearbooks lying there next to a pair of stained socks. The yearbooks were the only possessions of mine recovered from my mom’s house after she died, mailed to me by my aunt Helen along with a note which scolded me for my lack of sobriety at my mom’s funeral.

Nothing else to do on a Winter’s Sunday afternoon and a pinch of sad nostalgia coursing through my veins, I sat down on the floor and started combing through the yearbooks. I never could have imagined my early adult life would get so sad that I would yearn for the days of acne, broken braces, 7:50 a.m. bells and my fickle group of friends from East Lubbock High School, but that’s where I was. Sad. Sad. Sad.

The yearbook at the bottom of the pile was not mine. Bound with leather, full-color and featuring a golden emboss of a stately-looking manor on the front, I figured it had to be from Luke’s private school in Dallas - Worthington Academy.

A few turns of thick pages confirmed my thoughts and sent me flipping through endless headshots of well-put-together teens bound for success or at least inherited money and inane messages written in permanent marker.

I stopped on the Class of 2000 which produced Luke Hanratty, a thin bastard from third-generation money with jet black hair that always perfectly fell to the side, dark eyes and years of suppressed rage he hid behind passive indifference. I found his portrait and stared into the face that I loved for almost seven years and felt those same emotions I had before he sent me a text saying it was over. I still loved the guy, even if I hated him.

I found the messages scribbled next to the portraits more interesting than Luke’s senior portrait. It was like an ancient Facebook - portraits of people’s best looks next to their names and their activities, but the best part was the photos which had comments written on them in black ink.

Luke had a lot of thoughts about his classmates and none of them were nice.

FAG...FAT...HORSE FACE.... BITCH....ASSHOLE….

I couldn’t believe I had attached myself for so long to a man so vile. Luke was known for having a caustic sense of humor, but this was over the top. He almost never went home to visit his parents in Dallas. Maybe it was because he hated everyone he grew up with, or vice-versa.

I skimmed through most of the insults, but one particularly caught my eye. A black-haired girl with a pale face and dark makeup named Kirsten Butler drew extra hate from Luke’s pen.

SLUT was written above her head, but that was just the start of it. Her entire profile was covered with a dark X, her name was crossed out - I could only actually read it because the ink had faded, and her eyes were dotted with red marker.

I at first assumed Kirsten was just one of Luke’s high school exs that we never really talked about, but I also recognized that name and that picture of the dark-haired girl half-smiling with the dimpled cheeks. I hit up Google on my phone for Kirsten Butler from Worthington Academy.

The results sucked the breath out of me and confirmed that I was vaguely familiar with Kirsten.

Kirsten Butler went missing from her dorm at Texas Christian University just a few weeks into her first Fall semester in October of 2000 and was never seen or heard from again. No body, no rumors of popping up in another country with a different name, no clothes found on a desolate country road out in West Texas. Nothing.

Kirsten’s case was before the days of social media where she would have become a national celebrity, but she was a brief regional celebrity around Texas and I was vaguely familiar with her case from back when it happened. I had no idea that she went to school with Luke though, let alone was in his class and a most-hated figure of his.

Google produced a little on Kirsten’s case. I found some old Dallas newspaper articles, a missing person’s report, even a few posts on Reddit in a section for Unsolved Mysteries, but not much information.

The yearbook ended up unearthing more clues than the Internet. I noticed a message from Kirsten scrawled in the back pages of the book in the signatures section.

Luke - Creative Writing rocked with you in it. Let me know if you want to swing over to Fort Worth sometime next year if you get bored sticking around in the big D at SMU. 214-555-3116. Kirsten.

I called the number. No one answered. I thought nothing of it.

I received a call from a 214 area code I didn’t recognize when I was walking out of a depressing job interview.

“Hello.”

“Who is this?” An elderly woman’s voice crackled through the phone sounding confused and accusatory at the same time.

“Um. Who is this? You called me.”

“You called Kirsten’s pager.”

It took me a few seconds to register what a “pager” was, but I eventually journeyed back to the call I made to Kirsten’s number in Luke’s yearbook.

“Ooooooooh. Yeah, I’m sorry. I found that number in a yearbook and called it. Uh…”

I really didn’t know what to say. I never thought my random sleuthing would produce anything and I didn’t really have anything that I wanted to accomplish.

“Well, I’m Kirsten’s mother, Susan. No one has called that pager in seventeen years. You understand how I could be a little tuned up? Whose yearbook was that in?”

My first thought was to protect Luke. Then I thought about the breakup. The other woman. The horrible things he said to me in fights.

“Luke Hanratty.”

The other end of the line was silent for a good five seconds.

Susan’s confrontational abrasion melted away into the sweetness of a Southern grandma, sweet as molasses.

“Now sweet thing, do you think you could bring that yearbook to me up in North Dallas?”

“Can I just mail it to you or drop it off?”

“I can fix you dinner and explain you why it has to be this way if you can do that. There are some things you probably need to know I can only explain in person.”

Susan lived in a little house in a part of Dallas that will probably be cool in five years, but is just shitty now. I had to avoid 10 landmines of dog feces as I walked up to the faded and rotted pink front door. I knocked on the door softly as to not disturb a hornet’s nest which bustled above the door frame.

The yips and clawlings of what sounded like a dozen lap dogs erupted as soon as I knocked.

“Heavens,” I heard Susan growl from the other side of the door.

The door opened and five different dogs all only a little larger than your average squirrel darted at my feet. I tried to act like it didn’t bother me, probably failed.

Susan looked better than I thought she would. Thin, but healthy with a head of long blonde hair (dyed, but dyed well) and a classy outfit of black leggings, a black and gray cardigan over a plain white shirt and hipster glasses. She was far from the obese, elderly pile of ash I expected to find.

I handed Susan the yearbook, but she made no move for it.

“No, no, no. I made short ribs and peach pie for two, not one.”

Susan gave me a warm smile. The kind I yearned for from a parental figure my entire life. I relented and followed her into her home and held my breath, fighting against the burn of pet urine mixing with the scent of baking food.

Susan cooked the kind of food I always wished a parental figure would cook for me - gourmet, but down home, hearty and filling. I felt over-indulged about three bites in, but couldn’t stop eating.

“I’ve been waiting for someone to dial that pager for seventeen years,” Susan turned the conversation to the real reason I was there after about 10 minutes of small talk while I was in mid-bite.

I had forgotten why I was even there for a second.

“We got that pager for Kirsten as a compromise. She wanted a cell phone, but we didn’t want to give her everything we wanted, so we met in the middle with that thing. I liked that it helped us keep tabs on her when she headed over to Texas Christian, but Dave wasn’t sure.”

Susan nodded her head sideways at a headshot of smiling middle-aged man in a Sears photoshoot who I assumed was Dave. His mug was pinned up on the wall next to a toaster.

“Dave passed just a couple years after Kirsten went missing. Pancreatic cancer. Awful. I think he was poisoned by the awfulness of what happened to our only daughter. We spent all the money we had on his no good pancreas and the pursuit of any clue we could with Kirsten. Had to eventually downgrade to this jalopy, move out of the community we raised Kirsten in, but, the good news is, we got our first god forsaken clue, for free, fifteen years after I had given up, right?”

I didn’t know how to react.

“It’s okay. I’m as happy about it, as I can be,” Susan went on. “And I’ll give you a break. I had you come here because things aren’t as simple as you might think they would be.”

“Okay…”

I couldn’t help but be pensive, and not just because one of Susan’s dogs was licking my ankle.

“We believe someone was actively working against us in the Dallas Police Department. Anything we ever, I mean ever, turned in as evidence always seemed to go missing. Any question we had, we never got an answer to. They blamed everything on Dave putting the investigation into his own hands early on, saying he crossed a lot of boundaries that negated evidence, but it was bull. Dave only made a few calls. Checked out Kirsten’s dorm room, talked to her roommate, because the police weren’t. Kirsten’s roommate called us up one day asking if the cops were ever going to talk to her because it had been weeks and they hadn’t even contacted her.”

“Wow.”

“But supposedly, Dave inviting Kirsten’s roommate over here for salad one night was enough to poison the whole investigation. So...that’s why I don’t want you to just turn over that yearbook to someone. I also want you to know that...this is hard to say...but...you might want to be careful with how you handle this as well. We had some early potential leads from a couple kids at Texas Christian who may have saw something, knew something, but they quickly fell off into the ether, and we never found out why. So...I don’t know what in the world it is, but just know that dialing that number, may have changed your life.”

“Okay, well, thank you, I guess.”

“I’m sorry. It is what it is. I want to ask you if you are comfortable answering some questions though?”

“I guess I might as well.”

“You said the yearbook you found belonged to Luke Hanratty?”

“Yeah.”

“And what is your relation to him if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Ex-boyfriend.”

“Oh, sorry if I opened a wound.”

“It’s okay. It was already still open. It’s only been a few weeks.”

“Well, I hate to say it, but he might be Jake Doe. You see, we know there was a boy in Kirsten’s life around that time, but we have never had a slight inkling as to who he might be. They did everything in heavy secrecy, because she was technically still with her high school boyfriend, Brady, even though he went to A and M. They were trying to do the long distance thing, but her friends at TCU said they think she was hanging around with another boy. He would block his number before he paged her. She would call him from the phones in common areas around the campus. Maybe it was your Luke?”

At this point, I didn’t know what else I could do for Susan. I wanted to help her, but I didn’t want to spend anymore of my life doing anything that had anything to do with Luke Hanratty. I was ready to move on.

“I can give you the yearbook,” I said.

“I looked up Luke online before you came too and it looks like his parents own Hanratty and Hanratty, the big law firm downtown. They’ve worked defending the police in big cases. They might be blocking evidence through their connections knowing their son might have something to do with it.”

That made sense based on the soulless, yuppie, workaholic, only care about what people think image I got from Luke’s parents every time I met them. Luke told me once they would murder a baby if they thought it might help them get a big new case.

“Can I see it?”

Susan finally asked for the whole entire reason I was even there. I blushed when she quickly flipped to Kirsten’s picture and read the horrible things scrawled in there. I played with the last of the food on my plate.

“Well this is certainly interesting,” Susan whispered across the table.

I looked across the table and started to see tears form in Susan’s eyes behind her thick glasses.

“It’s just…

Susan had to stop and let out a few sobs.

“It’s just...I know Kirsten wasn’t a bad girl. She didn’t do these kinds of things. She was a good girl. She didn’t deserve this.”

As bad as I felt for Susan, the situation was just too much and too awkward for me. I wanted to get out. I figured I had helped her as much as I possibly could and I had my own problems. I was beginning to think my boyfriend of more than five years may have killed someone. No matter how good that peach pie in the oven smelled (and it smelled really, really good), I wasn’t going to stick around for it.

I thanked Susan for her time. Told her she could keep the yearbook and excused myself before dessert. I took the 20 minute drive to my home on my friend’s couch with the plan to not do a single thing more and hope everything just blew over and took care of itself. It was basically a smaller version of my overall life plan.

A few days passed with nothing. I held some brief relief that the whole thing would be over.

Then the calls from Luke started.

I ignored the first few. Let him leave vague voicemails about how I needed to call him back about something “serious.” This was his usual MO for when we were about to break up. He would start a horrible fight or do something really bad and then try to pull the romantic comedy move of doing something over the top romantic, or would buy me some piece of jewelry and the wounds scabbed over enough to drag our doomed relationship onward. Not this time.

The calls from Luke kept coming and coming and coming and I kept ignoring and ignoring and ignoring, but I knew he was going to do something drastic, I just didn’t know what. An oozing sense of dread seeped into me and stuck me on my friend’s couch for days where I was crashing, unable to move anywhere but between the couch, bathroom and refrigerator.

Luke made that drastic move in the middle of the night during one of my trips to the bathroom. I heard his voice whispering from outside the open window as I washed my hands in the near dark.

“Hey, Kayla.”

I screamed as loud as I ever have in my entire life. I looked out the half-opened window and saw the shadow of Luke standing in the bushes outside my friend’s ground-floor apartment. He looked at me through the cover of a dark hoodie, with his shaggy hair jutting out the front.

“Sorry, I knocked on the door, but no one answered and you won’t answer your phone,” Luke whispered.

“So you fucking go Norman Bates and look at me through the bathroom window? Get out of here!” I screamed back.

“No, you don’t understand. You did something you shouldn’t have done, now these people are after me.”

“No. You did something you shouldn’t have done!”

I slammed the window shut.

“If I see you again, I’m calling the cops,” I yelled at the closed window.

The texts started to come in from Luke as soon as I got back to the couch. I deleted them without reading them and eventually blocked Luke’s number after about the tenth call and text.

I covered myself in a blanket on the couch and planned on staying right there until the day I died.

I started to ease back into life as the days past without communication attempts from Luke. I got back up off the couch and started my job hunt again, went on walks to the park, went shopping for food with the little money I had a couple of times and even went for a couple aimless drives around town to clear my head after my friend said she had to move out in two weeks because she was going to move in with her boyfriend.

One of those blank-minded drives took me out to the edge of the city, to the parts of town where the urban sprawl started to melt into the hints of rural America. Little patches of woods and lonely gas stations dotted the roads.

Officially lost, I pulled over so I could load up directions to get back home on my phone. I slowed down next to a little patch of woods between run-down houses on a dark road.

A knock came at my window before I could get my phone out. I screamed even louder than I did when Luke confronted me in the bathroom.

I looked up at the aged face of a woman that I knew, but couldn’t quite put my finger on why I knew her.

“Can I talk to you really quick?” The woman asked, her voice also vaguely familiar.

I stared at the woman for a few seconds and it started to register. It was Luke’s mom, Nancy. She had aged a lot since the last time I had seen her.

I rolled the window down about two inches.

“What do you want?” I asked.

Another long look revealed exhausted eyes in Nancy’s skull and a coat of sweat.

“Have you seen Luke?” Nancy asked.

“No. I’ve been avoiding him, and I think you’re pretty disgusting, personally,” I spat back.

“What are you talking about?”

“I found out about Kirsten. The missing girl from TCU. It seems pretty clear Luke was involved, and you helped cover it up.”

“What?” Nancy shot back, sounding offended. “You have no idea,” she then muttered under her breath.

Nancy returned the long, hard look I was giving her.

“You probably don’t realize this, but you’re in serious danger. I need to know what you did, and who you talked to.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Just listen,” Nancy cut me off. “I’m guessing you talked to Susan for some reason.”

“Yeah, um.”

“That was a bad idea,” Nancy cut me off. “You have no idea what you did.”

A pair of headlights drove up behind us and stopped to the right of Nancy’s car which was parked behind mine.

Nancy looked over to the headlights. The last drops of life flushed out of her face.

A bang sound rang out in the night and Nancy’s SUV started to sink to the right.

“Shit,” Nancy seethed underneath her breath.

Nancy turned to me with her eyes wide.

“Let me in the car,” Nancy said.

“Why would I let you in my car?” I asked.

I was interrupted by the sound of a car door closing behind us, over by Nancy’s SUV.

Nancy started wrenching on the door handle. The door wouldn’t open. I already locked it.

“Please,” Nancy pleaded with a depth of desperation I had never heard come out of a human being.

I heard heavy footsteps come up towards the back of my car from behind.

“Pleeeeeease,” Nancy whined out.

I flicked the unlock button.

“Go to the back door,” I said.

Nancy jumped over to the backseat door behind me and slipped in the car. I hit the doors lock as soon as she opened the door.

“Go. Go. Go,” Nancy yelled as soon as she was in the backseat.

I floored it. My Ford Focus jetted off. The force snapped my neck back.

I didn’t let up off the gas until we were well away from the scene.

“What was that?” I screamed.

“What did you do?”

“I found Luke’s old yearbook, saw that he had written slut and all this horrible stuff on Kirsten’s yearbook picture and then found her phone number written in the back of the thing. I called the number, an old lady called me back and said I needed to bring the yearbook to her. I did.”

“I can’t believe you made it out of that place alive,” Nancy said with a laugh.

A pair of headlights entered my rear-view mirror.

“I think they’re following us,” I said, frantic. “Is that her?”

Nancy looked back, then back at me.

“Just keep driving.”

“Why is she...

I hadn’t been paying attention to the road, distracted by Nancy and the headlights. I stopped talking because the curve of a road was just feet in front of my car. I slammed on the brakes, but it was too late. We careened into a ditch and smashed into the hard ground.

The world went into slow motion for a few moments. I saw my cell phone fly by my face. I heard the sound of glass breaking. I felt something hard smack against the back of my head. Then the lights went out.

The coppery taste of blood stung my tongue when I woke up. I gagged and coughed before I opened my eyes and threw my body forward to hit the ground, but couldn’t. I was suspended by something which tethered me from behind.

I opened my eyes and saw nothing but a blank, white wall in front of me. I had never been so terrified in my life to see just a blank image. I screamed out without even knowing exactly what I was screaming about yet. My body had a thick, dull ache, my core tingled with sharp pain when I screamed.

“HELP!” I screamed. “Please, please, please, please,” I punctuated my bellar with pathetic pleads.

“At least you’re up,” a voice whispered from behind me.

I jumped from the sound of a voice, but calmed, once it registered in my brain as belonging to Luke.

I tried to wiggle in my seat and turn around, but couldn’t. The lashes of rope tied tight around my wrists and feet wouldn’t let me. I was stuck staring at the blank wall.

“Don’t fight. Save your energy. There is no use trying that yet, and you’re probably really hurt,” Luke said.

I stopped and took in a few huge breaths.

“What is this?” I asked with sobs building in my jaw.

“She locked us somewhere in her house, I think. She had me blindfolded when I got brought in here. Someone must be helping her, because someone carried me in here and I’m pretty sure she doesn’t have that kind of strength,” Luke explained.

“What is the deal?”

“This woman has always thought I was responsible for the disappearance of her daughter, and she is right, but not for the right reasons. I helped her daughter disappear her freshman year at TCU, but only so she could get away from her, and her sadistic husband. We were semi-dating and she told me all about the awful abuse she suffered and she worried because it was getting worse as she got older, more physically mature. The truth was the cops knew they could never prove anything against her parents and they believed me and my parents when we told them about why and how she ran away, so they didn’t care.”

“What does she want with me?” I screamed back.

“My parents were able to keep it so she never knew who I was, but now thanks to my wonderful ex-girlfriend, I’m tied up in this psycho’s basement while she probably prepares a Hansel and Gretel marinade for us. Congratulations.”

Guilt burned in my stomach. Or maybe it was just the overall pain from the wreck?

“But why did you write slut, and all those horrible thing on Kirsten’s photo?”

“Oh Jesus Christ. That was Daniel. Daniel tried to date her in high school, but she wasn’t having it and he vandalized the shit out of my yearbook one drunken night. He wrote horrible things on like a quarter of the school’s photos. You know him. He’s a ten times even bigger caustic dick than me.”

I believed Luke. I had met his friend Daniel around 10 times and he had greeted me with a passive aggressive semi-insult about my hair or outfit pretty much every time. He was one of those guys that thought every day was one of those Comedy Central roasts.

“Well, what do we do now?”

My question was answered by a creaky door opening from behind us and what sounded like above us.

“Too late,” I heard Luke mutter under his breath.

The lights went out. The room went into complete darkness. I shivered. The sound of footsteps descending wooden stairs squeaked out from behind.

“Please…”the word quietly leaked out of my lips.

My soft pleading was answered by the sounds of gut-wrenching screams from Luke which started just a handful of feet behind me. The steps went back up the stairs and I heard a door close again.

I let out a deep breath. I listened to Luke’s screams fade away. I held my eyes closed tight even though the room was still pitch black. I think I hoped that if I closed them long and hard enough that it would all go away.

Wishful thinking. I opened my eyes and still stared at the darkness.

I started to cry. I wiped the moisture which trickled out of my nose from the top of my lip and tried to suck it back up into my nasal cavity with a hard snort.

“Don’t cry,” a voice whispered from behind.

I jumped up in my chair. Probably got the whole thing a couple of feet off the ground I was so startled.

The chair hit the solid ground hard on the way down and I felt both of the back legs fracture to where my seat was now wobbly. I leaned back against them to test them. They hadn’t snapped yet, but I felt I could make that happen if I worked at them hard enough now.

“You remind me of her,” Susan whispered from behind me.

The lights came on. I squinted tight against the burn for a few seconds. I slowly opened my eyes and saw that a large mirror had been stuck up against the blank wall in front of me.

I looked back at myself with a dark wig stuck on my sandy blonde hair, a pale shade makeup and purple lip liner caked on my face a late-90s outfit of loose jeans and a jean jacket wrapped around my shoulders. I was pretty sure I recognized the jacket from Kirsten’s yearbook picture. The white makeup looked familiar. I looked like a Kirsten impersonator.

Susan stepped into the field of vision provided by the mirror. She walked up behind me and put her hands softly on my shoulders, looking like a hair stylist who is about to ask “how does it look?” After a haircut.

“I couldn’t help but think it once you walked into my house. I can see why Luke had such an attraction to both of you,” Susan said, locking eyes with me in the mirror.

I looked off Susan’s eyes and leaned back in the chair, felt those back wooden legs flex just a little bit. It would only take one hard lean to snap them and make an attempt at a bolt.

“He may have taken her from me, but he can’t take you,” Susan whispered into my ear.

I put all of my weight against the back legs of the chair. The wooden pegs gave out and threw me hard against the floor. I grabbed hold of Susan’s coarse hair on my way down and dragged her down with me.

I ripped my tied hands off of the back of the chair and pulled Susan’s frail neck into my chest with a strength I had never felt come out of me. I squeezed Susan’s neck as hard as I could until I could feel the bones in her neck flex just like the pegs of the chair had below me.

“You’re going to let me go right now,” I whispered into Susan’s ear. “You deserved whatever happened to you. Luke told me what you were doing to Kirsten. You’re not a victim.”

“That’s not true,” Susan gasped out.

“Cut these ropes off of me,” I screamed into Susan’s ear.

“You gotta let me move my arms,” Susan yelped out from the vice grip of my squeeze.

I let Susan’s arms get clear just enough to move, but to where she could only make a small range of motions. I felt her pull something hard from her pocket. I looked down and saw a thick pair of scissors.

“Cut me loose,” I screamed into her ear.

“You think I’m bad...you don’t even know about him,” Susan muttered under her breath.

“What”? I fired back.

Susan didn’t answer. She just silently sniped the rope that tied my wrists together.

I recoiled from Susan and stood in front of her. I snatched the scissors away from her and went to work on the rope around my ankles.

“What are you talking about?” I asked as I ripped away the rope around my ankles.

“You’ll find out,” Susan muttered.

I pushed Susan away from me. I didn’t have time for whatever she was trying to do.

I saw a flight of wooden stairs at the other end of the room. I ran at them as fast as I could, leaving Susan crumpled on the cement floor behind me.

I pushed the door at the top of the stairs open and burst into what looked like a barn. The thick smell of hay and musty animal feces overwhelmed me once I stepped out of the basement I had been held in.

I didn’t have time to analyze where I was anymore. I just ran straight forward until I found another door and opened it up.

The hot sting of a summer day said hi when I opened the door. I looked around and saw a rural backyard lined with dense forests of trees which formed a U around a pale yellow farmhouse. It was a beautiful, quaint setting for the most-horrifying event of my life.

Little did I know at the moment, that dash through the backyard would only be the beginning of the horrors I was going to experience. I was only a few strides into my run across the grass when I heard a frantic clicking sound ring into my ear and felt myself get flung high up into the air.

I hung in the air for a few seconds feeling weightless. I looked down and saw a crude crater in the ground where I just was. An ugly scar on the otherwise beautiful grass. I tried to form an idea around what had happened, but couldn’t before I fell hard back to the earth.

I felt footsteps approach me from the direction of the house as my ears rang. I looked up at the sky until my view was overtaken by the face of an elderly man who I vaguely recognized for a few seconds before I went out.

It was Susan’s husband, Kirsten’s dad, Dave, his face horribly weathered since that photo which rested in Susan’s living room that I saw when I made that fateful visit. He smiled at me before everything went dark.

My entire body seared with hot pain when I woke up. I felt like a piece of meat in a frying pan.. The pain was so intense I could barely breath.

I knew the feeling of a hospital bed from when I had my appendix taken out as a kid. I was all too familiar with that thudding pain which develops in your lower back when you lay down in a stiff bed for too long.

“Ugh,” I groaned.

I looked around the lonely hospital room thinking about how much whatever happened was going to cost me. Well, cost may be the least of my concerns. Nancy walked into the room before I could even buzz a nurse for some pain medication. She sat down in a chair at the foot of my bed and looked at me with a stone face.

Nancy filled in the missing pieces from the incident. She had been left at the scene of our wreck, but I had been taken away by Susan. I was taken to a farmhouse Susan and her husband owned outside of the city where I was held with Luke. The story Susan told me about her husband being dead was fabricated. He was alive and well and was a doomsday prepper out in the sticks with a yard filled with homemade landmines, one of which I was unlucky enough to step on.

Stepping on the mine was actually a stroke of luck though. The neighbors were always on red alert for one of Dave’s land mines going off so they called the cops the second they heard one explode and ran over seconds after to find me knocked out in the yard, scaring Dave back into the house. It actually probably saved my life.

Luke wasn’t so lucky. He was still missing. Luke’s mom was pushing to get Susan and her husband arrested for taking Luke, or killing Luke, she wasn’t really sure, and kidnapping me for a period of time. She needed me to talk to the police to tell them what happened.

I agreed, but I just needed to heal up in the hospital for a few days. Luke’s mom was pleased. She said officers would be by soon to take my story right before she left.

It has been a day now and officers have not yet been by. However, something came by this morning that has given me alarm. It is probably just a coincidence, but a heaping piece of seemingly-homemade peach pie was on the food stand next to my bed this morning. It smelled delicious, but I didn’t care.

I threw the thing in the trash next to my bed and pushed the button for the nurse so I could ask her to remove the basket as soon as possible.

Originally published by Thought Catalog on www.ThoughtCatalog.com.

1 note · View note