angst

I should move away from his touch. But he__ a constant storm in my life, clouding my head, ensuring I make bad decisions. He doesn__ do it on purpose, he knows we__e not good for each other, but there__ something about us that makes us fight back harder, thinking we can overcome it.

Together, they at once dodged those parts of themselves and magnified them, making for enigmatic harmony and anarchy.

I'm sorry. I didn't know what else to do," I breathed, trying hard to pretend I wasn't fazed by what just happened. "You weren't listening to me."He stared at me with intensity for several seconds. "That's an interesting way to get my attention.

Maybe he would see me as weak and stupid. Maybe he was right.

If he would see me again, I would die happy. In the meantime, I was merely dying.

When we pick up the newspaper at breakfast, we expect - we even demand - that it brings us momentous events since the night before...We expect our two-week vacations to be romantic, exotic, cheap, and effortless..We expect anything and everything. We expect the contradictory and the impossible. We expect compact cars which are spacious; luxurious cars which are economical. We expect to be rich and charitable, powerful and merciful, active and reflective, kind and competitive. We expect to be inspired by mediocre appeals for excellence, to be made literate by illiterate appeals for literacy...to go to 'a church of our choice' and yet feel its guiding power over us, to revere God and to be God. Never have people been more the masters of their environment. Yet never has a people felt more deceived and disappointed. For never has a people expected so much more than the world could offer.

God's will can go fuck itself. And so can you.

She very much feared that if she stayed with Maximus, this awful taint _ this terribly wrong act _ would, day by day, year by year, wear at her until she was no more than a ghost of her former self. She saw need when she looked into his eyes, but was there any love as well? Had she discarded Penelope__ friendship for a man who didn__, in the end, truly care fo

Her entire life, she__ been told sin was wrong, a black and white interpretation of what is evil and what is holy in the world__olored like a priest__ robe and collar__ut she never believed it to be true. Sin was colorful: scarlet like rose blood, azure like skin deprived oxygen, violet as bruises, jade as rot; a colorful contradiction to the darkness and blinding light all are taught sin and holiness to be.

When you're young, you always feel that life hasn't yet begun__hat "life" is always scheduled to begin next week, next month, next year, after the holidays__henever. But then suddenly you're old and the scheduled life didn't arrive. You find yourself asking, 'Well then, exactly what was it I was having__hat interlude__he scrambly madness__ll that time I had before?

Wow, Skye._ He kneels in front of me, ready to put one of his huge, strong hands on my knees. I recoil suddenly before I catch myself. Someone normal doesn__ react like that at the mere possibility of an innocent touch. __kay, I__ going to sit on your friend__ bed._ He does just that, his eyes locked with mine. I have the sense I__ trapped and I don__ like it. I don__ want to ever feel like that again. __ou should go,_ I say, my voice wavering and barely above a whisper.He takes a sip of his coffee absentmindedly, his eyes never leaving my face. I don__ drink mine. I don__ even feel the mug between my hands. I feel nothing besides the hammering of my heart in my chest. I__ having difficulty breathing, and my forehead and neck are sweaty under my hair.__an I say something before I go?_ he asks me in a voice calmer than he must feel if I take into account his clenched fist and the shaking of his hand holding the mug of coffee. I just nod, not sure I__ able to mutter a word through the lump in my throat. ____ not the enemy. I__ not the kind of guy who would try to hurt you more when I know you__e already hurting, but I__ someone willing to hear you and understand you. I want to be able to help.

Damn it! Are you so stupid you don't know what I'm going to do to you?"Her eyes bore into his without flinching. "Are you so stupid you haven't figured out yet that it doesn't matter?

Fuck 'em. Call it whatever you want. Maybe it's just two people clinging to each other to stay alive. Maybe sometimes that's all love gets to be. And, maybe, if they hold onto each other long enough . . . maybe something good finally happens.

If you needed revenge, you__e got it. Every minute that I__ with you knowing that you__e not mine is like hydrochloric acid in a razor cut.

Don't ask the world to stop moving because you have doubts.

A united front announcing a split.

Tasting what could have been__hat should have been__idn't make it easier.

You are a soldier. A fighter. And now you must fight. Not for the emperor, not for France . . . but for yourself.