reunion

Adrian tipped my face up toward his and kissed me. Like always, the world around me stopped moving. No, the world became Adrian, only Adrian. Kissing him was as mind-blowing as ever, full of that same passion and need I had never believed I__ feel. But today, there was even more to it. I no longer had any doubt about whether this was wrong or right. It was a culmination of a long journey . . . or maybe the beginning of one.I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him closer. I didn__ care that we were out in public. I didn__ care that he was Moroi. All that mattered was that he was Adrian, my Adrian. My match. My partner in crime, in the long battle I__ just signed on for to right the wrongs in the Alchemist and Moroi worlds. Maybe Marcus was right that I__ also signed myself up for disaster, but I didn__ care. In that moment, it seemed that as long as Adrian and I were together, there was no challenge too great for us.I don__ know how long we stood there kissing. Like I said, the world around me was gone. Time had stopped. I was awash in the feel of Adrian__ body against mine, in his scent, and in the taste of his lips. That was all that mattered right now.

I could stand before him, be in his arms as I was just then, and still be lost to him, some phantom of a desire he cherished more than he cherished me, the woman he claimed to love.

Anyone else would have probably stayed put---or at least looked deeply uncomfortable, but Frank seemed like he was taking this in stride, like helping to reunite friends was just a normal thing he did.

Social media is like reunion, but the catching up is done through the comfort of your own bed. Scrolling through photos and statuses are too easy to not be done. You know about their social life and where they__e been last weekend. Then you wonder why they have such flawless hair and make up. How could they look so effortlessly awesome?

Farewell, my dearest. You have but gone ahead...but I shall follow, and run, at last, again into your arms...and laugh away the years that came between.

Their tongues met, starving, two years without this delicious meal. They kissed and kissed and kissed. The joining of their mouths was more intense than that night on the ferry. This was a kiss of reunion. Of forgiveness. Of coming home.

Let's just be fabulously where we are and who we are. You be you and I'll be me, today and today and today, and let's trust the future to tomorrow. Let the stars keep track of us. Let us ride our own orbits and trust that they will meet. May our reunion be not a finding but a sweet collision of destinies!

I have drunk the night and swallowed the stars. I am dancing with abandon and singing with rapture. There is not a thing I do not love. There is not a person I have not forgiven. I feel a universe of love. I feel a universe of light. Tonight, I am with old friends and we are returning home. The moon is our witness.

I close my eyes, thinking that there is nothing like an embrace after an absence, nothing like fitting my face into the curve of his shoulder and filling my lungs with the scent of him.

It__ been a long time since they__ been together, but as close as they were physically, they__ never been so far apart in every other way.

I was delighted to see you again, and forgot for the moment that all happiness is fleeting.

The little white bundle__oddling dutifully down the hall to the front door__roze. Then a high-pitched scream as he began to run as fast as he could (which was not very fast at all, any more) and Boris__hooping with laughter__ropped to his knees.__h!_ snatching him up, as Popchik wriggled and struggled. __ou got fat! He got fat!_ he said indignantly as Popchik jumped up and kissed him on the face. __ou let him get fat! Yes, hello, poustyshka, little bit of fluff you, hello! You remember me, don__ you?_ He had toppled over on his back, stretched out and laughing, as Popchik__till screaming with joy__umped all over him. __e remembers me!

As he moves through his day, sometimes he stops and just stares at me. There is something on the tip of his tongue. But he doesn't say it. I'm not sure he knows what it is.

Afghanistan changed him, but Iraq sculpted him.

There is no indication that God explained to Joseph what He was doing through those many years of heartache or how the pieces would eventually fit together. He had no ways of knowing that he would eventually enjoy a triumphal reunion with his family. He was expected, as you and I are, to live out his life one day at a time in something less than complete understanding. What pleased God was Joseph__ faithfulness when nothing made sense.

We are all lost, so lost, vulnerable and insecure. We are separated from love at birth, we are separated from God, from each other. All we want, all we yearn for is to connect.

We wander in our thousands over theface of the earth, the illustrious and the obscure, earning beyond theseas our fame, our money, or only a crust of bread; but it seems to methat for each of us going home must be like going to render an account.

We wander in our thousands over theface of the earth, the illustrious and the obscure, earning beyond theseas our fame, our money, or only a crust of bread; but it seems to methat for each of us going home must be like going to render an account.We return to face our superiors, our kindred, our friends--those whom weobey, and those whom we love; but even they who have neither, the mostfree, lonely, irresponsible and bereft of ties,--even those for whomhome holds no dear face, no familiar voice,--even they have to meet thespirit that dwells within the land, under its sky, in its air, in itsvalleys, and on its rises, in its fields, in its waters and its trees--amute friend, judge, and inspirer.