The healing process is best described as a spiral. Survivors go through the stages once, sometimes many times; sometimes in one order, sometimes in another. Each time they hit a stage again, they move up the spiral: they can integrate new information...
There were days when I still put on make up in case you’d come back, but I wear the same clothes and shower in the rain and eat when I can and sleep when I can, which is rare and not often, so if you’d see me now on these streets where I once ima...
You have to study and learn so that you can make up your own mind. Stock your mind, stock your mind. It is your house of treasure and no one in the world can interfere with it. If you won the Irish Sweepstakes and bought a house that needed furniture...
A teenage girl lay asleep on the sofa, curled up under a red-and-black knitted afghan. She was on her side, with one slender arm cradling a throw cushion nestled under her head. Long wavy blond hair spread across her back and her shoulders like a cap...
In 1935, when there were no other programs, the founders of AA, Bill Wilson and Dr. Robert Smith, stepped up to the plate and took action to help a crippled population. All credit for the establishment of their wonderful, life-saving group goes to th...
She was a large, boneless woman who draped herself like an old blanket over the chairs of the apartment, staring for hours with her gray eyes at ghosts, figments, recollections, and dust caught in oblique sunbeams, her arms streaked and pocked like r...
Acheron kissed her lightly on the cheek. "Rest. We'll be back when he needs you." He watched her climb into bed before he took his nephew down to his room. "Well, it appears to be just the two of us, little one. What say you we get naked, drunk and f...
I don’t know. You’ll have to ask him yourself.” She sat up enough to look him in the eye. “I am not talking to your…your…” “Mighty throbbing manhood?” “Briec.” “That which brings you much delirious pleasure?” “Briec.” �...
If I had a bad day, which, now that I ran my own life, was a helluva lot less than the old days, I sat on the floor with Houdini, placed a hand on his broad head, and soaked up endless doggy wonder. A full stomach, a well-chewed toy, a soft couch—t...
After a long time, I cleared my throat. “So anyway, when we get to Nevada...I think we should rethink your dad’s rule.” Alex glanced down at me and smiled – the first real smile I’d seen on his face in a long time. “You know what? It’s ...
But baseball was different. Schwartz thought of it as Homeric - not a scrum but a series of isolated contests. Batter versus pitcher, fielder versus ball. You couldn't storm around, snorting and slapping people, the way Schwartz did while playing foo...
Once," Balinda begins softly, "when I was in the emergency room with my mother they brought in a murderer who had been shot and was dying, right there in front of us. I watched as the nurse touched his face and reassured him and I could not believe t...
Beside us lies a fair-headed recruit in utter terror. He has buried his face in his hands, his helmet has fallen off. I fish hold of it and try to put it back on his head. He looks up, pushes the helmet off and like a child creeps under my arm, his h...
It is very odd to be standing in a locked room in the Penitentiary, speaking with a strange man about France and Italy and Germany. A travelling man. He must be a wanderer, like Jeremiah the peddler. But Jeremiah travelled to earn his bread, and thes...
This is one hell of a suicide note. THE SUICIDE SOLILOQUY- Yes! I've resolved the deed to do, And this the place to do it; The heart I'll rush a dagger through Though I in hell should rue it! Sweet steel! Come forth from out your sheath, And glist'ni...
Breathless I look up at him and find him gazing at me with a wonder that my deep-seated insecurity finds hard to believe. Then he does this thing. His fingers start moving on my face, tracing outlines. They trail along my eyebrows, the ridge of my no...
The moment you stop smoking, everything that goes wrong in your life is blamed on the fact that you’ve stopped smoking. Now when you have a mental block, instead of just getting on with it you start to say, ‘If only I could light up now, it would...
Here’s the thing about falling for someone who’s already given up; there’s no promise of tomorrow. There aren’t any words of comfort that can be said, no glimpse of a positive change. Every moment, every thought could be their last. It’s li...
I want to kiss you.” Jace’s whisper pulled me from my thoughts and I glanced up to find his eyes blazing with raw need. “Just because Marc won’t touch you doesn’t mean I shouldn’t. Right? I don’t have that kind of self-control, and hone...
The two men's eyes widened when they saw me charging toward them. One of them dropped his hold on Grey, letting him sway dangerously over the edge. Both men reached for their guns, but it was too late. I was nearly on them. Fortiter. I slammed into G...
The best birthday present I ever got from my grandpa was a skinny black tie. It didn’t come in a bag, a box, or even rolled up in tissue paper. It came wrapped in wisdom. As soon as he gave it to me he said, “A tie would make a stronger impressio...
