Reblog If A Boy Quotes

With a nod, she was gone. Wulfgar watched her disappear back down the corridor, not so determined to have this fight now, without knowing that Catti-brie would be safe behind him. "What if the gray ones have reinforcements near?" he asked Bruenor. "What of Catti-brie? She will be blocked from returning to us." "No whinin', boy!" Bruenor snapped, ~ R.A. Salvatore

Pretty,eh?"
I jumped a foot. "Nonna!"
She was standing in my doorway, beaming like a demented gnome. "For your underwater dance."
"It looks like....a toga."
"Toga," she sniffed as she stalked across the room to lift the dress from its hanger, "is for boys at silly parties. This is for a goddess." She held it up to me. "You will be Salacia, Roman goddess of water."
It still looked like a toga, and not a very big one, although it did almost reach the floor. My legs would be covered, which was all well and good, except that, other than going a little too long without defuzzing, I didn't have much of a problem with my legs. I did know this wasn't going to work. I just had no idea at the moment how I was going to make it not happen.
"This is awfully...pagan of you, Nonna."
She rolled her eyes. "Ai, sixteen, with the smart mouth and such certainty. You think I just read the Bible? A goddess, she has more fun than a saint."
"Nonna!"
"Ah!" She poked me in the center of the chest with her middle finger. "Fun, si, but a bad end if she thinks to hold the heart of a boy who wants only to play. Salacia, she let Neptune chase her and chase her and prove his heart was true."
I didn't argue. My grasp of Greco-Roman mythology is shaky at best, and derived mostly from the Percy Jackson books. I had my doubts about Neptune's heart, but figured it would only be smart-assy to mention that to my grandmother. ~ Melissa Jensen

Why do I feel bad about leaving him behind?

I liked it better when I just wanted to key his car to feel good.

He's like Anna. Once they're in your life, you just adapt to their creepy ways and start to find the weird charm in them. Damn him for making me miss her, and damn him for worming his way into the part of my mind that makes me worry about him.

"Are you going to be okay?" I ask when the knocking gets really obnoxious.

He groans.

"Only if you make her stop before I have to kill her and really piss Arion off."

With that, I remember Damien is also a monster, and I turn and head off with the assurance he's a big boy who can take care of himself, even when he looks sad, miserable, and a little lonely. ~ Kristy Cunning

You've got your mother in a whirl, she's not sure if your a boy or a girl. ~ David Bowie

Only children can get spoiled. You have to have at least two. Siblings are important. And if we start with two boys, we have to have a girl because brothers should have a sister. But if we start with two girls, we have to go for a boy because sisters should have a brother. I always wanted a brother. A son of my father would have been able to beat the shit out of boyfriends that broke my heart. I wouldn't have had to resort to cookie dough and it would have saved Scott a lot of money in divorce attorneys, seeing as he'd still be in a coma. I stopped ~ Kristen Ashley

But if you didn't have more urgent things to do after supper [in boot camp], you could write a letter, loaf, gossip, discuss the myriad mental shortcomings of sergeants and, dearest of all, talk about the female of the species (we became convinced that there was no such creatures, just mythology created by inflamed imaginations - one boy in our company claimed to have seen a girl, over at regimental headquarters; he was unanimously judged a liar and a braggart). ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Are you planning on asking my daughter's permission to ravish me as I deserve? If so, please take heed when she informs you that I am lonely and need a woman in my life. She's been nagging me for the last five years to find one."
"In your dreams, bat boy. ~ Katie MacAlister

If I was president, of course I'd want an amendment banning boy bands, but it just wouldn't be right, and I wouldn't do it. Then again ... I don't want to paint myself into a corner on this one. Let me think about it. ~ Jessi Klein

Just FYI," Lenny says, his face still red from the nasty sunburn. "I've got a shitload of condoms in my duffle. Front pocket."
"For what?"
"Listen if you don't know what condoms are for I'm not gonna teach you."
"I know what they're for, shithead. I just highly doubt you're getting any ass on this trip."
"Watch me," Lenny says. "My boy gets action all the time."
"Yeah, I bet your right hand is tired from all that action" I mumble as I walk to the bathroom. "I'm a leftie!" Lenny calls after me.
I try not to wince from thinking about it. ~ Simone Elkeles

If I had my way," Dionysus said, "I would cause your molecules to erupt in flames. We'd sweep up the ashes and be done with a lot of trouble. But Chiron seems to feel this would be against my mission at this cursed camp: to keep you little brats safe from harm."
"Spontaneous combustion is a form of harm, Mr. D," Chiron put in.
"Nonsense," Dionysus said. "Boy wouldn't feel a thing. Nevertheless, I've agreed to restrain myself. I'm thinking of turning you into a dolphin instead, sending you back to your father. ~ Rick Riordan

There was no way to kiss her like a good boy. You could start out that way, but you always ended up on the other side of the tracks. If you hated her, it didn't make any difference; it worked just the same. ~ Charles Williams

I think he's real," the boy said.
"Me, too," the girl agreed.
"Well," the mom said. "If enough folks believe in a thing, I guess it becomes real enough. Don't it? ~ Brom

Personally I have always liked boys, but if it's a girl, marvelous, because I was raised among women. ~ Paz Vega

Mr. Edwards and the Spider"

I saw the spiders marching through the air,
Swimming from tree to tree that mildewed day
In latter August when the hay
Came creaking to the barn. But where
The wind is westerly,
Where gnarled November makes the spiders fly
Into the apparitions of the sky,
They purpose nothing but their ease and die
Urgently beating east to sunrise and the sea;

What are we in the hands of the great God?
It was in vain you set up thorn and briar
In battle array against the fire
And treason crackling in your blood;
For the wild thorns grow tame
And will do nothing to oppose the flame;
Your lacerations tell the losing game
You play against a sickness past your cure.
How will the hands be strong? How will the heart endure?

A very little thing, a little worm,
Or hourglass-blazoned spider, it is said,
Can kill a tiger. Will the dead
Hold up his mirror and affirm
To the four winds the smell
And flash of his authority? It's well
If God who holds you to the pit of hell,
Much as one holds a spider, will destroy,
Baffle and dissipate your soul. As a small boy

On Windsor Marsh, I saw the spider die
When thrown into the bowels of fierce fire:
There's no long struggle, no desire
To get up on its feet and fly
It stretches out its feet
And dies. This is the sinner's last retreat;
Yes, and no ~ Robert Lowell

Count your years and you'll be ashamed to be wanting and working for exactly the same things as you wanted when you were a boy. Of this one thing make sure against your dying day - that your faults die before you do. Have done with those unsettled pleasures, which cost one dear - they do one harm after they're past and gone, not merely when they're in prospect. Even when they're over, pleasures of a depraved nature are apt to carry feelings of dissatisfaction, in the same way as a criminal's anxiety doesn't end with the commission of the crime, even if it's undetected at the time. Such pleasures are insubstantial and unreliable; even if they don't do one any harm, they're fleeting in character. Look around for some enduring good instead. And nothing answers this description except what the spirit discovers for itself within itself. A good character is the only guarantee of everlasting, carefree happiness. Even if some obstacle to this comes on the scene, its appearance is only to be compared to that of clouds which drift in front of the sun without ever defeating its light. ~ Seneca

I'd always thought that my awkwardness was a thin veil disguising the real me. The me that was funny and could write songs that touched people. The me that would one day find some beautiful, intelligent boy who'd recognize me as his soul mate. The me who was secretly pretty and stylish if only someone would lift the veil and see. But I was beginning to suspect that underneath the awkwardness there was just more awkwardness and not much else. And that would explain why I stood in a room full of people and felt like the loneliest girl in the world. ~ Sarra Manning

Even before the kids are born, you've go to make these decisions. If it's a boy, do we get him circumcised? If it's a girl, do we keep her? ~ Greg Giraldo

I'd rather I was a stray pup,' I made bold to say. And then all my fears broke my voice as I added, "You wouldn't let them do this to a stray pup, changing everything all at once. When they gave the bloodhound puppy to Lord Grimsby, you sent your old shirt with it, so it would have something that smelled of home until it settle in.'
'Well,' he said, "I didn't ... come here, fitz. Come here, boy.'
And puppy-like, I went to him, the only master I had, and he thumped me lightly on the back and rumbled up my hair, very much as if I had been a hound. ~ Robin Hobb

No one falls in love anymore, silly boy. Falling in love means falling out of love. Love is an emotion that comes as quickly as it goes. But choosing to love someone. Choosing to love people is a far greater accomplishment then falling in love. When you choose to love a person, you focus your energy and your emotions to loving that person for who they are. There is no such thing as falling in love. You either want to love that person or you don't...and if you choose to love that person, you work on loving that person every day, no matter what. ~ Matthew Gillies

I don't know what you believe in. I believe we just stop. Because if we move on to an afterlife, any kind of afterlife, that means there will be other people there. I'm tired of the chit chat. Oh, that is a handsome boy. He takes after his grandfather. Did they change the breakfast again? It tastes different to me.
For Eternity? No thanks. ~ Joey Comeau

As a player, it says everything about you if you made the Hall of Fame. But, then again, boy ... there's something about winning a Super Bowl. ~ Terry Bradshaw

Sixsmith,

Eva. Because her name is a synonym for temptation: what treads nearer to the core of man? Because her soul swims in her eyes. Because I dream of creeping through the velvet folds to her room, where I let myself in, hum her a tune so-so-so softly, she stands with her naked feet on mine, her ear to my heart, and we waltz like string puppets. After that kiss, she says, "Vous embrassez comme un poisson rouge!" and in moonlight mirrors we fall in love with our youth and beauty. Because all my life, sophisticated, idiotic women have taken it upon themselves to understand me, to cure me, but Eva knows I'm terra incognita and explores me unhurriedly, like you did. Because she's lean as a boy. Because her scent is almonds, meadow grass. Because if I smile at her ambition to be an Egyptologist, she kicks my shin under the table. Because she makes me think about something other than myself. Because even when serious she shines. Because she prefers travelogues to Sir Walter Scott, prefers Billy Mayerl to Mozart, and couldn't tell C major from a sergeant major. Because I, only I, see her smile a fraction before it reaches her face. Because Emperor Robert is not a good man - his best part is commandeered by his unperformed music - but she gives me that rarest smile, anyway. Because we listened to nightjars. Because her laughter spurts through a blowhole in the top of her head and sprays all over the morning. Because a man like me has no business with this substance "be ~ David Mitchell

Watch your language, if you don't mind."
What a lady, boy. A queen, for Chrissake. ~ J.D. Salinger

If you ask a boy, 'How did that make you feel?' he very often won't know how to respond. He'll talk instead about what he did or plans to do about the problem. Some boys don't even have the words for their feelings--sad or angry or ashamed--for instance. A large part of our work with boys and men is to help them understand their emotional life and develop an emotional vocabulary. ~ Dan Kindlon

You wouldnt knew a good thing if came up and slit your throat! ~ Fall Out Boy

So it hadn't been wrong or dishonest of her to say no this morning, when he asked if she hated him, any more than it had been wrong or dishonest to serve him the elaborate breakfast and to show the elaborate interest in his work, and to kiss him goodbye. The kiss, for that matter, had been exactly right - a perfectly fair, friendly kiss, a kiss for a boy you'd just met at a party, a boy who'd danced with you and made you laugh and walked you home afterwards, talking about himself all the way.

The only real mistake, the only wrong and dishonest thing, was ever to have seen him as anything more than that. Oh, for a month or two, just for fun, it might be all right to play a game like that with a boy; but all these years! And all because, in a sentimentally lonely time long ago, she had found it easy and agreeable to believe whatever this one particular boy felt like saying, and to repay him for that pleasure by telling easy, agreeable lies of her own, until each was saying what the other most wanted to hear - until he was saying "I love you" and she was saying "Really, I mean it; you're the most interesting person I've ever met." What a subtle, treacherous thing it was to let yourself go that way! Because once you'd started it was terribly difficult to stop; soon you were saying "I'm sorry, of course you're right," and "Whatever you think is best," and "You're the most wonderful and valuable thing in the world," and the next thing you knew all honesty, all truth, was ~ Richard Yates

Wait", Butch said, thinking about the glymera. "Marissa's mated now, right? I mean, even if I die, she will have had a mate right?"
"Death wish," V said under his breath. "Fucking Death Wish Boy we got over here."
The Scribe Virgin seemed flat-out amazed "I should kill you now. ~ J.R. Ward

Don't put your wand there, boy!" roared Moody. "What if it ignited? Better wizards than you have lost buttocks, you know!" "Who d'you know who's lost a buttock?" the violet-haired woman asked Mad-Eye interestedly. "Never you mind, you just keep your wand out of your back pocket!" growled Mad-Eye. "Elementary wand safety, nobody bothers about it anymore . . ." He stumped off toward the kitchen. "And I saw that," he added irritably, as the woman rolled her eyes at the ceiling. ~ J.K. Rowling

Still, I could tell he and Gayle were trying. She baked a cake. Not as good as yours, though."
"What kind of cake?" I ask.
"Devil's food cake. Kind of dry." Peter hesitates before he says, "I invited him to graduation."
"You did?" My heart swells.
"He kept asking about school, and…I don't know. I thought about what you said, and I just did it." He shrugs, like he doesn't care much either way if his dad's there or not. It's an act. Peter cares. Of course he cares. "So you'll meet him then."
I snuggle closer to him. "I'm so proud of you, Peter."
He gives a little laugh. "For what?"
"For giving your dad a chance even though he doesn't deserve it." I look up at him and say, "You're a nice boy, Peter K.," and the smile that breaks across his face makes me love him even more. ~ Jenny Han

i get why manufacturers play to pink- it makes good business sense. A marketing executive i spoke with at LeapFrog which is based in Emeryville, California, told me that her company even had a name for it> the pink factor.
If you make a pink baseball bat, parents will buy one for their daughter, she explained. then if they subsequently have a son, they'll have to buy a second bat in a different color. Or, if they have a boy first and then a daughter, they'll want to buy a pink one for their precious little girl. Either way, you double the sales. ~ Peggy Orenstein

People say that about me, that I apparently buy houses near every boy I like - that's a thing that I apparently do. If I like you I will apparently buy up the real-estate market just to freak you out so you leave me. ~ Taylor Swift

See, what we call God depends upon our tribe, Clark Jo, 'cause God is tribal. God takes sides. No man in the sky intervened when I was a boy to deliver me from Daddy's fist and abominations. I figured out way back if God is all-powerful, He cannot be all good. And if He is all good, then He cannot be all-powerful. ~ Lex Luthor, Batman V Superman

Except for a handful, chess players don't have such illusions. The game has a severe analytic quality that makes self-deception difficult. Unlike the undiscovered poet who, despite the harsh criticism of his peers, lives on his fantasies for the day that he will be recognized as the next Dylan Thomas, even a young chess player can usually gauge his talent. When Josh was six, he played several games against a pudgy thirteen-year-old who was the top player on his high school team. He beat Josh every time, but a couple of the games were close, and afterwards the boy seemed gloomy about his performance. He explained that if he didn't make significant improvement during the next year, he would wind up as just another wood-pusher. Despite his celebrity in school, he seemed to know that he didn't have it. While ~ Fred Waitzkin

While I was looking into Olivia's mad eyes and dreaming, my son left his game and his place by the fire. I didn't even notice as he went toward what I had thought was a bundle of rags. I didn't notice as he turned it over and drew back the blanket, lifted it carefully in his small arms.
I only noticed when he spoke.
"Look, Daddy!"
Then, too late, I turned around. I did not know what I was seeing, but even then I felt a sudden lurch of shock and dread. I felt as if I had looked away at a crucial moment and my child had fallen into the fire and been burned horribly.
I saw my son, my Alan, my darling boy, and in his arms a creature with staring, terrible black eyes. Something that had not stirred or cried out even when Olivia threw it on the floor.
"Daddy," Alan said, glowing. "It's a baby. ~ Sarah Rees Brennan

I put on my sunglasses and start to sing "Sixteen Going on Seventeen" from The Sound of Music. "You need someone older and wiser, telling you what to do." I tap him on the nose for emphasis.
"Hey, I'm older than you," he objects.
I run my hand along Peter's cheek and sing, "I am seventeen going on eighteen, I-I-I'll take care of you."
"Promise?" he says.
"Sing it just once for me," I prompt. Peter gives me a look. "Please? I love it when you sing. Your voice is so clean."
He can't help but smile. Peter never met a compliment he didn't smile at. "I don't know the words," he protests.
"Yes you do." I pretend to wave a wand in his face. "Imperio! Wait--do you know what that means?"
"It's…an unforgivable curse?"
"Yes. Very impressive, Peter K. And what does it do?"
"It makes you do things you don't want to do."
"Very good, young wizard. There's hope for you yet. Now sing!"
"You little witch." He looks around to see if anyone is listening, and then he softly sings, "I need someone older and wiser telling me what to do…You are seventeen going on eighteen…I'll depend on you."
I clap my hands in delight. Is there anything more intoxicating than making a boy bend to your will? I roll closer to him and throw my arms around his neck.
"Now you're the one making PDAs!" he says. ~ Jenny Han

If she'd had any doubts he was a real deal country boy, they disappeared when he unabashedly stripped down to nothing - the sun had kissed his arms to mid-bicep, although his torso wasn't without a faint tan. She'd thought lazily that maybe he had a pond. She'd like to go skinny dipping with him. Leap onto his back and wrap her legs around his lean hips. Hold on to his broad shoulders and press her naked breasts into his back and drift into the cool water together.
As he opened his button-fly jeans, revealing snug briefs underneath, she'd whispered for him to stop. He was hard and sinewy in all the right places, with shadows and valleys she wanted to explore with her mouth and hands and eyes, but her touch first went to the line where dark faded to light on his arm, neatly following the curve of his muscles. Nice farmer's tan. ~ Zoe York

I didn't just want to be a poster boy and sign on to publicize somebody else's method of operations. If I was going to put myself out there, I wanted to make sure that it was to an end. So I got involved with this congressional hearing about Parkinson's being underfunded. ~ Michael J. Fox

These fires go out but the coals don't. If this isn't ended it will be just around the corner everyday of his life. And if you don't let a boy become a man, it's no one's fault but your own when you're still wiping his ass when he should be making you grandchildren. ~ Brian McGreevy

Miss Annie, is it wrong for me to believe it was Jesus who asked my forgiveness?" I asked her.
She frowned and shook her head, "Lord, what do they teach you at that school?" she said. Then she faced me head-on. "Did God humble himself by becoming a man?" she asked, every word spoken more loudly than the one before.
"Yes, ma'am," I said. I'd never used the word ma'am before, but it seemed an excellent time to start.
"Did he humble himself by dying on the cross to show us how much he loved us? she asked, waving her spatula at me.
My eyes widened and I nodded, yes.
Miss Annie's body relaxed, and she put her hand on her hip. "So why wouldn't Jesus humble himself and tell a boy he was sorry for letting him down if he knew it would heal his heart?" she asked.
"But if Jesus is perfect
"
Miss Annie ambled the five or six feet that separated us and took my hand. "Son," she said, rubbing my knuckles with her thumb, "love always stoops. ~ Ian Morgan Cron

Ryodan doesn't like Mac. He never has. She got between him and his best boy-bud. I give him a look. "I'll tell you a secret, Ryodan. You mess with her, Barrons'll kill you." I drag a finger across my neck. "Just like that. You aren't all that. Barrons'll stomp your ass, hand's down."

He smiles faintly. "I'll be damned. You have a crush on Barrons."

"I do not have a crush - "

"You do, too. It's all over your face. Anybody could see it."

"Sometimes, boss, you're just wrong."

"I'm never wrong. You might as well take out a billboard. 'Dani O'Malley thinks Jericho Barrons is hot.' My offer to teach you is still open. Save you from future embarrassment. If I can see it on your face, he can, too. "

"He never figured it out before," I grumble then realize I just admitted it. Ryodan has a tricky way of wording things that makes you say things you didn't mean to say. "Maybe I'll ask Barrons to teach me," I mutter and turn away from the stairs, heading for his office. I run smack into his chest. "Dude, move. Trying to get somewhere here."

"No one but me is ever going to teach you, Dani."

He touches me before I see it coming, has his hand under my chin, turning my face up. My shiver is instant and uncontrollable.

"That's non-negotiable. You signed a contract with me that grants exclusivity. You won't like it if you try to break it. ~ Karen Marie Moning

26. The will of nature may be learned from those things in which we don't distinguish from each other. For example, when our neighbor's boy breaks a cup, or the like, we are presently ready to say, "These things will happen." Be assured, then, that when your own cup likewise is broken, you ought to be affected just as when another's cup was broken. Apply this in like manner to greater things. Is the child or wife of another dead? There is no one who would not say, "This is a human accident." but if anyone's own child happens to die, it is presently, "Alas I how wretched am I!" But it should be remembered how we are affected in hearing the same thing concerning others. ~ Epictetus

There was more than one Cabeswater. Or more than one of whatever it was. How many? He didn't know. How alive was it? He didn't know that, either. Did it THINK, was it an alien, did it die, was it good, was it right? He didn't know. But he knew there was more than one, and this one stretched its fingers out as hard as it could to reach the other. The enormity of the enormity of the world grew and grew inside Adam, and he didn't know if he could hold it. He was just a boy. Was he meant to know this? They had transformed Henrietta already by waking this ley line and strengthening Cabeswater. What would a world look like with more forests woken all over it? Would it tear itself apart with crackling energy and magic, or was this a pendulum swing, a result of hundreds of years of sleep? How many kings slept? ~ Maggie Stiefvater

An actual date with a boy. This is possibly, definitely the number one best thing that's ever happened to me. And I have no chill about it. None whatsoever. ~ Becky Albertalli

How can you go wrong with two people in love? If a good boy loves a good girl, good. If a good boy loves another good boy, good. And if a good girl loves the goodness in good boys and good girls, then all you have is more goodness, and goodness has nothing to do with sexual orientation. ~ Fiona Apple

Sadness has always been a part of me. That's why my eyes look sad. Sadness hovers over my life and never leaves me. It knows all the places where I go to. And it finds me. Sometimes I do feel happy. And life looks beautiful. But these moments don't stay as long as I want them to. And sadness visits me all over again. Sometimes I feel sad when there may not be any reason to be sad.

Sadness has stayed with me throughout my school and college days. While my friends in those days preferred listening to rock and roll, I preferred listening to ghazals or sad or deeply meaningful songs. I was never the most popular boy at school. I had a few friends but I would be brooding alone most often. I wanted to know the meaning of life. I would most often stare at the sky and try look for answers. I somehow felt someone will speak to me from the sky.

I have always felt a voice talking to me from the sky. But I feel lonely most often. I feel as if no one really loves anyone. There is no real love. The majority of people in this world believe in give and take. No person loves anyone unconditionally. When I realise this, I feel utterly sad. Because life is not about projecting an image. It is much more than that. It is about being authentic with ourselves and with others we meet in life. ~ Avijeet Das

All my life, to this day, the memory of my childhood remains grim and incoherent. If I close my eyes and think back, I see little except violence and fear. In those early years, I somehow came to understand I would have to draw from within myself whatever emotional resources I needed to go wherever I was headed. As a result, for years, I became a boy who lived almost totally within himself. ~ Burgess Meredith

It used to be that you could get a lot of recognition by writing about Canada, as long as it was about small towns and nature.'
'Really?'
'Yeah. You could have canoes and the prairies or, also, sad women, very sad women who were fat or whose husbands had left them or something. There was a lady who wrote about fucking a bear, which was like a union with the land. There was a lady who wrote about mystical experiences she had at a cottage in northern Ontario. I was never sure what that was about. They were very important at one time, very stern and important. I had to study them in school. Anyway, he was one of them. He concentrated on the prairies, with a lot of native names, and wise native people, like there's a young boy with an Ojibway grandmother who will teach him the ways of the forest, sort of thing, and there's a lot of history, like a lot of the Riel rebellion for example.'
'The what?'
'History. And there's a lot of disaster, on the prairies, like people having to rebuild their sod houses after floods and so on.'
They drove on the humming highway for a while.
Then Nicola said, 'So you haven't answered my question.'
'What question?'
'Do you think he's any good?'
'Oh. The thing is... it's not, it doesn't matter. It's important. So it doesn't matter if I think it's good or not.'
'Okay. So it doesn't matter. So I'm asking you. What you think. Do. You. Think. It's. Good.' She slapped her bare thigh.
James paused for a ~ Russell Smith

The boy, on the other hand, was a menace, in his father's eyes. He could DO THINGS, as he'd overheard it being described to his mother. He was dangerous. He had made a lightning bolt appear, for goodness' sake, like he was Thor himself. If he could do that, what more was he capable of? ~ Vrinda Pendred

I realize belatedly that sending sharks to the aid of humans is a stupid idea. When one of the men tries to kick a tiger shark in the eye-and how could I blame him?-I tell the sharks to retreat. They've done all they can do, and I won't let them be abused for their efforts.
After a few more minutes, I see a small, chubby pair of legs struggling nearby. The owner of the legs can't be older than a toddler. I scoop him up and keep him at the surface. He's adorable really, with rounded cheeks and a snotty nose and brown eyes with lashes that would make a supermodel jealous. Close to us, a woman who I assume is his mother is crying frantically and calling out to the empty waves around her. I swim him over to her and deliver the little guy into her arms. "He swallowed a good part of the ocean, but otherwise he'll be fine," I tell her, knowing that she doesn't understand.
She clutches him to her and trembles. I swim two life jackets over to her and help her strap them on to her and the baby boy. She nods, and despite the language barrier, I can tell that she's thanking me. Which makes me feel like zoo dirt, since I helped put her and her child in this predicament. If she knew that, she would probably be trying to choke the life from me. And I would probably let her. ~ Anna Banks