#arch manning Newman High School

[bb6cats]

Uncle Peyton and Uncle Eli’s nephew, Arch Manning is on his way to play for the Texas Longhorn for his college career.  All the best and good health.

[alboo]

Many in Sooner Nation are beyond excited about our quarterback for 2024, Jackson Arnold. It is probably warranted. However, (see below)

Texas quarterback for 2024, Arch Manning, one of the most highly publicized recruits in history, really is all that. The stories and stats on him are almost perfect, like so perfect a person like this could only exist in fiction.

Many of you already know his story. He became a coveted recruit and in the spotlight during his freshman year in high school as the starting QB on the varsity team. His uncles are Peyton and Eli Manning, each of them have two super bowl rings. Arch attended the same private high school, Isidore Newman, as his uncles and broke all their records. He threw for 8,599 yards and 115 touchdowns with 20 interceptions while rushing for 1,155 yards and 25 TDs.

6'4" 220

Make all the throws - long ball (had a 60 yarder as high school freshman) great touch can throw receivers open. Can deliver with great velocity. Great anticipation, accuracy and timing on intermediate throws. Reads situation and throws the type of ball needed for that play.

Great Mechanics - and always practicing to improve them. Footwork, hip twitch...

Football IQ - off the charts. Insatiable desire to learn the game. Forget who it was that found his notes from a meeting, and were astounded on how much information he had absorbed.

Work Ethic - Beyond mechanics and mental game mentioned above. He is a gym rat, constantly lifting weights and running.

Running and scrambling - while his body is that of a prostyle quarterback he has good speed and can be elusive.

Humility- He is very hard on himself and Uber competitive. This is not how he interacted with his high school team mates. Hung out with them, one of the guys, laid back, joked around.

Steve Sarkisian is why he picked Texas. Not only great offensive mind but will develop traditional pro style quarterback. (Compare Sark to Lincoln Riley. Riley has three Heisman trophy winners, and two number one draft pics, he doesn't produce quarterbacks that are old school NFL. Riley's quarterbacks run, pull off Houdini escapes while finding open receivers.)

IMO - think he picked Texas because he was assured they would buy an offensive line that could protect him.

[winttask]

Archy manning

Archie Manning is the namesake to the latest Manning quarterback. How is Arch Manning related to Archie Manning?Īrch Manning is the oldest grandson and second-oldest grandchild of Archie Manning, a legend for both Ole Miss and the New Orleans Saints. (247Sports did not have recruiting rankings prior to 2000, the year following Eli Manning's class Peyton Manning was largely considered the top recruit of his class, though Eli held no such distinction). MORE: What Eli Holstein's commitment means for Alabama QBs, pursuit of Arch Manning 1 overall player per 247Sports' Composite rankings. Also like his uncles, Arch is one of the top players available in the country he is not only the top pro-style quarterback in the class of 2023, but also its No. Like his uncles before him, Arch is a standout quarterback at Isidore Newman High School (New Orleans). 1 overall pick in the NFL draft and win multiple Super Bowls. He will aim to follow in their footsteps: Both were college standouts (Peyton at Tennessee, Eli at Ole Miss) who went on to become the No. MORE: How Arch Manning can match Archie, Peyton and Eli's opening acts in college How is Arch Manning related to Peyton, Eli?Īrch Manning is the nephew of Peyton and Eli Manning.Īrch's relation to his uncles is partly why he has so much hype on the recruiting trail. With that, The Sporting News takes a closer look at Arch Manning's family tree, including his relations to football legends Archie, Peyton and Eli: But he has seemingly lived up to the hype as he decides where to take his talents. Having the same last name as Archie, Peyton and Eli can only create higher expectations for Arch. The prodigious quarterback is not only among the most sought-after players in his class, but also hails from one of the most prestigious families in all of football, regardless of level. Few players in the history of college football recruiting have generated the buzz that Arch Manning has.

[reportwire]

Arch Manning breaks Eli, Peyton's HS records

Arch Manning breaks Eli, Peyton’s HS records

Quarterback Arch Manning broke his high school’s records for career passing yards and touchdowns on Friday, marks previously held by his uncles, Eli and Peyton Manning. Coming into Friday’s game, Arch Manning was 110 yards away from breaking Eli’s career passing record at Isidore Newman School in New Orleans. Arch broke that mark, along with Peyton’s record of 93 career touchdowns after tossing…

[whatisthiswitchcraft]

books I read in 2019 (not including rereads, favorites are bolded!)

Come Close - Sappho

Shanghai Baby - Wei Hui

Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair - Pablo Neruda

Bad Feminist: Essays - Roxane Gay

The Mother of Black Hollywood: A Memoir - Jenifer Lewis

Sula - Toni Morrison

Reinventing the Enemy’s Language: Contemporary Native Women’s Writings of North America - ed. Joy Harjo and Gloria Bird

How to Write an Autobiographical Novel - Alexander Chee

Night Sky With Exit Wounds - Ocean Vuong

If They Come For Us - Fatimah Asghar

Heart Berries: A Memoir - Terese Marie Mailhot

Less - Andrew Sean Greer

The Astonishing Color of After - Emily X.R. Pan

Goodbye, Vitamin - Rachel Khong

Darius the Great is Not Okay - Adib Khorram

Exit West - Mohsin Hamid

Homegirls and Handgrenades - Sonia Sanchez

Heavy: An American Memoir - Keise Laymon

All You Can Ever Know - Nicole Chung

Unaccustomed Earth - Jhumpa Lahiri

The Wife Between Us - Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen

The Way You Make Me Feel - Maureen Goo

A Very Large Expanse of Sea - Tahereh Mafi

Water By the Spoonful - Quiara Alegría Hudes

I Can’t Date Jesus: Love, Sex, Family, Race, and Other Reasons I’ve Put My Faith in Beyoncé - Michael Arceneaux

Bury It - Sam Sax

White Dancing Elephants - Chaya Bhuvaneswar

Pulp - Robin Talley

Shit is Real - Aisha Franz

Silencer - Marcus Wicker

Forget Sorrow: An Ancestral Tale - Belle Yang

Bestiary: Poems - Donika Kelly

Monster Portraits - Sofia Samatar

No Matter the Wreckage - Sarah Kay

Violet Energy Ingots - Hoa Nguyen

Olio - Tyehimba Jess

The Kane Chronicles: The Serpent’s Shadow - Rick Riordan

There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé - Morgan Parker

Nylon Road: A Graphic Memoir of Coming of Age in Iran - Parsua Bashi

The Wedding Date - Jasmine Guillory

Fruit of the Drunken Tree - Ingrid Rojas Contreras

An American Marriage - Tayari Jones

Family Trust - Kathy Wang

Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture - ed. Roxane Gay

Little & Lion - Brandy Colbert

A Girl Like That - Tanaz Bhathena

Suicide Club: A Novel About Living - Rachel Heng

The Disturbed Girl’s Dictionary - NoNieqa Ramos

My Old Faithful: Stories - Yang Huang

Crazy Rich Asians - Kevin Kwan

Girls Burn Brighter - Shobha Rao

Moon of the Crusted Snow - Waubgeshig Rice

Kingdom Animalia - Aracelis Girmay

Happiness - Aminatta Forna

Devotions - Mary Oliver

The Proposal - Jasmine Guillory

The Kiss Quotient - Helen Hoang

When Katie Met Cassidy - Camille Perri

Heads of the Colored People - Nafissa Thompson-Spires

Friday Black: Stories - Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

The Word is Murder - Anthony Horowitz

Miles from Nowhere - Nami Mun

The Lost Ones - Sheena Kamal

All the Names They Used for God - Anjali Sachdeva

Confessions of the Fox - Jordy Rosenberg

Love, Loss, and What We Ate: A Memoir - Padma Lakshmi

On the Come Up - Angie Thomas

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

The Love & Lies of Rukhsana Ali - Sabina Khan

See What I Have Done - Sarah Schmitt

Convenience Store Woman - Sayaka Murata

I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter - Erika Sánchez

For Today I Am A Boy - Kim Fu

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo - Taylor Jenkins Reid

Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings - Joy Harjo

They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us - Hanif Abdurraqib

Mongrels - Stephen Graham Jones

If Beale Street Could Talk - James Baldwin

Death of Innocence: The Story of the Hate Crime that Changed America - Mamie Till-Mobley and Christopher Benson

The Gilded Wolves - Roshani Chokshi

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before - Jenny Han

The Perfect Nanny - Leila Slimani, translated by Sam Taylor

The Travelling Cat Chronicles - Hiro Arikawa, translated by Philip Gabriel

Things We Lost in the Fire - Mariana Enríquez, translated by Megan McDowell

Sunburn - Laura Lippman

The House of Impossible Beauties - Joseph Cassara

Freshwater - Akwaeke Emezi

A Private Life - Chen Ran, translated by John Howard-Gibbon

Invisible: The Forgotten Story of the Black Woman Lawyer Who Took Down America’s Most Powerful Mobster - Stephen L. Carter

Undead Girl Gang - Lily Anderson

They Both Die at the End - Adam Silvera

The Friend - Sigrid Nunez

Severance - Ling Ma

Tiny Crimes: Very Short Tales of Mystery & Murder - ed. Licoln Michel and Nadxieli Nieto

Mapping the Interior - Stephen Graham Jones

Give Me Some Truth - Eric Gansworth

How to Love a Jamaican - Alexia Arthurs

All of This is True - Lygia Day Peñaflor

Swimmer Among the Stars - Kanishk Tharoor

The Wicked + the Divine, Vol. 7: Mothering Invention - Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie

This is Kind of an Epic Love Story - Kheryn Callender

Gingerbread - Helen Oyeyemi

Where the Dead Sit Talking - Brandon Hobson

The Ensemble - Aja Gabel

My Education - Susan Choi

More Happy than Not - Adam Silvera

Nobody Cares: Essays - Anne T. Donahue

Kiss and Tell: A Romantic Résumé, Ages 0 to 22 - Marinaomi

Oculus: Poems - Sally Wen Mao

Let’s Talk About Love - Claire Kann

History is All You Left Me - Adam Silvera

Opposite of Always - Justin A. Reynolds

The Crown Ain’t Worth Much - Hanif Abdurraqib

The Weight of Our Sky - Hanna Alkaf

If You See Me, Don’t Say Hi - Neel Patel

Girls of Paper and Fire - Natasha Ngan

What if It’s Us - Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera

The Map of Salt and Stars - Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar

October Mourning: A Song for Matthew Shepard - Lesléa Newman

The Big Smoke - Adrian Matejka

Dissolve - Sherwin Bitsui

The Woman Next Door - Yewande Omotoso

The Refugees - Viet Thanh Nguyen

White Tears - Hari Kunzru

Electric Arches - Eve Ewing

The Black Maria - Aracelis Girmay

Bloodchild and Other Stories - Octavia Butler

Soft Science - Franny Choi

The White Card - Claudia Rankine

Mad Honey Symposium - Sally Wen Mao

The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls - Anissa Gray

Next: New Poems - Lucille Clifton

The Marvelous Arithmetics of Distance: Poems 1987-1992 - Audre Lorde

Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea: Poems and Not Quite Poems - Nikki Giovanni

The Arab of the Future - Riad Sattouf

Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago’s South Side - Eve L. Ewing

Gruel - Bunkong Tuon

Marriage of a Thousand Lies - SJ Sindu

Parable of the Sower - Octavia Butler

Good Night, Willie Lee, I’ll See You in the Morning - Alice Walker

That Kind of Mother - Rumaan Alam

Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows - Balli Kaur Jaswal

Hera Lindsay Bird - Hera Lindsay Bird

Queenie - Candice Carty-Williams

And Still I Rise - Maya Angelou

The Man Who Shot Out My Eye Is Dead - Chanelle Benz

Everyone Knows You Go Home - Natalia Sylvester

Naming Our Destiny: New and Selected Poems - June Jordan

The 100* Best African American Poems (*But I Cheated) - ed. Nikki Giovanni

The Haunting of Tram Car 015 - P. Djèlí Clark

Bury My Clothes - Roger Bonair-Agard

Selected Poems - Langston Hughes

Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston

Sonata Mulattica - Rita Dove

Winnie - Gwendolyn Brooks

Bicycles: Love Poems - Nikki Giovanni

The Black God’s Drums -  P. Djèlí Clark

Kid Gloves: Nine Months of Careful Chaos - Lucy Knisley

Annie Allen - Gwendolyn Brooks

Parable of the Talents  - Octavia Butler

After Disasters - Viet Dinh

Passing for Human: A Graphic Memoir - Liana Finck

Teeth - Aracelis Girmay

A Surprised Queenhood in the New Black Sun: The Life & Legacy of Gwendolyn Brooks - Angela Jackson

Peluda - Melissa Lozada-Oliva

A Map to the Next World - Joy Harjo

Magical Negro - Morgan Parker

Corpse Whale - dg nanouk okpik

Hawkeye: Volume 1 - Matt Fraction

Cenzontle - Marcelo Hernandez Castillo

Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric - Claudia Rankine

Selected Poems - Gwendolyn Brooks

She Had Some Horses - Joy Harjo

The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hope - ed. Kevin Coval, Quraysh Ali Lansana, and Nate Marshall

Beyond Uhura: Star Trek and Other Memories - Nichelle Nichols

The Past and Other Things that Should Stay Buried - Shaun David Hutchinson

Difficult Women - Roxane Gay

The Woman Who Fell From the Sky - Joy Harjo

The Collected Schizophrenias: Essays - Esmé Weijun Wang

Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to A Tribe Called Quest - Hanif Abdurraqib

The Frolic of the Beasts - Yukio Mishima

Hawkeye Omnibus - Matt Fraction

Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations - Mira Jacob

Karamo: My Story of Embracing Purpose, Healing, and Hope - Karamo Brown

Tipping the Velvet - Sarah Waters

When My Brother Was an Aztec - Natalie Diaz

Toxic Flora: Poems - Kimiko Hahn

Virgin - Analicia Sotelo

Easy Prey - Catherine Lo

Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me - Mariko Tamaki and Rosemary Valero-O’Connell

Saints and Misfits - S.K. Ali

Intercepted - Alexa Martin

Love from A to Z - S.K. Ali

Gemini - Sonya Mukherjee

The Atlas of Reds and Blues - Devi S. Laskar

My Brother’s Husband Vol. II - Gengoroh Tagame

Black Queer Hoe - Britteney Black Rose Kapri

Internment - Samira Ahmed

Dothead: Poems - Amit Majmudar

With the Fire On High - Elizabeth Acevedo

Sabrina & Corina: Stories - Kali Fajardo-Anstine

Milk and Filth - Carmen Giménez Smith

The Key to Happily Ever After - Tif Marcelo

If You’re Out There - Katy Loutzenhiser

Farewell to Manzanar - Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston

New Poets of Native Nations - ed. Heid E. Erdrich

Bodymap: Poems - Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

Wolf by Wolf - Ryan Graudin

Tell Me How It Ends - Valeria Luiselli

Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood - Trevor Noah

Down and Across - Arvin Ahmadi

The Tradition - Jericho Brown

About Betty’s Boob - Vero Cazot and Julie Rocheleau

Fake It Till You Break It - Jenn P. Nguyen

Storm of Locusts - Rebecca Roanhorse

Silver Sparrow - Tayari Jones

Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors - Sonali Dev

Mongrel: Essays, Diatribes, Pranks - Justin Chin

When I Grow Up I Want To Be a List of Further Possibilities - Chen Chen

The New Testament - Jericho Brown

Fumbled - Alexa Martin

If It Makes You Happy - Claire Kann

Brave Face - Shaun David Hutchinson

Words in Deep Blue - Cath Crowley

Lost Children Archive - Valeria Luiselli

Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice - Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy - Ta-Nehisi Coates

Anger is a Gift - Mark Oshiro

The Bride Test - Helen Hoang

Not Your Backup - C.B. Lee

Prelude to Bruise - Saeed Jones

The Night Wanderer: A Graphic Novel - Drew Hayden Taylor and Michael Wyatt

Naturally Tan - Tan France

Bloom - Kevin Panetta and Savanna Ganucheau

Like a Love Story - Abdi Nazemian

I’m Afraid of Men - Vivek Shraya

Juliet Takes a Breath - Gabby Rivera

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous - Ocean Vuong

Let Me Hear a Rhyme - Tiffany D. Jackson

I Wanna Be Where You Are - Kristina Forest

Hurricane Season - Nicole Melleby

Split Tooth - Tanya Tagaq

Hungry Hearts: 13 Tales of Love and Food - ed. Elsie Chapman and Caroline Tung Richmond

The Night Tiger - Yangsze Choo

Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls - T Kira Madden

Miracle Creek - Angie Kim

Ayesha at Last - Uzma Jalaluddin

Shout - Laurie Halse Anderson

The Breakbeat Poets Vol. 3: Halal if You Hear Me - ed. Fatimah Asghar and Safia Elhillo

The Tenth Muse - Catherine Chung

This Place: 150 Years Retold - various authors

Kings, Queens, and In-Betweens - Tanya Boteju

Midnight Chicken (& Other Recipes Worth Living For) - Ella Risbridger

Library of Small Catastrophes - Alison C. Rollins

Natalie Tan’s Book of Luck and Fortune - Roselle Lim

No Ashes in the Fire: Coming of Age Black and Free in America - Darnell L. Moore

The Book of Delights - Ross Gay

The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle - Stuart Turton

Speak No Evil - Uzodinma Iweala

How We Fight White Supremacy - Akiba Solomon and Kenrya Rankin

A Love Story Starring My Dead Best Friend - Emily Horner

Here and Now and Then - Mike Chen 

The Ghost Bride - Yangsze Choo

Red White and Royal Blue - Casey McQuiston

Becoming - Michelle Obama

The Wedding Party - Jasmine Guillory

Magic for Liars - Sarah Gailey

I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer - Michelle McNamara

Brain Fever - Kimiko Hahn

Life on Mars - Tracy K. Smith

Notebooks of a Chile Verde Smuggler - Juan Felipe Herrera

Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude - Ross Gay

Tentacle - Rita Indiana

Hapa Tales and Other Lies: A Memoir About the Mixed Race Hawai’i That I Never Knew - Sharon Chang

Loose Woman - Sandra Cisneros

Duende - Tracy K. Smith

Mostly Dead Things - Kristen Arnett

1919 - Eve L. Ewing

Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race - Reni Eddo-Lodge

Negroland - Margo Jefferson

For Black Girls Like Me - Mariama J. Lockington

Super Extra Grande - Yoss

Home Remedies - Xuan Juliana Wang

You Can’t Touch My Hair: And Other Things I Still Have to Explain - Phoebe Robinson

An Anonymous Girl - Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen

The Abundance - Amit Majmudar

I Shall Not Be Moved - Maya Angelou

Helium - Rudy Francisco

Teaching My Mother to Give Birth - Warsan Shire

Tomie - Junji Ito

Everything’s Trash, But It’s Okay - Phoebe Robinson

This Time Will Be Different - Misa Sugiura

Junji Ito’s Cat Diary: Yon & Mu - Junji Ito

Stag’s Leap - Sharon Olds

Black Card - Chris L. Terry

It’s Not Like It’s A Secret - Misa Sugiura

Washington Black - Esi Edugyan

From Here To Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death - Caitlin Doughty

I’m Telling the Truth, But I’m Lying: Essays - Bassey Ikpi

A House of My Own: Stories from my Life - Sandra Cisneros

The Terrible - Yrsa Daley-Ward

The Black Tides of Heaven - JY Yang

The Red Threads of Fortune - JY Yang

Little Fish - Casey Plett

Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion - Jia Tolentino

The Black Condition ft. Narcissus - Jayy Dodd

The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt

Dealing in Dreams - Lilliam Rivera

The Tiger Flu - Larissa Lai

The Island of Sea Women - Lisa See

America is Not the Heart - Elaine Castillo

Feel Free - Zadie Smith

Walking on the Ceiling - Aysegul Savas

My Time Among the Whites: Notes from an Unfinished Education - Jennine Capo Crucet

The Unpassing - Chia-Chia Lin

Maurice - E.M. Forster

Permanent Record - Mary H.K. Choi

The Downstairs Girl - Stacey Lee

Red Dust Road: An Autobiographical Journey - Jackie Kay

The Ungrateful Refugee: What Immigrants Never Tell You - Dina Nayeri

I Married My Best Friend to Shut My Parents Up - Naoko Kodama

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI - David Grann

Ordinary Light - Tracy K. Smith

Cantoras - Carolina De Robertis

Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness - Susannah Cahalan

How to Be Remy Cameron - Julian Winters

The Marriage Clock - Zara Raheem

Moon: Letters, Maps, Poems - Jennifer S. Cheng

Where Reasons End - Yiyun Li

Pet - Akwaeke Emezi

Meddling Kids - Edgar Cantero

A Lucky Man - Jamel Brinkley

Maiden, Mother, Crone: Fantastical Trans Femmes - ed. Gwen Benaway

What is Obscenity? The Story of a Good for Nothing Artist and her Pussy - Rokudenashiko

The Umbrella Academy Vol. III: Hotel Oblivion - Gerard Way

Who Put This Song On? - Morgan Parker

The Souls of Yellow Folk: Essays - Wesley Yang

Wave - Sonali Deraniyagala

Love War Stories - Ivelisse Rodriguez

Baby Teeth - Zoje Stage

A Fortune for Your Disaster - Hanif Abdurraqib

Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers - Jake Skeets

Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen - Jose Antonio Vargas

The Marrow Thieves - Cherie Dimaline

Polite Society - Mahesh Rao

Patron Saints of Nothing - Randy Ribay

The Body Papers: A Memoir - Grace Talusan

A Woman is No Man - Etaf Rum

Travelers - Helon Habila

Trust Exercise - Susan Choi

The Silent Patient - Alex Michaelides

The Intuitionist - Colson Whitehead

A People’s History of Heaven - Mathangi Subramanian

The Buddha of Suburbia - Hanif Kureishi

This is Paradise: Stories - Kristiana Kahakauwila

Brood - Kimiko Hahn

Don’t Look Now - Daphne du Maurier

How We Fight for Our Lives - Saeed Jones

I Hope You Get This Message - Farah Naz Rishi

Unmarriageable - Soniah Kamal

Bad Endings - Carleigh Baker

The Water Dancer - Ta-Nehisi Coates

The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick - Mallory O’Meara

Shapes of Native Nonficton: Collected Essays by Contemporary Writers - ed. Elissa Washuta and Theresa Warburton

Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass - Mariko Tamaki

Even the Saints Audition - Rachel Jackson

Slay - Britney Morris

#NotYourPrincess: Voices of Native American Women - ed. Lisa Charleyboy and Mary Beth Leatherdale

The Starlet and the Spy - Ji-min Lee

North of Dawn - Nuruddin Farah

Daisy Jones & The Six - Taylor Jenkins Reid

The Drowning Boy’s Guide to Water - Cameron Barnett

They Called Us Enemy - George Takei

Dear Girls: Intimate Tales, Untold Secrets, and Advice for Living Your Best Life - Ali Wong

The Right Swipe - Alisha Rai

Full Disclosure - Camryn Garrett

Searching for Sylvie Lee - Jean Kwok

Gideon the Ninth - Tasmyn Muir

Stubborn Archivist - Yara Rodrigues Fowler

The Wicked + the Divine, Vol. 8: Old is the New New - Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie

Never Grow Up - Jackie Chan

“All the Real Indians Died Off”: And 20 Other Myths About Native Americans - Roxanna Dunbar-Ortiz

In the Dream House - Carmen Maria Machado

Blame This on the Boogie - Rina Ayuyang

It - Stephen King

Sea Monsters - Chloe Aridjis

My Fate According to the Butterfly - Gail D. Villanueva

The Wicked + the Divine, Vol. 9: “Okay” - Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie

The Deep - Rivers Solomon

I Hope We Choose Love: A Trans Girl’s Notes from the End of the World - Kai Cheng Thom

Mooncakes - Suzanne Walker

BTTM FDRS - Ezra Claytan Daniels and Ben Passmore

Hot Comb - Ebony Flowers

Notes from a Young Black Chef - Kwame Onwuachi

Bunny - Mona Awad

The Twisted Ones - T. Kingfisher

Shuri, Vol. 1: The Search for Black Panther - Nnedi Okorafor

I Was Their American Dream: A Graphic Memoir - Malaka Gharib

Thick: And Other Essays - Tressie McMillan Cottom

Royal Holiday - Jasmine Guillory

Boxers - Gene Luen Yang

Saints - Gene Luen Yang

Fox 8 - George Saunders

The Memory Police - Yoko Ogawa

Last Day - Domenica Ruta

Wakanda Forever - Nnedi Okorafor

The Revisioners - Margaret Wilkerson Sexton

The Future of Another Timeline - Annalee Newitz

We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim Memoir - Samra Habib

Somewhere in the Middle: A Journey to the Phillipines in Search of Roots, Belonging, and Identity - Deborah Francisco Douglas

Crier’s War - Nina Varela

Something in Between - Melissa de la Cruz

The Secrets We Kept - Lara Prescott

The Tao of Raven: An Alaska Native Memoir - Ernestine Hayes

One of Us is Lying - Karen M. McManus

Piecing Me Together - Renee Watson

Binti - Nnedi Okorafor

The Nickel Boys - Colson Whitehead

Recursion - Blake Crouch

Supper Club - Lara Williams

[everlarkficexchange]

Dissever My Soul From Yours (part 1)

Written by: @alliswell21

Rated: Mature

Warnings: Modern AU; Age Gap; Mourning; Grief Stages; Hurt and Comfort; Angst; Brief Description Of Domestic Abuse; Implied Past Child Abuse; Smut; Guilt; Canon Typical Anger Issues; Fasten your seatbelts, it’s gonna be a bumpy ride. All mistakes are mine.

Synopsis: Losing a loved one is hard enough, losing a child is torture. Peeta Mellark struggles to move on from the loss of his son, so he clings to the last piece of him left alive, his son’s girlfriend. Based on Prompt 106: Katniss is Rye’s girlfriend when he dies. Katniss and Peeta (Rye’s father) start to hang out to go through their grief together. [submitted by Anonymous]

Acknowledgements: Thank you Anon for this prompt, I wish I knew who you were to dedicate it to you, but I guess this way the story simple belongs to the universe :) Also thank you @kleeklutch for reading this through and helping me get my ideas straight… I truly loved your insights! lastly, thank you Everlark Fic Exchange from bring us all together! 

Other Notes: Excerpt of the lyrics to “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” by Randy Newman (Toy Story, 1995)

Excerpts and rewordings for the poem “Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allan Poe; featuring the poem “Alone” by Edgar Allan Poe

This fic got away from me. I had outlined it to be around 8-10K words, but this monstrosity grew up to be close to 32K… I'm submitting a second part, and when I post the story to AO3 there will be an epilogue. 

KPKPKPKPKPK

  The sky is overcast, not a ray of sun penetrates the thick blanket of gray clouds covering the entire town of Panem. The weather is appropriate. It reflects the storm I carry inside.

  No parent should ever have to put their child in the ground.

  I’m wandering aimlessly around the house. So big, so empty. I wish I wasn’t here right now. I wish I could follow my boy right into his grave, but life isn’t fair, at least that’s one thing my mother got right in all her wrongness. Now I’m thinking of my mother, and I feel anger rise in my chest along my hurt and sorrow. How is it that such a hateful woman gets to live so long into her elderly years, yet my son got ripped away from me so young?

  He would’ve been 23, in less than three months!

  He grew up to be a good man. He decided early on he wanted to be in the Navy; he served his country, and I never begrudge his time away from home, I prayed for his safety everyday he was gone. I almost cried with happiness when he told me he had some leave time for the holidays. My boy was coming home after almost a whole year away. I was so proud of him. I still am!

  But the worst happened before he even had a chance to settle in at home.

  Where’s the justice in that?

  Hot, fat, unshed tears fill my eyes, blinding me to the point I can only see silhouettes, but that’s alright, most of the mourners have already gone home; I’m free to cry and scream if I chose to do so.

  One such silhouette approaches me deliberately slowly. I know is my best friend, even before she calls my name in that pitying tone I’m starting to resent.

  “Peeta, the last visitor just left. Will you be okay if I start putting away—“

  She stops talking mid sentence. Her face turns sharply towards the room she stopped me by, and I grow faint.

  It’s Rye’s old bedroom, and someone’s sobbing inside.

  To their credit, whoever’s in there is crying very quietly. I didn’t hear it at first, and in my state I would’ve probably miss it completely if not for Johanna.

  I see Jo’s face contort into a mix of annoyance and anger. Before I can say anything, she throws the door open and stalks inside.

  “Excuse me, but visitation is over, and the family is getting ready to pack up for the move. So, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

  “Oh! I’m so sorry. I-I lost track of time. I—I didn’t mean to overstay. I’ll leave right away…” stammers the poor girl inside the room.

  I peek my head in out of morbid curiosity and see the raven dark haired girl scrambling to gather herself. When she lift her pretty, tear stained face, I feel an acute pain in the chest, where my heart keeps stuttering.

  “Katniss! It’s alright. You can stay!” I practically yell stepping fully into the room. I catch myself, seeing where I’m standing and freeze in place.

  After a torturous moment, I take a huge step backwards, until I’m outside the door frame. I tell her from the safety of the hallway, she can stay for as long as she wants, and that she’s welcome to help herself to anything in the room… unless it holds sentimental value to me, that is.

  I feel awkward standing there, saying the words. So I turn around robotically and stomp away as fast as I can.

  Johanna follows me to the kitchen, where I’m trying to fill up the kettle, but my hand is trembling something awful.

  “I never knew you had Parkinson’s,” Says Johanna snatching the kettle from me, pushing me away with her hips and taking over the chore.

  “I don’t,” I glare at her.

  “Well, that’s a relief Shaky Shakerton.”

  “Shut up, Jo. Is not nice to make light of a serious condition.” I tell her offended.

  She arches an eyebrow, and makes a noncommittal noise at the back of her throat.

  “So, that was the famous Katniss Everdeen, then?” She asks after setting the kettle on the stove.

  All the answer I give her is a distracted nod.

  “Hmm.” The noise sounds judgmental, so I glance at her.

  “What?” I ask defensively on behalf of Rye.

  “Nothing.” Jo responds. “She’s just… skinny.” She adds with a shrug.

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing! That in the few years I’ve heard that boy gushing about her, I never imagined her being so small.”

  “She’s petite, so what? You are a stick with boobs!” I retort.

  “Awww! You noticed the girls!” She cooes, squeezing her upper arms together to push her breasts out.

  I roll my eyes. I’m not in the mood for Johanna’s irreverent antics. But the scathing response I want to give her dies in my mouth when I notice Katniss standing on the doorway.

  “Jesus!” Hisses Johanna clutching a hand to her chest. “You’re lucky I’m not a lumberjack! I could’ve thrown an ax at your forehead for scaring me like that! Are you part ghost or something? So quiet!”

  Katniss scowls at Jo. “I’m sorry,” she says curtly, giving the impression she’s not sorry at all.

  Jo shivers, but then gives Katniss her cat-like smirk, “Nah, it’s fine. By the way, I’m Rye’s favorite auntie, Johanna Mason.” Jo drawls.

  “Katniss Everdeen. Rye’s too skinny girlfriend.” She deadpans.

  Tensions are a little high for a moment. I’m a little aggravated at Jo when Katniss is the one to offer a peace branch.

  “Rye used to talk a lot about his auntie Jo.” She’s quiet for a second. “He told me once that you were the only mom he ever knew.”

  The silence that follows is heavy and full of grief.

  “Fuck!” Jo hisses. “Now you’ve done it, brainless!” She snaps at Katniss. “That was not an okay comment to share today. Excuse me, I gotta go punch something.” Johanna retreats to the backyard hastily, pawing harshly at the tears falling down her cheeks as she practically runs outside.

  I’m honestly befuddled by my friend’s reaction. Especially because the comment was actually very sweet and warming. I chance a glance at Katniss, but to my surprise, she doesn’t looked troubled or even curious about Jo. She realizes I’m staring at her, and shrugs.

  “Grieve is weird.” She offers mildly.

  The kettle starts whistling then.

  I rush to get it off the burner, and offer lamely, “Tea?”

  “No, thank you.” She responds merely staring at Jo through the sliding glass door for a second, before addressing me.

  “Mr. Mellark, I was wondering if I could take this picture?” She raises a frame and waves at me. “It has me in it. I’ve never seen it before. There are also a couple of Edgar Allan Poe books I’m interested in, as well.”

  My head shoots up from my task of pouring hot water into mugs.

  “You want the Poe books?” I must’ve sound harsh, because her cheeks turn scarlett and her eyes bulge a little.

  She stammers, “Well. Yes. I mean, Rye and I loved his writings. In fact, Annabel Lee was what got us talking to each other the first time we met outside school. We were discussing illness and death.” She stops in her tracks, and frowns. “I’m sorry. That was inappropriate to bring up right now. I… I’ll understand if you rather keep—“

  “Katniss, it’s okay!” I cut in trying to placate her. “Take the books, please! I was just surprised you even noticed them.”

  “Why wouldn’t I’ve noticed them? I’ve read them all. I just don’t own any copies, personally.”

  I think I’ve offered her by the scowl on her face. She tries to reel herself in, but the way her jaw ticks is an endearing give away of just how frustrated she truly is.

  I take a deep breath.

  “I’m sorry if I offended you. I didn’t mean to insult you. If you want the books, please, don’t hesitate to take them.”

  “I don’t wanna be rude. I’ve already caused a bad impression on Auntie Jo.” The way she says the name tells me Johanna didn’t impressed Katniss either.

  She tries to keep a passive mask on, but I see flashes of annoyance in her gray eyes.

  “You know, Johanna is my best friend in the world but she can be a bit…”

  “Judgemental?”

  “I was going to say, blunt, but—“

  “Mr. Mellark, look, you don’t have to make up excuses for your friend. I know grief brings out the worst in people. Miss Johanna and I met under horrible circumstances, I’m not gonna hold this interaction against her.”

  “But what about you? You were crying in the room when she bursted in kicking you out. You gotta feel sad and angry…”

  “Oh, I do.” She tells me plainly. “I feel like my heart got tore out of my chest, and the pain is slowly devouring me from the inside out. I just lost my best friend. The fact that he was away two mere blocks away from my place just makes it even more horrible. But, I’ve had experience managing my own grief. I only allow myself so much despair, and then I have to collect myself.”

  And here I was thinking it was lucky for her she wasn’t a professional actress, not being able to hide her emotions, when probably she was just choosing to wear her aggravation on her sleeve, to keep the sadness at bay.

  Rye was on his way to pick her up, for their first official date since he got back home. He was crazy about her. So excited to finally be able to see her, touch her, just spend time with her.

  But fate is a bitch. Rye was only a few blocks from her apartment, when he came across a family; the father was berating one teenaged kid, the mom tried to intervene and another kid stood by petrified. The man struck his wife across the face so hard she almost fell down. I don’t know what exactly moved him to do it, other than he saw a need and it was the right thing to do. Rye stepped in, to defend the woman and children from their abuser.

  My boy got stabbed in the kidney by the coward. There was internal bleeding the paramedics couldn’t stop. My Rye past away in the ambulance, on the way to the hospital.

  I had to call Katniss myself and to inform her she hadn’t been stood up. At least not on purpose.

  I wish there was some word of comfort I could say to ease her pain, but nothing comes forward. She seems to be well acquainted with grief, which kind of worries me a little. I’ve met her family because of Rye, I know that Mrs. Everdeen has been a widow for a very long time, but that’s the extent of my knowledge.

  At the end, we are both too stunned to say anything else, and Katniss just walks eerily quiet back to Rye’s room. A few minutes later, she steps out red-rimmed eyes avoiding me at all costs, with a couple of books and the picture frame hugged to her chest.

  She thanks me briefly and leaves.

  “Katniss,” I call out.

  She turns towards me.

  “Will you be okay?” I ask her.

  She nods slowly. “I will.”

  “Will you call me if you need anything?”

  She studies me for a moment, “Sure. Thanks.” She says curtly, and walks out the door quickly.

  I know she won’t call me, and somehow that feels like I’ve lost another piece of Rye.

  ———-

  I stand nervously in the hallway, re-checking the address, making sure I’m at the right apartment, despite having been here many times before and the glaringly obvious ‘Everdeen’ tag under the peephole.

  I knock and wait, rearranging my hold on the heavy box I’m carrying. It takes another minute for me to decide maybe there’s no one home, and my mind starts formulating ideas of what to do next.

  I could probably leave the box here, put a note on it… but what if someone steals it? Could I ask the super to keep an eye on it until she comes back? How does UPS do it when they have to deliver a big package?

  I don’t know if coming here is weird. I just couldn’t stop feeling like reaching out to make sure she’s okay. It’s what Rye would’ve want me to do.

  I’ve almost decided it’s better this way, it was a stupid idea to come unannounced. I’m already halfway down the hallway when the elevator arrives with a loud ping, and out comes Katniss, carrying grocery bags in both hands.

  “Mr. Mellark?” She sounds a little surprised to see me in her apartment building. “What are you doing here?” There’s no rejection in her tone, just startled.

  “Hello, Katniss. Sorry I showed up out of the blue. I’m just officially about to put the house on the market in the next few weeks, and I have to get everything out of the place by Thursday.” I tell her shrugging my shoulders.

  “Oh, yeah. I remember now. You’re selling your house and moving closer to your bakery in the city.”

  I chuckle under my breath. “Actually… I leased an apartment up in the 12th floor.” If my hands weren’t full I’d be scratching the back of my neck right now.

  I’m not sure why divulging this to Katniss suddenly makes me feel silly. I guess the expression on her face is what makes me weary.

  “Here? In this building?” She asks bewildered.

  I take a shuddering breath. “It was supposed to be a surprise for Rye.”

  “Oh.” Katniss averts her gaze from mine, and really I couldn’t hold hers much longer either. “I… See.”

  We both fall silent for a very long time, until I start justifying my ridiculous impulse of bringing my son closer to her. He was grown ass man, he could’ve moved in with her if he’d wanted to.

  “It just temporary. Six months tops. I’m remodeling the apartment above my bakery and it’s going so slow. And Rye was going to be home so short, he was dreading the one hour commute to work, and he was unhappy he couldn’t see you as often as he wanted to.

  “Those sounds like flimsy reasons. I’m sorry for not asking you beforehand if moving into your building would have inconvenienced you. It just dawned on me that I’m imposing on your privacy. I never meant to disregard your opinion. It just… never crossed my mind, until just now.”

  I feel like a jackass. But her face is impassive. I’m not sure what to say next, so I rush with the original reason I came here for.

  “Look, um, management is sprucing up my apartment right now. They’ve painted every wall inside and installed new carpets, they’re supposed to release it to me on Wednesday, and I’m all packed up.

  “But, I’m downsizing, and I have this Edgar Allan Poe collection that needs a new home. Otherwise, I’m gonna have to donate them to Goodwill or something, and I’m not sure if anyone will appreciate them.” I shuffle the box forward so she gets my meaning, her eyes go round, staring at the box.

  I add quickly, “You don’t have to take them thought. Really. I… I think I’m developing this horrible habit of assuming stuff with you and it’s not my intention at all… You know?” I’m rambling. Badly!

  She opens her mouth but mine won’t shut up.

  “So, how about you don’t pay me any mind and pretend I wasn’t here. In fact, if you see me around for the next six months, just ignore me. It’s okay—“

  “Mr. Mellark!” She raises her voice over mine, chuckling, “I’ll be happy to take the books off your hands! There’s no telling how long those poor babies would just sit on a shelf at the thrift store gathering dust.”

  I’m momentarily distracted by her smile. I’ve seen her a several times over the last two years, but I just realized that when she smiles, her lips curl just a little bit to the left, and her eyes crinkle a little.

  She’s very pretty.

  Objectively speaking.

  She brings me back to the present, “So… would you like to come in? That box looks heavy, and I have frozen yogurt in one of this bags.”

  “Oh! Yeah! Sure! Of course.”

  I’ve been in her apartment a handful of times since she and Rye dated, either to pick up letters and little gifts to put in care packages I shipped him during his deployment, or to drop off stuff he sent her.

  I guess I was some kind of bridge between them. In a way, I was also part of their relationship, as odd as that sounds.

  As soon as we walk in, I deposit the box on the coffee table, while she continues on to the kitchen. Her apartment is practically a studio, with one bedroom, a bathroom and a kitchen-living room-dining area open floor combo. The one I’m renting has two bedrooms and a balcony, but the rest is the same.

  I offer to help her put groceries away, but she declines demurely.

  Instead, she asks, “Can I offer you something to drink?” I settle in the small couch and she adds, making a funny face, “Your choices are: straight up water, water in the rocks, hot water with a pouch of chamomile flowers, better known as tea, and frozen yogurt.”

  “Tea is fine.” I chuckle. Then add as an afterthought, “No sugar, thank you.”

  When she comes with the tea, we sit in the couch just taking sips of the calming brew, but her eyes keep straying to the box.

  “You should take a look at the books. I think there are some repeats in there, also, not everything in there is just Poe. I think there’s some Mark Twain and even a copy of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.”

  Her eyes widen just as her hands reach to snatch the box from the table and dump it on the couch between us.

  Every time she pulls a new book from inside, she either smiles or “Ooh”s. It’s like watching a kid opening Christmas presents. I guess at least that part of the holidays isn’t ruined.

  I’m smiling widely as well.

  “Mr. Mellark, this is too much! There are books here that have been well loved for years!” She says caressing the worn, dog eared cover of Frankenstein.

  I smile sadly. “Some belonged to my granny. She took me a Rye in when I had nowhere to go with a newborn. She loved the old classics. She learned how to read when she emigrated to America, and she just loved books. She read to Rye every night before bed. I miss them both. I can’t make myself read the books right now, so I figured it would be a disservice to them both to just toss them out or donate them. If you keep then, at least I’d know they went to someone who will enjoy them as much as they did.”

  She looks at me with a sadness filling her eyes. There’s no pity. Just understanding.

  “I’ll be honored to take them.” She hugs Frankenstein to her chest.

  We fall into a companionable silence, but her eyes are lost somewhere in the rug. A sweet smile tugs at her lips.

  “Rye said you guys lived with his Gigi. He said he didn’t remember much about her, except that her kitchen always smelled like warm snickerdoodles and goulash.” She pauses scrunching up her nose. “I can’t say I could picture the smell. It just sounds like two completely different things to sniff at.”

  I laugh. A real, full belly laugh. One that I’ve forgotten I could produce. One that I thought was lost to me forever, with my boy.

  She looks at me for a second, before shaking her head ruefully and smiling at the book cradled in her hands.

  “How about I’ll invite you over for supper after I move in and recreate the aromas? Then you can have goulash and cookies Mellark style.”

  My smile wavers when she looks away, biting the inside of her mouth. I inhale deeply, when she nods minutely.

  “Okay.”

  “Good!”

  I feel better already. I’m not ready to let go of this ghost connection to Rye I feel through Katniss.

  ——-

  The first week after finally moving into the building, Katniss stops by with a six pack of Mike’s Hard Lemonade. I’m surprised she even knew I like the drink, until she smirks uncorking one and simply says “Rye!” followed by a shrug.

  “I got carded too, and they gave me a hard time making sure my license wasn’t fake… so you better enjoy every last drop!” She quips.

  “I promise I’ll make them last!” I take the bottle from her and she opens one for herself.

  She sits on my brand new breakfast bar stools, and compliments my shark and alligator oven mitts hanging above the stove.

  We laugh together when I tell her the story behind them, how I bought them to entice Rye to join me in the kitchen, since coming from a very long line of bakers, it was my duty to teach my child to bake as well, but Rye wasn’t interested at all so he groused and complained the whole time until he turn on the mixer and we both got covered with flour head to toe. That was the only thing he liked about that day.

  From very young Rye wanted to be an army man, then he switched to Air Force pilot, and then when he was around 15 years old, we took to a trip to San Diego, California, where we toured the USS Midway Museum. He fell in love with everything Navy.

  “Where you okay with Rye ditching the baking tradition?” She asks peering at me curiously.

  “Yeah.” I say sincerely. “I would’ve never forced him to become a baker if he didn’t want it. I bake because I love it, and my bakery I inherited from Granny herself. I had to go to school and get me a business degree to run my shop easier, but I would’ve never hold Rye back from his dreams.”

  Katniss takes another pull from her drink. “I’m glad you had each other. Rye was a good man, just like you, Mr. M.”

  I smile gratefully at her.

  “You can call me Peeta, you know. Any person that brings me alcohol as a housewarming gift is in my best pals list.”

  “Oh!” She laughs making her shoulders jiggle, dislodging her long dark braid from them. “I don’t think I’ll be able to call you anything other that Mr. Mellark. Old habits dying hard and all that. But thanks, I like having a pal.”

  I sense some forlorn hidden emotion in her words. But then she mumbles quietly.

  “I’m not very good at making friends. That was Rye’s thing.”

  I frown. “Well… you have a friend, right here!”

  Her gray, sparkly eyes meet mine, and her lips turn up mischievously. “Are you gonna pull a cowboy hat and boots from under your counter and break into song?” She arches an eyebrow expectantly.

  I give her a quizzical look, and she starts singing.

  “You’ve got a friend in me You’ve got a friend in me…”

  She arches both eyebrows at me, but I stare back at her. Not because I don’t know the song, I remember it now, clear as day, but my mind is stuck on just how sweet her singing voice is.

  “Nothing?” She asks motioning with her hands.

  When I blink at her stupidly, she brings her cellphone out of her back pocket and starts typing furiously, she finds the song in YouTube and shows me the video.

  Tom Hanks’ voice rings out the beloved ditty.

  “You’ve got a friend in me

You’ve got a friend in me

You got troubles, I’ve got ‘em too There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you We stick together and see it through Cause you’ve got a friend in me You’ve got a friend in me…”

  She pulls her phone away, and the words slip my mouth before I can stop them. “I like it better when you sing.”

  She blushes a little, but smiles.

  “Thanks.” She offers quietly. “I don’t sing much. Not after my daddy passed away. We used to sing together all the time. But is not the same anymore.”

  I can relate to the feeling.

  I cover her hand with mine, “I meant it. You have me now.”

  ———

  I’ve been running myself ragged this past week.

  With the Christmas rush I almost never leave the kitchen at work.

  I take it upon myself to decorate every single cake we bake. Lately, I make a game to see how detailed I can make them, how many techniques I can use in a single cake, how many colors I can add to the mix without making it tacky. Anything to kill time.

  I stay in and frost until my sight gets blurry and colorblind. The night before Christmas Eve I’m surprised to see my staff file into the kitchen in the middle of the night, when I ask what are they doing here so late, I get quirky looks all around. One of the bakers asks me if I ever went home to sleep. It turns out I didn’t. I worked all night through and still stay the rest of my shift, until I pipe “Happy Jesus Birthday” on a cake commissioned by the Sisters of Mercy Halfway Home and Shelter and the whole top has to be scraped off.

  Luckily the rest of the cake was flawless. Somebody else takes over, but I still hang around looking over their shoulder and grimacing when they use a tip I wouldn’t have chosen. They finally have my junior manager, Rue, kick me out of the bakery.

  I finally come home and sit in the dark in the living room, driving myself insane with pent up anxiety. I flex my fingers on my knees debating if I should go back to the bakery. I’m the owner goddamnit, I can do whatever I want! But out of respect for my staff, I stay with my ass glued to the couch.

  Jo calls for the 100th time to ask me to come home to Panem. I can stay with her if I don’t want to crash at my folks. My brothers are there with their families. Yada, yada, yada.

  I tell her I’m busy. “Christmas is my most profitable time of the year, Jo, I can’t just up and leave while my poor staff stays and works. They wanna see their families too, you know.”

  Johanna snorts, “Since when do you care about the bottom line, Peeta? That’s the laziest lie ever, Mellark. You’re slipping!”

  I shake my head though she can’t see the gesture.

  “I’m busy, Jo. Maybe I’ll come next week.”

  “PEETA! Next week isn’t Christmas!”

  “Jo, seriously… I can’t go. I’m sor—“

  “Stop lying to me! I saw your old schedule, and you had given yourself today and tomorrow off! I know because I put it in my calendar! In fact I took a picture of it, so I wouldn’t forget to put it in my calendar… I’m sure it’s still stored somewhere in my phone, I’ll text it to you in a sec…”

  There was a timid knock on the door, and I have never been so grateful for solicitors on Christmas Eve.

  “Hey, there’s someone at the door. I’ll call you right back, okay?”

  “Peeta Mellark, don’t you dare hang up on m—“

  Silence!

  Blessed, beautiful silence.

  I’ll call her back tomorrow… maybe.

  They knock again, and I make my way to answer, because now I feel obligated to come see what they want, since I used the as my excuse to escape Johanna’s nagging.

  Katniss stands in the hallway, wearing a Darth Vader knitted sweater that reads “I find your lack of cheer disturbing”. It makes me giggle.

  “Hi,” she wiggles her fingers at me shyly.

  “Hey,” I say stepping aside to let her come in.

  She simply hovers around the door, hands clasped behind her back. “So… my mama and Prim came to the city for Christmas, because I decided I couldn’t be in Panem this year. Not after…” she trails off, her hand makes a vague gesture, then her ugg clad foot hooks behind her calf, giving her the look of a cute, dark haired flamingo.

  “You know.” She says awkwardly.

  “Yeah.” I respond leaning my shoulder in the door jamb. “I know.” Because I do.

  She sighs. “It’s just easier to pretend he’s not home because he’s somewhere on deployment, when I’m here. Here is safe. There are no reminders of him.” Her voice cracks, a wayward tear pokes to the rim of her eye. She averts her gaze to manage her tears, but I’m the one who breaks.

  I inhale a breath that lodges in my throat. Suddenly, I’m bent over at my waist sobbing. The stress of the week crashing down on me for what it really is: I’m hiding from this crushing pain.

  My baby was supposed to be here with me, instead he’s six feet under frozen dirt, alone and silent, and the only person that seems to understand the magnitude of my pain has finally put into words, plain and simple, what I haven’t been able to acknowledge: I don’t want to remember he’s gone.

  As long as I stay here, busy with work, Rye could be anywhere in the world, smiling.

  I feel a slender body wrap over my back, and then she’s crying and apologizing.

  “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. Please, Mr. Mellark don’t cry. I’m so, so sorry…”

  We must’ve been kneeling here, huddling together and crying a long time, because I hear Katniss’ mother talking softly above us.

“Prim, help your sister up, I’ll take care of mister Peeta.” They bring us inside, sit us in the couch, and although neither of them have ever been to my apartment, Ms Everdeen and Primrose take control of the place.

  Lights are turned on, our legs are snuggly covered with blankets and they put mugs of hot tea in our hands.

  “I’m sorry Mr. M. I was just supposed to ask you to come downstairs to watch Elf and eat popcorn with us. I know you are staying in Capitol City because you miss him too. I didn’t want you to be sad and alone tonight,” Katniss mutters miserably.

  I look at her, and it’s the strangest thing!

  I feel the fluttering of butterfly wings in my stomach. Something I’ve forgotten how it felt a long time ago.

  Her face it’s all blotchy; her nose is red, shiny and bit runny; her eyes are also red and puffy; and there are dry tear tracks down her cheeks. I’ve never seen anything prettier in my life.

  I tear my eyes away from her and take a gulp of my scalding hot tea, burning my tongue. Karma will make things right, my little lapse in judgement is beyond inappropriate.

  I fan my mouth for a minute.

  “Sure, Katniss. I’ll come.”

  ———-

  Christmas came and left, and it was the most painful thing in my life. I cried so much, all the time, I had to constantly be drinking gallon upon gallon of water. I would give myself headaches, and I swear I lost 5 pounds just crying.

  Losing a child sucks. Losing a child around Christmas is just torture.

  The only saving grace in this miserable time is Katniss. She’s been the sweetest angel. Her mother and sister took care of us both for a few days. Ms. Everdeen offered to refer me to a grief counselor, and I told her I’d think about it. But the jury is still out on the topic.

  Katniss and I start having dinner together every weekend. It’s nice to catch up after a long working week, it helps smooth out the sting of grief. We talk about books, movies, ideas and Rye. We talk a lot about Rye.

  One Thursday night three weeks into our weekly arrangement, I hear someone banging at my door. When I look through the peephole, I see her standing there, raising her fist to bang again.

  I’m taken aback when I open the door, and she falls into my arms practically wailing.

  I pull her inside the apartment and just hold her while she shudders and huffs. Then starts the incomprehensible blabbering, I try as hard as I can to decipher. I can only make out a few words, though.

  Something that sounds like “who does that?”, what I think is my son’s name, and suspicions sound I believe is a cuss word.

  All I can do is massage her back and the crying gradually lessens, until hiccups take over the shudders.

  When she’s sufficiently calmed, I lead her to the couch and sit her there. I keep a box of Kleenex pretty much in every surface of my place, because either I start crying, or Katniss would, or Johanna when she comes to visit. I hand her the box of napkins, and she takes a fistful of them to blow her nose and wipe her cheeks.

  She talks without me asking, stopping at odd intervals so a stuttering sigh can pass through her full ripe lips.

  “It’s not. Fair! Xander Cato just. Got home from” sniff “tour. To his fiancée. That stuck up bitch. Clove.” Another sniff. “She posted pictures. At the beach. Sipping some stupid. Fruity con-coction. ‘Virgin’ because they’re. Trying for a mini. Cato.” She says the last sentence in a mocking tone accompanied by air quotes. “They’re not even. married yet!” She growls, “And what does it. Matter if you drink. Alcohol before you get. Knock up? She’s and. Idiot!”

  Katniss swipes at her nose roughly. And her reddened gray eyes fix on mine. “I know I told. Rye I didn’t. wanna get married. Or have children. Like… ever. But that should’ve been his life!” Her bottom lip quivers and a few tears fall inhibited down her pink cheeks.

  “He could’ve. Met someone. More deserving than me. Someone willing to. Give him a family! Maybe if I had kept. My mouth shut. God wouldn’t have. Taken him. Away. Before we’ve. Had a chance!”

  It’s a miracle she got it all out of her chest, or that I understood it all with her shuddering and sobbing.

  I can feel myself getting worked up as well by her words.

  Alexander Cato was in Rye’s year of High School. Cato enlisted in the army while Rye went to the Navy. They were friends and stayed in touch. Katniss and Clove were in the year below the boys but ran in different circles. On the one holiday the two couples coincided home, they had one double date. That’s their history of interactions. I’m not sure where did Katniss found out all this about the Catos.

  I reassure her as best I can, while feeling the acute loss of a future my son will never have. A future I’ll never get to witness and be a part of.

  “Katniss, it’s alright. You didn’t do anything to make God angry. It doesn’t work that way. And even if that was the case, it would’ve been me who God be punishing, not you and Rye.”

  She’s not convinced, but she stops crying.

  After a moment just sitting side by side in silence, she sighs.

  “I’m sorry I came in here acting all crazy. I shouldn’t be bring this crap to you. You have your own stuff to deal with and now I added to your grief.”

  “It’s okay—“

  “No, is not.” She shakes her head stubbornly. She sighs again, “I have to go home. I have school in the morning. See you Saturday, Mr M.”

  “You could stay you know.” I tell her sheepishly. “Johanna stays in the spare room all the time,”

  “Oh, no… I’m just a couple of flights of stairs below. I’ll be fine. I can call you when I get in, if that makes you feel better.”

  “Katniss, the truth is, I don’t want to be alone in this place right now. And honestly, I don’t think you should be alone either.”

  She studies my face for a little while, chewing the inside of her cheek. She does that every time I pose a hard question to her, I’ve noticed.

  “I don’t want to impose.”

  “I’m inviting you.”

  “But I’ll have to leave early,” she cocks her head the right.

  “I’m a baker. Chances are I’ll be gone before you’re awake. I’ll leave breakfast on the counter. You can just take the spare key in the left drawer and lock the door on your way out, then you can return the key when we meet for dinner this weekend.”

  She’s still mulling it over. “Can breakfast be cheese buns?” She asks shyly.

  “Deal.”

  ———-

  Katniss has nightmares. Lots of them. She had them the night she stayed over and confessed she’s suffered them ever since her father died when she was 11, but now Rye has joined her hunted dreams.

  I told her I have them too, nightmares. I wake up in the middle of the night in cold sweats and paralyzed with a terrible fear that I’ll never see my son again, just to realize he’s gone forever, that I’ve lost him and I won’t be able to talk to him, hug him or hear his laughter ever again; but then I think of the people I still have in my life and things aren’t so scary anymore. Sure, the pain is still there as acute as ever, but I find it easier to breathe.

  I start painting as well. I used to do it when I was younger. She asks to see my paintings, and sniffles a little looking at the portraits of Rye as little boy. I didn’t show her the one I go back to every night, the one I’m making of her. That one is somehow private, despite, or maybe because, she’s the subject of the piece.

  I do ask her to call me anytime she has a bad dream, sometimes talking about it helps too.

  If there’s one thing we have in common, is our love for Rye, and I will always honor that bond, day or night no matter the time. To my surprise, she actually takes me up on it after that evening; we talk on the phone almost every night so she’s not afraid of going to bed.

  ———

  One night, I’m the one knocking on her door as if a band demons was after me, chasing me down, and she was the angel that sent them away.

  She opens the door, and my greeting is a quivering, “The house sold.”

  “I’m so sorry, Mr. M.” She extends her arms, and I find shelter in her slender shoulders.

  I’ve wanted to sell the house since Rye left on tour. I didn’t need all that room when I was living by myself- realistically speaking, Rye had flown the nest- and though Rye had grown up in that house, the sentimental attachment didn’t hit until I handed over the keys to the new owners. Never in a million years could I had thought, selling that house was going to feel like losing my son all over again.

  Katniss lets me cry until I’m spent, the whole while she’s carding her fingers through my messy waves, and then I ask her for story, because I’m not ready to go back to my empty apartment.

  She tells me about her sister’s nanny goat, Lady. She wants to distract me, so she tells me stuff that have nothing to do with Rye.

  I stare at her, and the urge to kiss her is so strong, I force myself to loop back to my son and the sold house.We cry together. Eventually, we fall asleep in her couch, huddled closely to each other.

  I allow myself a kiss to her forehead when I wake up at 4:30 a.m. thanks to my internal baker’s clock. She looks beautiful and peaceful.

  I wish I had met her under different circumstances. I wish she was older… I wish she didn’t belong to my boy.

  And because of that, I tear myself away from her and return to my depressing loneliness.

  ———

  Our weekly supper becomes a bi-weekly event, and soon we are having meals together every other day.

  The day Johanna calls me just to chat, and I tell her for the fifth time I was in the middle of making supper with Katniss, she makes a disapproving noise in the back of her throat.

  “What?” I ask annoyed at her.

  It takes her a minute, but she answers slowly, like she’s walking on eggshells. “You’ve been spending a lot of time together.”

  “So?” I wave at Katniss, who’s slicing a cucumber, letting her know I’m going to step into my room. “I know there’s something you want to say to me, so just come out with it.”

  Jo takes a deep breath, as if bracing for a blow. “I think you should take some distance from the girl, Peeta. It’s all.”

  “Why? Being around her makes me happy!” I tell her harshly.

  “That’s exactly why!” She yells at me losing her patience. “She’s even younger than Rye was, and you’re not in your right mind at the moment. Nothing good will come of this. So before anyone gets hurt, badly, you should step away.”

Objectively speaking, Jo’s absolutely right, and I hate her for it, so I go on the defensive.

  “Are you for real right now, Johanna?” I hiss. “I can’t believe, my best friend in the world will insinuate that I could do something so shitty…” I’m too choked up to continue.

  “I’m not insinuating anything, Peeta. All I’m saying is that even if nothing ever happens, some space will benefit everyone. You may even heal faster on your own.”

  “Sure, Johanna. Thanks! I’ll call you later, after kicking out the only other person that gets how I’m feeling.”

  “That’s not fair! Nor is even remotely true! What about me, or your dad and brothers, even your mother? We all miss Rye!”

  “Yeah? Well, where are you guys right now? Because I’m sure as fuck not feeling any of you hugging me every night when I cry my eyes out, screaming my only child’s name!” I’m yelling at the top of my lungs now.

  “Peeta…”

  “No! I don’t wanna talk right now! I may say something ugly I’ll regret later.” I disconnect the call, turn off my phone and shuck it across the room where it bounces on the bed, and falls to the carpeted floor with a thud.

  I sit on the edge of my bed, elbows on my knees and the heels of my hands pressing my wet eye sockets, hoping I can contain the rage I feel inside.

  Her cool fingers slide around my wrists, and gently pulls my hands from my face. I bury my face against her stomach, and sob like a baby. She just cooes reassurances, while combing my hair back.

  “I’m so tired, Katniss,” I managed to huff out.

  “I know, Peeta.” She says soothingly. “Lay down, we need a nap. Supper can wait. I’m not going anywhere.”

  It’s the first time she says my name, and all I can think of is how sweet it sounds in her tongue.

  She lays next to me running her fingers through my hair, and I fall asleep while she sings a lullaby quietly into my ear.

  ———-

  I wake up with a start and relax right away.

  Katniss is asleep next to me, facing me. My arm is slung over her middle. I pull myself away from her when I realize how close I was to brushing her lips with mine.

  An awful feeling twists my insides, and I have to throw up.

  Johanna’s right. I need to put some distance between Katniss and I.

  ———-

  It’s Rye’s birthday.

  Today is shit!

  I didn’t get out of bed. My phone has been ringing forever and I keep ignoring it. I’m contemplating throwing it down the garbage shoot, but that means getting out of bed, out of the apartment and into the hallway near the elevator. That’s too close to the street. I’m staying in bed, waiting for the world to die.

  My baby is gone. Why am I still here?

  “Peeta?” Katniss whispers harshly when she pokes her head into my bedroom.

  It’s all dark and muggy, since the curtains are drawn shut and I’m under my covers.

  I haven’t seen her in over a week, and I’m sure I should be feeling something, now that she’s here, but there’s no room for feelings in me, only numbness.

  “Peeta, are you there?” She demands in that nagging whisper that grates my ears.

  “Go away, Katniss. I’m not in the mood.”

  “Neither am I,” she answers curtly, stalking to the window to pull the curtains aside. “You weren’t picking up my calls! You didn’t answer Rue’s calls, you didn’t answer pawpaw’s calls!” She chides.

  “I get that you’re depressed, Peeta, so am I, but so is your father, and you still need to let your staff know if you’re not showing up to work.”

  She pulls my sheets down to my chin. And I feel a jolt when my bleary eyes meet her angry ones.

  So pretty when she’s mad.

  Now I’m sad AND ashamed.

  “You don’t have to be happy, no one expects you to. You don’t even have to leave home at all today, but you need to shower, and put something in your stomach. I’m here to make sure you do so, even if I have to spoon feed you. So get on with it!” She orders.

  “And how are you enforcing my taking a shower? Are you planning to drag me into the bathroom and bathe me too? You aren’t very big, you couldn’t pick up my arm if I decided to become dead weight.” I counter angrily.

  She blushes and hesitates for a moment but then tells me seriously, “Will cross that bridge when we get there. I’m fixing you lunch for now. Please, at least wash your face and teeth, and don’t close the curtains again.” Her voice softens, “After lunch, if you’re still sad you can take a nap, but if you don’t try to get up, then you’ll miss a chance to remember Rye for the great guy he was.”

  I end up taking a very long shower, if you call standing under the hot waterfall motionless until the water turns icy cold a shower. I change into clean pajamas and sit under the covers of my bed, where Katniss lets me eat my lunch.

  She makes soup from scratch, and is so delicious I polished off two whole bowls making Katniss look satisfied. I like seeing her that way.

  She lets me go back completely under the covers to conceal myself from the world, but she settles next to me and asks me, quietly, with her Macbook. She’s working on something for school. I wish I had the decency to show interest on that, but I know her graduation is approaching and she has tons of work to do before that.

  “Tell me a story about him?” She requests meekly.

  I peek my head from under the corner of my comforter. Her computer is still on, on some document, but it’s just sitting forgotten on a pillow by her side instead of her lap. Her eyes are glazed over, fixed on a spot on the opposite wall.

  “The day he was born, it rained cats and dogs since dawn to dusk, but there was a moment, when the nurse put him in my arms, that clouds parted and in filtered a single sun ray, illuminating his wee little head. That was the moment my life changed for the best.

  “One minute, I was a scared 17 year old wrestling champ, with no discernible life skills, and a newborn in his trembling hands. The next, I was a daddy, cradling the most precious gift a person could ever get, and that gift was so soft, with a tiny head covered in downy blond fuzz, softer than anything in the world… and his smell! He smelled like a million butterfly kisses waiting to be born, and love and tenderness.

  “I could never explain with words, how I knew everything was going to be alright. But with my Rye in my arms, nothing was scary anymore; not my mother, or my future, or the fact that Rye’s mother didn’t want anything to do with raising a child at 16 and a half.

  “It was the first time I understood the meaning of love, and I swore to my baby, I would love him for always. I intend to keep my word.”

  ———

  I’m a man. I don’t really have time to go out and meet women, not that I’m too eager to date right now, I’m too sad and old for that, so when I feel the itch, I scratch it with porn in the comfort of my bed.

  I’m a creature of habit too. I have a handful of go to movies I enjoy. Redheads have done it for me since Rye’s mother, so I stick with them.

  I’m in the middle of my thing when my phone rings. I should have turned it off, but I was too keyed up for that. What I truly should do, is ignore it, but I look anyway mid pump, and her smiling face flashes up at me. I cum hard, instantly.

  The guilt and self loathing about finding release at the image of her smiley face instead of the busty bombshell pleasuring herself in my computer will hit me much, much, later. Right now I’m too confused and high on my euphoric orgasm, I fucking answer the call, though I’m in no shape to do so. And her voice is so sweet, my cock strains, and splutters one last tiny bit of jizz.

  I make an involuntary noise when that happens, I’m not so far gone to not realize how inappropriate that is, so I pretend cough to cover it.

  She stays quiet for a second, but then says cautiously, “I’m 5 minutes away from the apartment. I have leftover lasagna. Could I come in for dinner?”

  I should say no. I’m in no condition to host a leftover party tonight, but it isn’t until after I answer, that horror strikes me.

  “Could you cum?” I repeat in a fog, “Yeah, that sounds nice. Lasagna is nice too.”

  I hang up realizing how cold my load feels on my hand and stomach. Fuck! I only have a few minutes before she cums—COMES!— before she comes! I take an icy cold shower, mortified and scared. Pull off my sheets and leave the bed undone for now. I’ll deal with it later.

  I’m dressed and out of the bedroom just in time.

  She usually just walks in, but today she rings the bell. I’m not sure if it’s to make sure I’m decent or because her arms are so full of stuff.

  Katniss is an excellent cook when she wants to be. She could be on Chopped-and-win good. She can make a meal from scratch with whatever is the pantry, but she truly dislikes cooking. She explains it away as learning to cook out of necessity, and not for the love of the food, ruined it for her, though, she loves food more than anyone I know.

  I’m not that surprised to see all this leftover containers all over the breakfast bar. I’m surprised about the bottle of champagne and box of chocolate covered strawberries she practically slams on the counter. The look she gives them can only be described as disdainful. I wonder how those things offended her?

  We pull stuff from my fridge as well, I don’t have that much anyway. She goes around plating odd servings of food, then nukes the dish in the microwave and sits it in front of me, then she repeats the process for herself.

  That’s another thing I can’t get over about her. She has to be the one serving the food, unless it’s second helpings, then is everyone for themselves. But she’s always so careful measuring what she puts in plates, making sure everyone gets a fair share, my chest tightens for her; I’ve inferred just by comments here and there that she had to do that, so everyone could eat something, because of the very hard times they fell into after her father died.

  I had a rough time with Rye when he was born, but that only lasted until my mother met the baby by chance once. It was instant love, something my brothers and I had to fight for, she gave Rye freely. I was taken back in my dad’s bakery and for the first time, they were paying me an actual salary. My son never knew hunger, but Katniss did.

  She’s uncommonly taciturn tonight. I’m afraid to ask, because I’m pretty sure she knows what she caught me doing, and I really don’t want to face that right now. I know I’ll have to do it soon, but I’m not ready just yet.

  I see little flashes of anger in her eyes and body posture. I’m not sure I could keep ignoring her growing bad mood, but she blurts out a clue soon enough.

  “Champagne?”

  I look at her, over my bite of cold lamb stew and plums she cooks at least once a week.

  “Mmm, sure?” I don’t think she’s very happy with the wine list tonight.

  She goes around opening the bottle, and somehow I’ve never heard a most ominous pop of a sound that usually means celebration and good times. She pours the bubbly drink in plastic flutes she brought herself, and puts one in front of my plate so delicately, I’m afraid is going to explode if I make a sudden move.

  She twirls hers in her hand, arms crossed over her chest, right before tossing the pack of strawberries between us. She looks absolutely rageful.

  She downs her glass in one gulp, slams the flute on the counter and stares at me.

  “You’re not gonna ask me, what’s the occasion?” She poses disgruntled.

  “To be honest, I’m afraid to ask.” I say observing her carefully.

  She points a finger at me, “You,” she reaches for the bottle to fill her empty mug, discarding the champagne glass entirely, and continues, “are a smart man!” She downs that one too. “Been saving this since that awful night, actually. Strawberries maybe a bit funky now, they’d been stuck in the freezer forever, but hey! Leftover night!” She cheers sarcastically. “More?” She offers the bottle to me.

  I shake my head, and watch her wearily, as she shrugs and refills her mug.

  “It’s my third year anniversary with Rye, today. And the boy was so sweet! Not a nasty bone in his body, my Rye. I miss ‘im”  

  I’m amazed at how thick her Appalachian accent sounds right now. She’s always had traces of it in her cadence, but right now, she could just be hailing down the mountain for all I know.

  “And how beautiful those bones were!” She tips the mug back and swallows the wine as if it was water. “Don’t know a single girl in Panem who didn’t wanna jump my Rye’s gorgeous bones, what with his hard muscles, and crooked smile, and the smattering of them cute little freckles on the bridge of his nose! Ooh-eeeh! That boy was hotter than Mr. Hawthorne’s 5 alarm chili sauce!” She fans herself with her hand.

  “I miss his clear blue eyes the most. Too bad yours don’t look the same, yours are darker, deeper, more experienced…” she trails off lowly, her own eyes darken looking at me, but then she takes another drink and shrugs. “His hair was more reddish and darker than yours too. Maybe is for the best, otherwise I couldn’t look you in the eye. It be like watching a mature replica of his, and I wouldn’t be able to stand it.” She tips the mug back and quickly peers into it making a face. “Empty again… da fuck?”

  I feel my eyebrows shoot into my hairline. It’s the very first time I’ve ever heard her use an impolite word in all the time I’ve known her.

  She completely bypasses a cup now, taking a generous pull straight from the bottle. That’s my cue to try and cut her off, but she pushes me away and swallows as much alcohol as she can before I forcibly remove the bottle from her hands. She’s managed to ingest three quarters of the champagne, minus what’s in my own glass.

  “We can’t afford any drunkards, especially you, Katniss.”

  She’s beyond tipsy. Too much drink too soon in such a tiny body. Her eyes are glassy, bloodshot. She slides off the stool, and I catch her just in time. She’s giggling uncontrollably.

  She keeps slipping until I pick her up in my arms and bring her to the couch.

  Her arms circle my neck and her nose nuzzles right under my jaw. She inhales deeply.

  “You smell yummy.” She mumbles, “Like cinnamon and dill.” She lays her head on my shoulder. “You’re gorgeous too, you know. Every girl in my class wanted to bang you. What’s hotter than a single cougar dad? is that a real a thing? A cougar dad? Anyway, yeah… all those girls giggling and batting their lashes at you every time you came to one of Rye’s things, they kept saying they’d wished you’d take them behind the bleachers. Cause you’d probably show them some moves.” The last word comes out raspy and sexi as fuck.

  “I-I-I don’t- I don’t… Katniss. I don’t think this is an appropriate conversation.” I place her in the cushions, and pry her arms off my neck as gently as I can.

  She pouts. “Why? We’re adults! I’ve fucked!”

  “Katniss, that’s enough.” I say half heartedly but she ignores me, and it gets increasingly worse to hear.

  “In fact, Rye was on his way to fuck me that night. We’ve planned it for weeks. I had bought a box of all size condoms just to be sure, I had the apartment full of candles and shit, I had to bring out my fire extinguisher just in case.” She chuckles mirthlessly, “I was so horny I was the fire hazard, not the ambience flames. All we talked about was how much sex we were gonna have that day.” She looks me in the eye, tears are flowing from hers. “You know how people say, sailors have a girl in every port?” she sings the phrase, then shakes her head emphatically, “Not him. Not my Rye. He was saving himself for me. And I was saving myself for him. We had waited so long. It was supposed to be magical!”

  I think she’s done when she starts sobbing quietly, but then she melts into the couch, and all her words pour out like a fountain.

  “The worst part of having your boyfriend’s daddy call to inform your date is detained in the hospital morgue, is receiving the call while you’re only wearing brand new lingerie and strappy kitten pumps.” She coughs, “That’s just humiliating.” Her breath stutters, “My teddy was his favorite color. It took me forever to find it. Now is somewhere in the city landfill with all the expectations of that night.”

  She covers her mouth with her hand and screams. “He deserved to get laid! How sick is that a fucking sailor didn’t get laid? I waited for him! I got all spruced up for him; I got a brazilian done for the occasion, you know how much that shit hurt? It hurt a lot! And he didn’t get to see it! That’s bullshit! It’s all a big pile of bullshit! I want my night back! I want my boyfriend back! Why can’t I have him? Why?”

  I gather her in my arms and rock her back and forth, all the while whispering apologies. “I don’t know baby. I’m sorry your night got ruined, sweetheart. I wish he has here too.”

  She cries herself to sleep, and all I can do is watch her. She looks so sweet and young. All I want to do is protect her from the world. I go into my bedroom and dress my bed, then I take her boots off and carry her into my room. I want her in my arms tonight. She was robbed of Rye, but she still has me, I don’t even care if that’s right or wrong, she needs me and I’m here for her.

  Her eyes flutter open for a second, as I’m depositing her on the mattress. She clings to my hand, laying her cheek on it.

  “Stay with me, until I fall asleep?”

I nod, breathing out “Always.”

  I get in bed fully clothed. I see the appeal of saving myself for someone you love that much. I wish I could say Rye got his principles from me, but it takes me only a week before the itch stalks me again, and I give in. This time I watch brunettes. Redheads don’t do it for me anymore. I tell myself it’s not because of her, but who am I kidding?

  I want her.

  It’s tearing me up inside.

[tkmedia]

Did Nick Saban make subtle recruiting pitch to Arch Manning during 'MNF' appearance?

Alabama coach Nick Saban made the most of his Monday appearance on the ManningCast of the Cowboys-Eagles game. He not only turned it into a recruiting pitch for his program — counting 73 former players on NFL rosters — but also used his stage to send a subtle message to the nation's top recruit, Arch Manning. Because of the SEC affiliations of Saban and the Manning brothers, much of their discussion during the "Monday Night Football" broadcast centered on their time in college, including the times Saban, then at LSU, coached against Eli Manning's Ole Miss teams. Eventually, Saban made an ever-so-subtle declaration about his coaching career:MORE: Alabama's Nick Saban unleashes rant during press conference: 'Did any of you play sports?' "I wish I was coaching at Alabama when Peyton and Eli Manning were recruits so you guys could have played for the Tide," Saban said. "I'd certainly like to coach a member of the Manning family."At face value, Saban merely expressed his desire to be able to coach either Peyton or Eli Manning — certainly not an outlandish wish, considering they both went No. 1 overall in their respective NFL drafts. But Saban also could have been speaking indirectly to their nephew Arch, the No. 1 recruit in the country for the class of 2023, per 247Sports' Composite rankings.MORE: Lane Kiffin shows QB phenom Arch Manning some subtle love on InstagramOf course, NCAA rules prevent college coaches from speaking directly about recruits. So that means Saban — who has been known to bend rules to the benefit of his team — would have to find a workaround if he wanted to make a recruiting pitch on national TV. Whether that was his intention may never be known, but this is not the face of someone who doesn't know what he's doing: Nick Saban on ESPN2 just now…“I wish I was coaching at Alabama when Peyton and Eli Manning were recruits so you guys could have played for the Tide.I’d love to coach a member of the Manning family.” pic.twitter.com/NLAoPx05HN — James T. Yoder (@JamesYoder) September 28, 2021It certainly was coincidental that Saban also said any quarterback should "go to the team where he'll be surrounded by the most talent." (Unrelated, but Alabama signed the top-rated class in modern history with its 2021 signees and has several top-rated recruiting classes under Saban. Also unrelated, but Arch Manning will be in Tuscaloosa on Saturday for the Alabama-Ole Miss game).MORE: Peyton and Eli Manning on the call for Tennessee-Ole Miss? Lane Kiffin wants to make it happenOf course, Saban isn't the only coach who wants the youngest Manning on his team. There are obviously Ole Miss and Tennessee connections with granddad Archie, dad Cooper and uncles Eli and Peyton. And LSU should be in play too, considering Arch Manning plays out of Isidore Newman High School in New Orleans.Indeed, Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin has even gone so far as to make Arch Manning one of only two people he follows on Instagram, the other being current Rebels quarterback Matt Corral.Regardless of where Arch Manning decides to attend school, one thing is certain: His recruitment is setting up to be one of the wildest in college football history. Read the full article

[bb6cats]

Peyton Manning Watches Arch Manning DOMINATE With 6 Touchdowns! Freshman... 

The next wave of Manning football. Young Arch Manning, Cooper’s son plays QB for Newman.  Uncle ‘Peyton is there with Marshall to watch the game.

[kcaruth]

Movie Mania: Top 10 of 2019

Another year of movies, another year a Star Wars film sadly did not make the cut for my list. With 2019′s The Rise of Skywalker, it is absolutely clear that the folks at Disney/Lucasfilm had no roadmap for this sequel trilogy whatsoever, which is an utter shame given their abundance of resources and proven ability to produce quality content as seen with the success of The Mandalorian.

In a rare occurrence, I saw most of the films nominated in the major categories for the Academy Awards. In fact, the Academy nominated seven out of my top 10 films for at least one award. I would say that 2019 was a markedly stronger year for film than 2018, so I have allowed myself a couple of extra honorable mention slots. One quick housekeeping note before I unveil my 2019 list: I’m retroactively moving Game Night and A Quiet Place ahead of Bohemian Rhapsody and Green Book on my 2018 list. Now it is time to jump into my favorite films of 2019. (No spoilers!)

Honorable Mention: Joker

Nominated for a whopping 11 Oscars (equaling The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King [which swept all 11], The Godfather [Parts 1 and 2], West Side Story, and Saving Private Ryan, among others), Joker should get an award for most divisive film of the year. Directed by Todd Phillips (yes, the same guy who directed The Hangover), Joker is a psychological thriller staring Joaquin Phoenix that provides a possible origin story for Batman’s arch-nemesis. Before becoming the Joker, Phoenix’s character, Arthur Fleck, dreams of becoming a famous stand-up comedian. His gradual descent into insanity, nihilism, and violence mirrors the chaotic anarchy slowly consuming the decaying Gotham City as its citizens revolt against the wealthy and better-off.

Despite the concerns surrounding Joker that it would inspire real-world violence, the film has grossed over one billion dollars, making it the first R-rated film to do so. Phoenix disappears into his role, and Icelandic composer Hildur Guðnadóttir’s haunting score brilliantly conveys the inner pain and turmoil in Arthur’s mind as well as the dying light of Gotham. (Guðnadóttir made history as the first solo woman to win a Golden Globe for best original film score.) In an interview with Forbes, Guðnadóttir explained the concept of her turbulent score. “In the beginning, it’s almost just like a solo cello, but in reality, there’s a whole symphony orchestra behind the cello. It’s almost like this hidden force that he doesn’t know about and as he starts to kind of discover what he’s gone through and what’s actually happened to him, the forces become louder and more aggressive. The orchestra takes over and almost eats the cello alive.”

Although Joker is a powerful film and and makes strong statements about mental illness and poverty, its gruesome, unhinged violence can be hard to handle. Everything is shown in graphic, bloody detail, making the thought of a repeat viewing undesirable. I also could have done without a couple of choices that were made involving the Waynes, especially one scene that we have seen over and over again.

Honorable Mention: Ford v Ferrari

As someone who really does not care all that much about cars and their inner workings, this film did the one thing it needed to do for me: It made me come out exclaiming, “Yeah, cars!”

In all seriousness, James Mangold’s sharp direction smartly focuses not on the sport of racing but rather on its big personalities. Those personalities gripped me so much that I immediately started researching their lives after the film ended. The plot follows Carroll Shelby and Ken Miles as they are dispatched by Henry Ford II to dethrone the dominant Ferrari racing team with an American-made car. Along the way, they have to deal with mechanical setbacks and corporate interference to achieve their goal.

This film’s cast is outstanding. Matt Damon and Christian Bale’s deep but sometimes heated friendship as Shelby and Miles is the heart of the film. Tracy Letts as Ford II and Josh Lucas as Leo Beebe, senior executive vice president of Ford, give off the perfect amount of corporate stench to make them unlikable but not unbelievable. 14-year-old Noah Jupe comes off his great performance in 2018′s A Quiet Place to deliver another stellar outing here as Miles’ young son. However, Jon Bernthal felt a bit underused as Lee Iacocca, vice president of Ford, and Cautriona Balfe’s role as Mollie Miles, Ken’s wife, though well-acted, felt like it could have been removed entirely without much consequence to the film overall.

With a moving score and great cinematography, Ford v Ferrari unexpectedly tugged at my heartstrings, and the infectious passion Shelby, Miles, and these other characters have for cars managed to rub off on me, which might be the ultimate testimonial for this film.

Honorable Mention: 1917

1917 has been hyped as “that World War I movie with one continuous take,” but it is so much more than that. World War I was a stark clash between 20th-century technology and 19th-centry tactics. With soldiers largely trapped in trench warfare, conflicts commonly turned into battles of attrition. That does not exactly translate into exciting cinema, which explains why there are so many more films about World War II. Karl Vick acknowledges this in Time magazine, writing, “motion pictures do require a certain amount of motion, and the major accomplishment of 1917...may be that its makers figured out what the generals could not: a way to advance” (Karl Vick. Time. "Escaping the Trench". January 20, 2020. Page 38-41.)

What more can one say about Roger Deakins at this point? What he and director Sam Mendes created with the cinematography of this film is nothing short of fantastic. With its cinematic achievement of what is made to look like one continuous shot, 1917 presents most of its actors with only a small amount of screen time to make an impact, and they are more than up to the challenge. Mark Strong, Andrew Scott, Benedict Cumberbatch, Colin Firth, Richard Madden, and others all leave a lasting impression with their extremely short encounters with the film’s main characters, Lance Corporal Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman [Tommen!]) and Lance Corporal Schofield (George MacKay). Mendes places the bulk of the weight of the film on Chapman and MacKay’s shoulders, and they luckily carry it with natural ease. Working together with the one continuous take style, Thomas Newman’s riveting score keeps viewers on the edge of their seat and makes them feel like they are part of this life-or-death mission with the lance corporals.

If I had to list a couple of flaws with the film, I would say that one of the characters feels like he has untouchable plot armor. It almost seems like Mendes and company hope that the awe-inspiring cinematography will make viewers forgiving or even ignorant of the amount of times this character should be fatally shot or even injured, but I understand that some artistic license is necessary to convey the story they want to tell. The nature of the cinematography employed here also makes it difficult to get a grasp on distances and positioning because the shot is never really allowed to zoom out or give an aerial view since it is fixed on the lance corporals.

Unfortunately, I experienced this breathtaking film with one of my worst theater audiences of 2019. Much of the film was drowned out by the ladies sitting next to me who felt the need to constantly narrate everything that was happening on screen. “He’s going down into the trenches.” “Look! He’s jumping into the water.” Etc., etc. This is not your living room, people! If people want to talk over a film like this and provide running commentary and narration, they should wait for its home release. Your fellow audience members are not blind, and we would greatly appreciate it if you remained quiet.

#10: Spider-Man: Far From Home

After Avengers: Endgame released earlier in the year, the spotlight promptly shifted to Jon Watts’ Spider-Man: Far From Home, and he did a tremendous job with this film. Serving as both the epilogue to Endgame and the sequel to Spider-Man: Homecoming, Far From Home effectively closes out phase three and sets the stage for the next era of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Far From Home is the first Spider-Man film to pass the billion-dollar mark, and it is not hard to see how it managed to pull that off. The returning cast led by Tom Holland as Peter Parker/ Spider-Man retains its great chemistry, and Jake Gyllenhaal is the perfect choice to play Quentin Beck/ Mysterio, complete with a great theme from returning composer Michael Giacchino. Fans of Spider-Man have been waiting forever to see this character on the big screen, and I am happy to report the film does him justice. Watts especially knocks his character out of the park with a certain sequence about halfway through the film that I was beyond thrilled to see.

The film is set immediately after the events of Endgame and finds Peter and his high school class taking an international field trip to Europe. The writers do an amazing job explaining the ramifications of Endgame, and the way they weave plot details and character motivations together all the way back from phase one of the MCU is mind-blowing. Watts realizes that there needs to be some levity after Endgame, so this film is full of laugh-out-loud humor and charmingly awkward teen road-trip set-pieces. Oh, and did I mention it has one of the best mid-credits scenes in the entire MCU that dramatically alters the characters’ futures going forward?

#9: Toy Story 4

I have a deep personal connection to the Toy Story franchise. I grew up watching Toy Story and Toy Story 2 on repeat, and Toy Story 3 came out during my senior year of high school. Those who have seen that film know why it especially resonated with me at that age. In my opinion, Toy Story 3 ended the trilogy perfectly; there was no way another film could top its emotional ending. When I heard that Pixar was coming out with Toy Story 4, I was not going to pass up another opportunity to hang out with Woody, Buzz, and the gang, of course, (neither was anyone else, seeing as this is the highest grossing film of the franchise) but I set my expectations to a low, manageable level.

Although I was disappointed that Buzz and the rest of Andy’s old toys were not as heavily involved in the plot and did not have all that much time to interact with Woody, I was impressed overall with the new characters and was happy to see Bo Peep return. In this film, Bo breaks through her porcelain design and exhibits a character with total agency over her choices. Everything about her redesign and the way she carries herself is awesome. Keanu Reeves’ Canadian daredevil Duke Caboom steals every scene he is in, and Christina Hendricks’ Gabby Gabby gave me terrifying flashbacks to Talky Tina from the “Living Doll” episode of The Twilight Zone.

As audiences have come to expect from Pixar, the film delivers stunning animation and a signature big emotional gut punch, which it earns it by building up genuinely heartwarming moments throughout its run time that address themes such as the difficulty of change, the beauty of imperfection, the mystery of creation and the meaning of life, and the importance of serving others. As Matt Zoller Seitz writes for RogerEbert.com, “This franchise has demonstrated an impressive ability to beat the odds and reinvent itself, over a span of time long enough for two generations to grow up in. It's a toy store of ideas, with new wonders in every aisle.”

#8: Doctor Sleep

Writer-director Mike Flanagan took on the unenviable task of pleasing two different parties when Warner Bros. hired him in January 2018: fans of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining from 1980 and Stephen King and fans of his books The Shining and Doctor Sleep. Somehow, he managed to pull it off.

After visiting the Timberline Lodge in Oregon, the location used in Kubrick’s film for the exterior of the Overlook Hotel, this past summer, I decided it was finally time to watch The Shining. I can attest it is just as much a masterpiece as many people say it is. My favorite part: it is a horror movie that does not rely on jump scares. When I heard the Flanagan wanted to chop away at the horror genre’s reliance on jump scares, I was even more excited to see Doctor Sleep. Flanagan said, “When we were developing the project and when we were talking about the metered expectations audiences have about, in particular, jump scares and startles and the pacing of those, which we’re utterly uninterested in this film, I would say, ‘What’s your favorite jump scare in The Shining?’ There isn’t one. The same is true here. We used a lot of the lessons that Kubrick taught us about how to do a psychological thriller, a supernatural thriller, in a way that is more about suffocating atmosphere and tension than it ever is about the kind of traditional scares as we understand them today.”

It is well known that King really disliked Kubrick’s adaptation of his book. He disliked it so much, in fact, that he wrote and executive-produced a new version with the 1997 television miniseries. In his approach to Doctor Sleep, Flanagan first read King’s book, which was published in 2013, and then consulted closely with the author to reconcile the differences between the book and film version of The Shining. After reading Flanagan’s script, King felt like his least favorite parts of Kubrik’s film had been “redeemed.”

Set several decades after The Shining, Doctor Sleep reunites audiences with Danny Torrance, played by everyone’s favorite Jedi, Ewan McGregor. Danny continues to struggle with the childhood trauma he endured at the Overlook Hotel during the events of The Shining, turning to alcohol to numb the pain and his psychic abilities. Meanwhile, the True Knot, a cult of psychic vampires led by Rose the Hat (Rebecca Ferguson), is on the hunt for children with psychic abilities like Danny’s, and they are hot on the trail of young Abra Stone, played by Kyliegh Curran in her feature film debut.

With the benefit of having just seen The Shining a couple of months before this film, I was able to appreciate Flanagan’s careful attention to detail. He is clearly a fan of both King and Kubrick, but he does not let his admiration for them impede his own creative vision. He expertly balances original content with just the right amount of fan service and callbacks to The Shining. Even without jump scares, the film has plenty of horrifying moments, especially one involving young actor Jacob Tremblay that echoed in my mind long after the film had ended. Ewan McGregor is fabulous, as always, convincingly portraying Dan’s fight with his inner demons, and Rebecca Ferguson looks like she is having a devilishly good time as Rose the Hat. Above all, I was surprised to learn that this was Kyliegh Curran’s film debut. She is so comfortable on camera and has painted a bright future for herself out of the darkness of this film.

Doctor Sleep gave me all sorts of chills down my spine, induced by the eerie atmosphere of certain scenes as well as extremely well-timed tie-ins to its predecessor, that left me hungry for even more Stephen King stories.

#7: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Set in 1969 Los Angeles, Quentin Tarantino’s ninth film stays true to its name and delivers an alternate version of events that unfolded in Hollywood that year. In addition to Sharon Tate, Roman Polanski, and the Manson Family, the film tells the story of fictional characters Rick Dalton and Cliff Booth. Dalton is a veteran Hollywood actor most famous for starring in a Western television series called Bounty Law who believes he is approaching the end of his career. Booth, a war veteran with a shady past, is Dalton’s best friend and longtime stunt double. Together, they attempt to navigate the final stretch of Hollywood’s Golden Age.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt work incredibly well together as Dalton and Booth, respectively, with neither star trying to outshine the other. Margot Robbie, on the other hand, does not get a lot of material to work with as Tate. (Do not tell Tarantino that.) Conversely, Julia Butters blew me away as Trudi Fraser, Dalton’s eight-year-old co-star in the pilot of a new American Western series. She more than holds her own acting side by side with DiCaprio.

Although the film moves at a slow pace, leaving me to wonder at times where this story was even going or if I was just watching a day in the life, Tarantino’s usual engaging, snappy dialogue entertains even when there is no real action happening on screen. With this being Tarantino, audiences have to accept his signature peculiarities, like close-up shots of feet, to be treated to another perfectly crafted soundtrack, complete with classic rock and roll, old-time DJ chatter, and period-accurate radio commercials. In the end, the slow pacing of Tarantino’s script actually helps enhance the heart-stopping standoff at the halfway point and the absurd payoff at the end. Clearly, this film is Tarantino’s passion project. In fact, he said it is “probably my most personal. I think of it like my memory piece... This is me. This is the year that formed me. I was six years old then. This is my world. And this is my love letter to L.A.” No wonder he publicly referred to it as Magnum Opus while he was writing it.

#6: El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie

Written and directed by the creator himself, Vince Gilligan, El Camino serves as the epilogue to Breaking Bad, giving fans closure on certain questions and characters. Many favorites from the series return in some form or fashion (shout-out to Jesse Plemons for absolutely crushing his role here), but the focus always remains on Jesse Pinkman. Whereas Breaking Bad was Walter White’s story, El Camino puts Jesse center stage, and Aaron Paul gives one of the best performances of his career, fully tapping into his character’s desperate, damaged psyche.

Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul are two of my favorite television shows, and I think Gilligan is one of the best show runners in the business. He manages to incorporate the tone and atmosphere from the world of those two shows into this film seamlessly, and he rewards longtime fans with a nice amount of Easter eggs. Cinematographer Marshall Adams deserves so much praise for the jaw-dropping shots that grace the screen, especially the ones that show off the New Mexico landscape. He has an astonishing ability to make every frame look like a detailed painting. Editor Skip Macdonald should also be recognized for his work, particularly for the way his editing of Jesse searching for something in an apartment reinforces Gilligan’s non-linear revelatory style of storytelling.

El Camino does not waste any time with exposition, so someone who has not seen Breaking Bad cannot jump right into this film and understand what is going on. Then again, what rock have you been hiding under if you have not seen Breaking Bad at this point? What are you waiting for? Let this be your motivation to finally watch it, and then once you have made it through the series and El Camino, keep the good times rolling and watch Better Call Saul, which is just as good, if not maybe even a little better than, Breaking Bad.

#5: Jojo Rabbit

Only the whimsical genius of Taika Waititi could have concocted this irreverent, dark satire set against the backdrop of World War II Nazi Germany. Based on Christine Leunens’ book Caging Skies, Jojo Rabbit stars Roman Griffin Davis as the titular Johannes “Jojo” Betzler, a jingoistic 10-year-old German boy enrolled in the Hitler Youth. Jojo lives with his mother, Rosie, played by Scarlett Johansson. As far as Jojo knows, his father is fighting on the Italian Front, so he often turns to his imaginary friend, a wacky version of Adolf Hitler (Waititi), for advice and support as Germany becomes more desperate as the war starts to reach its conclusion.

Jojo Rabbit’s black comedy places viewers in plenty of predicaments in which they want to laugh, are not sure its entirely appropriate, but still end up doing so anyway. The film balances this out by keeping a good amount of heartrendingly emotional and genuinely sweet moments tucked up its sleeve. Waititi and Romanian cinematographer Mihai Mălaimare, Jr.’s visual storytelling is on a whole different level, carefully using ordinary imagery as subconscious foreshadowing, leading to one of the biggest breath-stealing shocks of the entire year that stopped my heart and rocked me to my core. Michael Giacchino seems to have been criminally overlooked by the Academy for his simultaneously jaunty and intimate score that adds yet another impressive layer to the film’s wide range of emotional beats. Living in a world fueled by hate, Davis, Johansson, and Thomasin McKenzie’s characters show how compassion and the willingness to try to come to a common understanding can change, and in some cases save, lives.

#4: Marriage Story

Writer-director Noah Baumbach paints what may be the most brutally honest picture of divorce I have ever seen on screen in Marriage Story. Before Marriage Story, I had never seen one of Baumbach’s films, but I get the sense from this film that he takes a very grounded approach to storytelling.

Marriage Story stars Adam Driver and Scarlet Johansson as Charlie and Nicole Barber. Charlie is an acclaimed theater director, and Nicole is his muse. Despite her acting skills, Charlie always receives all the praise, leaving Nicole to congratulate him from the back seat and contemplate what kind of professional movie and television acting career she possibly gave up to be with him. She also misses living in Los Angeles and being close to her family. At the center of this tenuous relationship is the couple’s young son, Henry. As things go from bad to worse in their relationship, Charlie and Nicole start down the path to divorce, initially wanting to approach everything amicably without involving lawyers, but quickly walking back on that as they begin to doubt each other’s motives and end goals, especially in regards to Henry.

Driver and Johansson both put on a masterclass of acting here, but I would have to give Driver my nod in choosing the stronger performance of the two. He is a tour de force in this film, unyielding to the unflinching camera. Alan Alda and Laura Dern keep pace with Driver and Johannson beat for beat as Bert Spitz and Nora Fanshaw, Charlie and Nicole’s lawyers. Baumbach smartly chooses not to wallow in the melodrama of the messy divorce, showing that small, flickering sparks of love still exist between Charlie and Nicole, maybe not enough to reignite the flame that brought them together in the first place, but enough to convince you that they still have a hope for some kind of happiness.

#3: Knives Out

After the Internet firestorm that was Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Rian Johnson did the best thing he could have possibly done—he went far, far away from any established franchises, rounded up an all-star ensemble cast, and wrote and directed his own original murder mystery film. Through some ingenious plotting, Johnson revitalizes the entire genre and turns the classic whodunit on its head, all the while delivering some timely social commentary. Complete with Daniel Craig delivering a monologue about donut holes in a southern gentleman accent, Knives Out is an absolute delight.

The events of the film center around the Thrombey family, with the main mystery beginning after patriarch and rich crime writer Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer) is found dead in an apparent suicide the morning after his big 85th birthday party with his family at his mansion. An anonymous source informs private detective Benoit Blanc (Craig) of Harlan’s death and hires him to investigate.

A huge fan of classical mystery thrillers and comedies, Johnson’s love of the genre is tangible, but he never allows the narrative to become overly meta, referential, or even reverential, for that matter. I have already mentioned Craig and how much fun he looks like he is having in his role as Blanc, but Ana de Armas breaks out as Marta Cabrera, Harlan’s caretaker, and is the heart of the film. The rest of this high caliber ensemble cast has its moments, and I only felt like a couple of the characters were completely disposable, such as Jaeden Martell’s Jacob Thrombey, for example.

Johnson keeps his audience on its toes for the entire film. Just when the solution seems obvious, he throws another twist at them to throw them off the scent. It is a true shame that Knives Out received only one nomination from the Academy, but Johnson more than deserves that nomination for best original screenplay.

#2: Avengers: Endgame

It has all led up to this, the culmination of phases one through three of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Admittedly, I was not the biggest fan of Avengers: Infinity War; I did not care for its overall slow pacing. Avengers: Endgame, however, is everything I wanted in this grand finale of the Infinity Saga. Whereas Infinity War felt overcrowded, Endgame brings it all back home to the original Avengers team for the majority of its surprisingly swift 182-minute run time, allowing them to essentially take a victory lap before the next phase of this cinematic universe begins. In the interest of not giving anything away, I will keep this brief, and trust me when I say that I could go on and on talking about how much I enjoyed this film. I will just end by saying that directors Anthony and Joe Russo and producer Kevin Feige certainly reward the dedication of fans who have watched all 21 films leading up to Endgame, and Robert Downey, Jr. submits one of his best performances as Tony Stark/Iron Man. #ILoveYou3000

#1: Parasite

Far and away my favorite film of 2019 was Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite, a South Korean dark comedy home-invasion thriller about a poor family plotting to improve their circumstances by tricking an extremely wealthy family into hiring them by posing as unrelated, highly skilled individuals.

I came into this film ignorant of its premise, and I was completely floored. This is Bong Joon-ho in total control of his craft. Parasite has a mesmeric rhythm to it that is aesthetically energized, allowing the film’s strikingly bold tonal shifts to work so well. Every act increases the ever-present nail-biting suspense, supplemented by cinematic moments of pure genius like the nearly five-minute long montage towards the end of the first hour. Every single member of the cast knocks it out of the park, and there is enough social commentary to fuel college essays for years. The twists zig when you think they are going to zag; it is a truly wild ride. To put it quite simply, Parasite is a masterpiece.

The following are a list of films I saw from 2019, in no particular order:

·         Glass

·         How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World

·         Captain Marvel

·         Shazam!

·         Avengers: Endgame

·         Aladdin

·         Booksmart

·         Rocketman

·         X-Men: Dark Phoenix

·         Men in Black: International

·         Toy Story 4

·         Spider-Man: Far From Home

·         Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

·         Joker

·         Parasite

·         Jojo Rabbit

·         The Lighthouse

·         Doctor Sleep

·         Ford v Ferrari

·         Frozen II

·         Knives Out

·         Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

·         1917

·         The Two Popes

·         The Irishman

·         Marriage Story

·         El Camino

·         Uncut Gems

·         One Piece: Stampede

I somehow completely forgot I saw The Peanut Butter Falcon and absolutely adored it; I definitely recommend checking out this feel-good film.

My 2018 film list: https://kcaruth.tumblr.com/post/182182411291/movie-mania-top-10-of-2018

My 2017 film list: https://kcaruth.tumblr.com/post/171040800751/movie-mania-top-15-of-2017

My 2016 film list: https://kcaruth.tumblr.com/post/156340406236/movie-mania-top-15-of-2016

[lillie-ross]

Archie Manning: Football phenom grandson Arch Manning 'ahead of' Peyton, Eli at this stage

Archie Manning: Football phenom grandson Arch Manning ‘ahead of’ Peyton, Eli at this stage

Under those Friday night lights, Archie and Olivia Manning sit in the bleachers at Isidore Newman School in the uptown section of New Orleans. They turn and look at one another and just shake their heads.Here they are again, watching a high school quarterback named Manning make magic on a football field.This time it’s their grandson Arch Manning, Archie Manning’s namesake and son of the eldest of…

[billyagogo]

Archie Manning: Football phenom grandson Arch Manning 'ahead of' Peyton, Eli at this stage

New Post has been published on https://newsprofixpro.com/moxie/2019/10/01/archie-manning-football-phenom-grandson-arch-manning-ahead-of-peyton-eli-at-this-stage/

Archie Manning: Football phenom grandson Arch Manning 'ahead of' Peyton, Eli at this stage

Dana Hunsinger Benbow, Indianapolis Star Published 1:14 p.m. ET Oct. 1, 2019 | Updated 1:23 p.m. ET Oct. 1, 2019CLOSE Archie Manning talks about his grandson Arch Manning Matt Kryger, IndyStarUnder those Friday night lights, Archie and Olivia Manning sit in the bleachers at Isidore Newman School in the uptown section of New Orleans. They turn and look at one another and just shake their heads.Here they are again, watching a high school quarterback named Manning make magic on a football field.This time it’s their grandson Arch Manning, Archie Manning’s namesake and son of the eldest of the Manning trio of boys, Cooper.This time, it’s hard to fathom, but the quarterback they’re watching may just be better than any of those Manning boys before him who took to that same field in the 1990s.”He’s probably a little ahead of them as a freshman,” Archie Manning said, when asked if he thinks Arch could be better than his uncles Peyton and Eli. They played junior varsity as freshmen and started as sophomores.Not Arch, a 6-1 graduate of the class of 2023, who earned a spot on varsity after a scrimmage game for Isidore Newman in May. He threw for three touchdowns, all while displaying accuracy, arm strength and something his uncles have never really been known for — agility.Arch has already been noticed by Ole Miss, where Eli and Archie played, and Tennessee, Peyton’s alma mater. And the buzz. The social media and media requests. The attention Arch is already getting is surreal, said his grandfather.  But he’s not talking. Not to college coaches. Not to the media.”Our theme is, ‘Let’s let Arch be a freshman,'” Manning told IndyStar last week in a sit-down interview.Just let him play ball, Manning said. And watching Arch play ball reminds Manning a lot of Cooper.Manning says Cooper was, by far, the best athlete of the family. He played high school sports and could have played college, but was forced to quit after being diagnosed with a rare spinal condition at 18.”(He) kind of got cheated out of that,” said Manning. “Had to have big-time surgery and had to give it up.”Manning is thrilled that Cooper is getting to experience the joy of watching his son as a football phenom himself.  And he and Manning are trying to make sure Arch doesn’t feel too much pressure.”(Arch is) playing good, he’s on a good team, they’re having a lot of success and having a lot of fun and that’s the way it should be,” Manning said. “That’s the one thing I always told my kids and I’ll tell Arch the day before a game. ‘Go have fun.'” As for those Friday night games, Archie Manning loves every minute of it.”I mean, we did the Friday night thing for years and years. We did Saturday and we’ve done Sundays and it looked like we were about through with that and here we are on Friday nights again,” he said. “But it’s fun. There is no greater institution than high school football.”Follow IndyStar sports reporter Dana Benbow on Twitter: @DanaBenbow. Reach her via e-mail: dbenbow@indystar.com.

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[misssonjabee-blog]

Born in New Orleans on April 24, 1976, Peyton Manning was a new member of Arche Manning and Olivia Manning.

Born in New Orleans on April 24, 1976, Peyton Manning was a new member of Arche Manning and Olivia Manning movies torrent When Peyton went to high school, Archie was a colorful television producer of the New Orleans Saints. As a child, Peyton will work closely with his fathers and his ancestors. At one point, then Jim Mora, a holy congress, took Peyton to work and to give more recipients to receive recipients. Even a little less credible than a high school college with NFL recipients in the fact that you are perfect in such a teens age. While at high school Isidore Newman, Manning worked as quarterback every three years. At the end of his growing age, Peyton Manning was the third highest in the country, and was called Gatorade Circle of National Yearly Leaders. After graduating from high school, Manning decided to attend the University of Tennessee where he had regained his third star for membership. While you have your technical advice on the site, Peyton Manning shows that you have the skills in school. It's NOT in conversation and in concert with specialized Manning, which is why you decide to leave your professional career until you understand it. As 1998 rounded, Manning became the NFL candidate. The Indianapolis Colts recognize Peyton Manning as the first choice in their enjoyment and, as they say, the rest is history. Today, Peyton Manning is a reporter for Indianapolis Colts where he has been from the time of his career in the NFL. In October 29, 2005, Manning of # 16 University of Tennessee retired music as he, his mother, father and wife were handy with a forceful force before the University of Tennessee Volunteers played against South Carolina Gamecocks. Everyone in the city of Neyland looks like the Manning number is outdoors. From 1994 to 1997, Peyton Manning has worked at the University of Tennessee where he has broken almost every record record and leads to the 39 war. Prior to joke, the PeyBack Peyton company has been a business director, $ 12,000.00 to use for donations and events that have unemployed children in Knoxville. On Friday, April 3, 2006, Peyton Manning was noted as the NFL Director of Walter Payton of the Year. This name is named as the name of Chicago Bears's retailers, Walter Payton, past in 1999. This is the only bird in the race to know the work of a music player who is off- in space with your music enjoyment. Connie Payton, wife of Walter Payton, proudly displayed the award. Volunteers around the country observe Manning's achievements and successes in football and in the world.