Illustris
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15 Days Babysitting For My Star Quarterback Bully
Imma Noir My smile dies the second the door swings open. Gasping, I stumble back as if burned by the deep scowl aimed at me.
"You!" I whisper, and at the same time, my arch-enemy's scowl morphs into a sinister smile.
Tyler Brooks raises an eyebrow. "I didn't realize you've added stalking to your nerdy tendencies," he finally says, his deep voice causing me to shiver.
I feel cold sweat break across my forehead, but I curl my fingers tighter around the strap of my purse. "I'm here to... for... um..."
Tyler snorts, seemingly taking pleasure in my embarrassment. "What are you doing here, Garcia?"
***
Lila Garcia thought her life couldn't get any worse as the infamous nerd of Princeton High, constantly bullied by the jocks. But when Tyler Brooks' parents leave town and they need someone to watch his younger siblings, Lila is roped into babysitting duty.
Tyler has always been a jerk to her since day one, but now Lila's stuck in his world and seeing him as more than just an arrogant football star. In close quarters, Lila learns that Tyler has secrets, and that he isn't the guy she pegged him to be.
As her feelings start to change, and the lines between love and hate blur, Lila must decide if this new version of Tyler is worth trusting, or if she's just another target in his game.
The Ninety-Ninth Goodbye
Tango The ninety-ninth time Jax Little broke my heart was the last time. We were the golden couple of Northgate High, our future perfectly mapped out for UCLA. But in our senior year, he fell for a new girl, Catalina, and our love story became a sick, exhausting dance of his betrayals and my empty threats to leave.
At a graduation party, Catalina "accidentally" pulled me into the pool with her. Jax dove in without a second's hesitation. He swam right past me as I struggled, wrapped his arms around Catalina, and pulled her to safety.
As he helped her out to the cheers of his friends, he glanced back at me, my body shivering and my mascara running in black rivers.
"Your life isn't my problem anymore," he said, his voice as cold as the water I was drowning in.
That night, something inside me finally shattered. I went home, opened my laptop, and clicked the button that confirmed my admission.
Not to UCLA with him, but to NYU, an entire country away. The Price of Unrequited Love
Shearwater Eighteen days after giving up on Brendan Maynard, Jayde Rosario cut off her waist-length hair and called her father, announcing her decision to move to California and attend UC Berkeley.
Her father, surprised, asked about the sudden change, reminding her how she' d always insisted on staying with Brendan. Jayde forced a laugh, revealing the painful truth: Brendan was getting married, and she, his stepsister, could no longer cling to him.
That night, she tried to tell Brendan about her college acceptance, but his fiancée, Chloie Ellis, interrupted with a bubbly call, and Brendan' s tender words to Chloie twisted a knife in Jayde' s heart. She remembered how his tenderness used to be hers alone, how he had protected her, and how she had poured out her heart to him in a diary and a love letter, only for him to explode, tearing the letter and yelling, "I'm your brother!"
He had stormed out, leaving her to painstakingly tape the shredded pieces back together. Her love, however, didn't die, not even when he brought Chloie home and told her to call her "sister-in-law."
Now, she understood. She had to put that fire out herself. She had to dig Brendan out of her heart. My Daddy and Uncles
Flying Soul 🦋 “Alina, you will get late for school again” I heard Dad banging on my door.
“Last 10 min” I mumble, but my eyes widen. I was with Uncle Harrison. Did Dad find us?
“Alina…” I opened my eyes, I was in my room and Harrison was looking at me with a warm smile wearing his signature suit.
“I am taking a bath” I yelled.
“Come fast, your breakfast is ready,” Dad said before leaving.
“Good morning” Uncle Harrison came to bed cupping my face he kissed me.
“Good morning” I whispered on his lips.
“When did you bring me here,” I asked.
“You were sleeping,” He said, scooping me in his arms and entering my bathroom.
“This hide and seek is terrible” I sighed.
“But it's fun” He chuckled.
Author Note...
Hello dear Readers,
Meet Alina and her family.
The story of love, care, romance and lots of suspense.. Works, V1
Lucian of Samosata It is not to be understood that all statements here made are either ascertained facts or universally admitted conjectures. The introduction is intended merely to put those who are not scholars, and probably have not books of reference at hand, in a position to approach the translation at as little disadvantage as may be. Accordingly, we give the account that commends itself to us, without discussion or reference to authorities. Those who would like a more complete idea of Lucian should read Croiset's Essai sur la vie et les oeuvres de Lucien, on which the first two sections of this introduction are very largely based. The only objections to the book (if they are objections) are that it is in French, and of 400 octavo pages. It is eminently readable. With the exception of a very small number of statements, of which the truth is by no means certain, all that we know of Lucian is derived from his own writings. And any reader who prefers to have his facts at first rather than at second hand can consequently get them by reading certain of his pieces, and making the natural deductions from them. Those that contain biographical matter are, in the order corresponding to the periods of his life on which they throw light, The Vision, Demosthenes, Nigrinus, The Portrait-study and Defence (in which Lucian is Lycinus), The Way to write History, The double ndictment (in which he is The Syrian), The Fisher (Parrhesiades), Swans and Amber, Alexander, Hermotimus_ (Lycinus), Menippus and Icaromenippus (in which Menippus represents him), A literary Prometheus, Herodotus, Zeuxis, Harmonides, The Scythian, The Death of Peregrine, The Book-fancier, Demonax, The Rhetorician's Vade mecum, Dionysus, Heracles, A Slip of the Tongue, Apology for 'The dependent Scholar.'_ Of these The Vision is a direct piece of autobiography; there is intentional but veiled autobiography in several of the other pieces; in others again conclusions can be drawn from comparison of his statements with facts known from external sources. Lucian lived from about 125 to about 200 A.D., under the Roman Emperors Antoninus Pius, M. Aurelius and Lucius Verus, Commodus, and perhaps Pertinax. He was a Syrian, born at Samosata on the Euphrates, of parents to whom it was of importance that he should earn his living without spending much time or money on education. His maternal uncle being a statuary, he was apprenticed to him, having shown an aptitude for modelling in the wax that he surreptitiously scraped from his school writing-tablets. The apprenticeship lasted one day. It is clear that he was impulsive all through life; and when his uncle corrected him with a stick for breaking a piece of marble, he ran off home, disposed already to think he had had enough of statuary. His mother took his part, and he made up his mind by the aid of a vision that came to him the same night. I Kissed My Bestfriend's Brother. Now What?
Blue berry Kaida thought forever was the deal with her boyfriend, Liam, the captain of the Runners Hockey Team, until he broke up with her and reunited with his childhood lover, who had returned after several years of being away.
Heartbroken and angry, Kaida decided to make her ex-boyfriend jealous by kissing her best friend's older brother, Maverick.
Unfortunately, she reignited the flame he'd been trying to quench for years.
Now, there was no turning back and no quenching the obsessive flame burning inside Maverick for her.
After some time, Liam realized he truly loved Kaida and wanted her back, but Maverick wasn't letting her go.
Kaida was his now, and he would go to the end of the earth for her sake.
What began as revenge against her ex turned into something twisted and dark: something beyond words and certainly beyond obsession.
Betrayed by Blood
Jing Jing Thanksgiving weekend was just around the corner, and as an intern ranger, I was preparing for what my supervisor, Mark Thorne, called a "mandatory exploratory survey" to Devil's Gulch.
But this seemingly routine assignment was a meticulously planned death trap, set by the man I worked for and the sister I loved.
The rock bit into my back, a sharp pain, then nothing as my climbing rope went slack, sabotaged, as I plummeted into the cold darkness of the crevasse.
Mark's chilling, empty smile was the last thing I saw above me on the narrow ledge, my sister Emily looking away, silent, complicit, as I fought for air.
Killed.
By my own supervisor and the only family I had left, betrayed for reasons I couldn't comprehend as my life vanished in an instant.
Then I jolted awake, not in a freezing abyss, but in my familiar bunk, the comforting scent of pine from my cheap park-issued mattress filling the air.
My heart hammered against my ribs as I touched my face, my arms, realizing there were no broken bones, no blood.
The calendar on the wall screamed at me: three days before that fateful Thanksgiving trip to Devil's Gulch.
I was alive.
It was a memory, vivid, terrifying, but now it was also a warning.
A second chance.
This time, I wouldn't be the naive one; I would protect myself first, and if I could, protect my sister from him and from herself.
I could still stop this.
And I would. A Daughter's Defense: They Were Heroes
Alexis My deskmate, Elara Vance, was a walking contradiction: weaving grand tales of designer clothes and exotic family trips to Zurich, yet she dressed in rags and carried the undeniable scent of neglect.
I' d silently endured her outlandish fantasies and the awkward pity they stirred, until one tension-filled day, my patience completely snapped, and I brutally screamed across the crowded school hallway, "What is it, Elara? Are your parents dead or something?"
The raw grief that instantly crumpled her face, followed by the shock of her fist connecting with my jaw, silenced the entire room, but the real storm was yet to come.
Weeks later, news tore through our high school: Elara Vance, the girl everyone mocked, had mysteriously secured a full-ride scholarship to Yale, a feat that struck everyone, especially the popular clique, as utterly impossible.
The internet exploded, fueled by vicious social media posts from school bullies, rapidly branding her a "Yale Scammer" and launching a horrifying campaign of doxxing and vile harassment that escalated far beyond high school cruelty, becoming a public digital execution.
But as the online mob screamed for her digital demise, I was haunted by the memory of her tear-streaked face and that primal, anguished cry that day in the hallway: "They're heroes!"
That desperate, defiant plea didn't fit the narrative of the pathetic liar I believed her to be, leaving me with a chilling, unsettling confusion.
A sickening wave of guilt began to consume me, the realization hitting hard that I had played a part in unleashing this brutal, unprovoked attack on her.
I knew then, with a desperate urgency that superseded everything else, that I had to find Elara Vance and finally unearth the true, devastating story behind her lies and the mysterious heroism of her parents.