"Actually," Gareth replied calmly, although through clenched teeth, "I was thinking how nicely your eyebrows have grown back. You can hardly even see ...the scarring."Kija roared in anger and grabbed a shining white sword from a display next to the throne, charged at Gareth. At the last moment he held himself back from plunging the blade through Gareth's throat."No, it can't end like that," he said fairly calmly. "You are angering me intentionally, so somehow you think it is better if I kill you.. Are you on a specific type of training diet?" Not this far out from the race. Whatever you fix will be fine."I wrote down my address and phone number. I asked if any of the others wanted to come by, so it wouldn't look too obvious, and two guys said they'd come. One had a wife, while the other had a girlfriend. I said, "If you run into any single girls you can invite them as well."When I returned home, I told Shawna that we were having company the following day, and there was at least one cute. She was smart, and she was young and pretty. She called Pete and me her kids, and for the first time in our lives, we had a family. Dad married Janet, had Ashley and Danny, and we were all happy. Everything was going great until Dad lost his job. He’d cleaned up good for Janet, but now he had a lot of mouths to feed, and he started reverting to his old ways to put food on the table. Janet got pregnant and desperate. She was starving, Dad was starving, and even though we kids got most of the. If you don't... well, you can tell me then. Take care of yourself." Before I could muster any sort of response, she came over and kissed me lightly on the cheek, then left, closing the door gently behind her.I stood by the window watching the sunset as my frazzled mind tried to make sense of what had just happened. So Maddie decided to go all Felicity on me. At least she had the courtesy to tell me in advance, right? That being said, I really didn't know what to do. Telling her not to go to.