I know it. I know I shall make beastly mistakes, Father-" "The world does not forgive mistakes so quickly, my girl." He sounds bitter and sad. "If the world will not forgive me," I say softly, "I shall have to learn to forgive myself." He nods in understanding. "And how will you marry? Or do you intend to marry?" I think of Kartik, and tears threaten. "I shall meet someone one day, as Mother found you.

Our mouths and bodies speak for us in a new language as the trees shake loose a rain of petals that stick to our slickness like skins we will wear forever. And just like that, I am changed.

She was too much—for Zenith, Ohio. She’d tried at times to make herself smaller, to fit neatly into the ordered lines of expectation. But somehow, she always managed to say or do something outrageous—she’d accept a dare to climb a flagpole, or make a slightly risqué joke, or go riding in cars with boys—and suddenly she was “that awful O’Neill girl” all over again.

The world is a lie...not you and me.

I'm just saying it's not all sand castles and ninjas.

He told me that once, in the war, he’d come upon a German soldier in the grass with his insides falling out; he was just lying there in agony. The soldier had looked up at Sergeant Leonard, and even though they didn’t speak the same language, they understood each other with just a look. The German lying on the ground; the American standing over him. He put a bullet in the soldier’s head. He didn’t do it with anger, as an enemy, but as a fellow man, one soldier helping another.

In the end, I take my shoes off and stick my feet in, letting the lukewarm water lick at my ankles. It feels good, and not just because I’m stoned. I make a mental note to add this to Dulcie’s list of things worth living for. For some reason, I keep seeing her rolling her eyes at me, that big, goofy grin stretching her face like Silly Putty. On my private list, I add her smile. She doesn’t have to know.