Sometimes things don't turn out the way you want them to, Haven. Sometimes the people you choose to believe are wrong.

I couldn't imagine what it would be like to be one of so many, to have not just parents and siblings but cousins and aunts and uncles, an entire tribe to claim as your own. Maybe you would feel lost in the crowd. Or sheltered by it. Whatever the case, one things was for sure: like it or not, you'd never be alone.

He wasn't what I'd thought he was; maybe he never had been. I wasn't what I'd thought I was, either.

Pretend to be a delinquent?" I asked clarifying. "You can do it," Dave advised me. "Just don't smile, and try to look like you're considering stealing something.

Here was a boy who liked flaws, who saw them not as failings but as strengths. Who knew such a person could exist, or what would have happened if we'd found each other under different circumstances? Maybe in a perfect world. But not in this one.

I eased back on my elbows, tilting my head back to look up at the sky, which was pinkish, streaked with red. This was the time we knew best, that stretch of day going from dusk to dark. It seemed like we were always waiting for nighttime here. I could feel the trampoline easing up and down, moved by our own breathing, bringing us in small increments up and back from the sky as the colors faded, slowly, and the stars began to show themselves.

Like a blinking cursor on an empty page, it was just the first thing. The beginning of the beginning. But at least it was done.