Instead I just let the silence stretch out between us. It's the only adequate response to what he just told me, the only that does the tragedy any justice instead of patching it hastily and moving on.

I want to break something, or hit something, but I am afraid to move, so I start crying instead.

When i get home, I sit on the front step and take deep breaths of the cool spring air for a few minutes. My mother was the one who taught me to steal moments like those, moments of freedom, though she didn't now it. I watched her... But I learned something else from watching her too, which is that the free moments always have to end.

I catch myself thinking 'Thank God For This' out of habit, and then I understand what he's so concerned about. What if my parents' God, their whole belief system, is just something concocted by a bunch of scientists to keep us under control? And not just their beliefs about God and whatever else is out there, about right and wrong, about selfishness?

For someone so small, you're heavy, Stiff," he mutters.

Everything inside me screams for just one more kiss, one more word, one more glance, one more.

Who cares about pretty? I'm going for noticeable.