Huntley Fitzpatrick

Your ma's dating?" Tim looks shocked. "I thought she pretty much confined herself to a vibrator and the shower nozzle since your dad screwed her over.

I remember...watching that separation of sea and sky...and for the first time I realize that none of us are seeing the same thing. That all our horizons end in different places.

The combined odors of Cass's subtle aftershave and the disgusting reek of Nic are overpowering. I wonder if Cass will keel over and I'll have to perform CPR. This speculation should not feel so much like a fantasy.

Maybe thinking any one person can show up and give you all you need is as much of a delusion as thinking you can find truth in a bottle. Maybe you can just find what you need in little pieces, in people who show up for one crucial moment - or a whole chain of them - even if they cant solve it all.

Is Jase already gonna marry you?_ I start coughing again. __h, No. No, George. I__ only seventeen._ As if that__ the only reason we__e not engaged. ____ this many._ George holds up four, slightly grubby fingers. __ut Jase is seventeen and a half. You could. Then you could live in here with him. And have a big family._ Jase strides back into the room, of course, midway through this proposition. __eorge. Beat it. Discovery Channel is on._ George backs out of the room but not before saying, __is bed__ really comfortable. And he never pees in it.

I scoop a clattering cascade of green apple Jelly Bellys into the white paper bag and remember when we were seven. I got stung by a jellyfish. Tim cried because his mother, and mine, wouldn__ let him pee on my leg, which he__ heard was an antidote to the sting.

I like eggs and bacon,_ George tells me. __ut___is face clouds___o you know that bacon is___ears leap to his eyes___ilbur?_ Mrs. Garrett sits down next to him immediately. __eorge, we__e been through this. Remember? Wilbur did not get made into bacon._ __hat__ right._ I bend down too as wetness overflows George__ lashes. __harlotte the spider saved him. He lived a long and happy life__ith Charlotte__ daughters, um, Nelly and Urania and__ __oy,_ Mrs. Garrett concludes. __ou, Samantha, are a keeper. I hope you don__ shoplift.__ start to cough. __o. Never._ __hen is bacon Babe, Mom? Is it Babe?___o, no, Babe__ still herding sheep. Bacon is not Babe. Bacon is only made from really mean pigs,George._ Mrs. Garrett strokes his hair, then brushes his tears away.__ad pigs,_ I clarify.__here are bad pigs?_ George looks nervous. Oops.__ell, pigs with, um, no soul._ That doesn__ sound good either. I cast around for a good explanation. __ike the animals that don__ talk in Narnia._ Dumb. George is four. Would he know Narnia yet? He__ still at Curious George.But understanding lights his face. __h. That__ okay then. __ause I really like bacon.

The right thing to do is so easy to see when you're seventeen years old and don't have to make any big decisions. When you know that no matter what you do, someone will take care of you and fix everything. But when you're grown up, the world is not that black and white, and the right thing doesn't a tidy little arrow pointing to it.

God, I wish, for the millionth time, that I could be like her and Nic, so sure of what they have, what they want. That I didn't always feel jangly, restless, primed to jump off a bridge and let the current carry me away.

Voldemort the corn snake with the shoe fetish. Wonderful.

I cannot help but wonder if any parents ever actually schedule in adolescent drama on their day planners. Looks like a slow week, Sarah. I guess I can pencil in your eating disorder.

I sit up, edge over close to my window, and push it open, slipping one leg in, then the next, turning back to Jase. __ome on._ His smile flashes in the gathering dark as his eyebrows lift, but he climbs carefully in as I lock my bedroom door.__e still,_ I tell him. __ow I__ going to learn all about you.

Jase props himself up on an elbow, looking at me for a minute without saying anything. His face gets an unreadable expression, and I wish I could take back walking over.Then he observes, ____ guessing that__ a uniform.__rap. I__ forgotten I was still wearing it.

When I turn back to Jase, he__ again beaming at me. __ou__e nice._ He sounds pleased, as if he hadn__ expected this aspect of my personality.

Right. Because if you have trouble putting ketchup and mustard on a hot dog, you should totally move on to saving lives.

This is Sailor Supergirl,_ George says. __he knows all about black holes.

No bikinis on a first date._ He nods. ____ sure that__ a rule. Or should be. For my sisters anyway.

I guess I like things that take time and attention. More worthwhile that way.