henry-whitmire

Meg,_ he whispered. __t wouldn__ be real love if there weren__ the possibility for another response to him. If we couldn__ choose not to love him, then our love would be empty. That__ why there__ evil in this world, because there__ free choice in this world. He allows the one to prove the other.

Most kids grow sullen and angry when they__e working through issues, but Thanet mustered up another kind of bull-headed strength. The kind that sees beyond circumstances to what really matters. How could anyone hurt a soul that lovely?

Hearing my brother__ words coming out of Henry, this stranger in a strange town, made me feel wild with all the loss__ild and wired with no place to put those feelings.

I__ not sure about all the particulars that led to this moment. Do I believe life is a series of dots to be connected_or that no one can outrun destiny_or that all roads lead to truth and coincidence is a lie to distract us? The reason I was in this place no longer mattered. The harsh reality stared me in the face and demanded an immediate decision. Walk away and blame it on my age. Or stay and try to help a woman who had slowly become my friend over the last few weeks.

But with her eyes closed, she began to whisper. __f you have someone to love, then love. If you have someone to forgive, then forgive. You think, when you__e seventeen, there__ time enough for that, but there__ not. There__ no time at all.__ squeezed her hand, trying to think of how to respond. But she took the burden from me and kept whispering. __ou want to know why God gave us people to love? Because that__ the only way we can understand how he feels about us. Desperate and jealous.

Camus and Henry waved to me from that muddy truck. They both wanted me to get over myself.So, this was me, getting over myself. And it was about time.

What I know about you, Henry,_ he said. __s that you, as big as you are, know how to walk gently on this earth.

We formed an impromptu circle just so we could look at each other and memorize faces. We hardly noticed the waiting officials. We hardly noticed anything but our little family whose ties weren__ loosening at all. In fact, this impending separation only seemed to be binding us together with a double overhand knot, hard to untie and unfailing.

I worried I would miss it, and I knew, from losing Wyatt, that things happen the moment the soul is released. Wyatt had been there in the school, watching me, making sure I survived. Souls linger_they do. They linger a bit before they turn toward eternity. It could be that no matter how perfect their future will be, the past still tugs for a moment.

Look at this one._ I picked up a small painting of a man with dark hair and a short, dark beard. He wore a loose shirt, cobalt blue, unbuttoned at the top, showing a prominent, knobby collarbone. He looked_complicated and hungry. She__ captured him focused intensely on a book, his face pressed against a wall like he was resting. Or waiting.

My mom told me once that Wyatt loved her the way a boy will love his mother, but I loved her the way an artist loves another. Jo taught me what that meant.

I__ stumbled upon the inner sanctuary of a woman who loved the world. Loved the faces of people she saw. Loved the way a hand looked when it was relaxed. Loved the way a woman looked when she touched her own face. The way a man looked when he opened himself to her. Loved the way wind changed a tree or a field or a child__ hair. The beauty of a neck meeting a shoulder. The softness of a smile that wasn__ forced.

I really want to believe that when our Quiet Waters kids wake up in the middle of the night, scared, they__l remember being in their bunks with John and Kate and Whit and me right there protecting them,_ he said. __ hope we gave them that sense of belonging because I know there__l be times in their lives when grasping at those bonds could mean the difference between making it and not.

He was taking a leap here, negotiating with a crackhead, under the table, in a dark cantina. The courage etched on his face came from loving Aidia so much he__ close his eyes and walk through fire to see her safe.

Is there one in particular, Tennyson?_ Henry said, ducking out from under her arm. __ could arrange a meeting._ __eah, the one from Texas_what__ his name?___hat would be Dylan. But he__ a nice guy and you__ break his heart. He dropped out of Texas A&M to come up here and saddle bum around with my horses year-round. Knowing your dad, I think you__ better be looking for a pre-med honors student.___eave my dad out of this.

He carried her over the Owl Creek mountain range without stopping,_ he said, quietly this time. __e carried her until he reached one of the hot springs around what became Chapin, and then he walked into the water with her and held her there for three days. He had about given up when she opened her eyes and whispered his name.

I__ never seen him bare-chested. For the first time, he seemed vulnerable to me. His smooth, tight skin wrapped around the long muscles he__ developed over a lifetime of hard work. He found a shallow spot and sat, settling me onto his lap, holding my back to his chest. I couldn__ stop shaking and it had nothing to do with the water or with being half dressed in a cave with a boy.__othing else matters,_ Henry said in my ear. ____ here. Start at the beginning.

He leaned toward me and said his name like he was sharing a secret and it made me think he probably kept a lot of secrets. His smile was sweet and his teeth the tiniest bit crooked.