1.1

Dwight Nelson was on the television, talking about the past. You can't go back. You can't go back. Everyone constantly tries to turn back the clock. I've taken years to discover it, says he. Did you know there's a name for this feeling? For that impulse, that fear of the past, that constant nagging at the back of your skull that you've done something wrong?
Regret, says I, young and scarred and full of self-righteous hurt.
Guilt, says he.
Two sides of the same coin, says I. But I know in my heart that I'm wrong. Regret is for what you haven't done. Guilt is for what you have. The only thing that ties them is that you do both to yourself.

Happy new year.
I resolve to be. I've finished that sentence a hundred different ways, but the best one is right there.
From me: don't regret.
From Dwight: don't guilt.
From God: forgive.
From 2012: if you've failed the above, here's a fresh chance. Good night everyone.

12.28b

I'm not captivated by you, just so you know. I never sit in starry-eyed wonder and pine for your gentle caress. Furthermore, I can say with ultimate sincerity that I have never once thought you were "the one." How insipid that phrase sounds in my ears. It rings with a hollow tone--the same tone I'm sure your heart would make if I tapped on your carefully-constructed shell.

And yet I love you.
Explain that to me. I mean, really, there's no reason for me to stay. You've betrayed me before, and nothing stops you from betraying me again. You're hurtful, shallow, waspish, and terse, and I love you with a whole-hearted devotion.

Fine.
It's my hair, but you'd better not cut it like you have my heart.

-Sampson

12.28a

There was a slight limp in his speech, like he had been kicked too many times as a child. She didn't hear it when he talked to other people; only when he held her right up close to his chest and kissed her forehead and told her he loved her. It's how she knew he really meant it.

She made their bed every morning, cooked his breakfasts, ironed his shirts, smiled instead of raging at the dishes in the sink and the socks on the floor and the toilet seat and the shoes in the entryway and the lopsided way he parked his car. She mowed the lawn when he was too tired, massaged his shoulders when he was tense, deferred to his choice in movies, and supported his effort to make friends with colleagues. She tried at all times to be all things for him, and when, at the end of a long day, she threw herself into bed next to him and listened to his breathing. Of course, she had no way of knowing how little he saw the things she did, how often he overlooked her efforts, and how frequently he violated her wishes without knowing. She had no way of knowing that all he wanted from her was for her to hold him like he held her, and confess her love to him like he did for her.

There's no moral here; people are just different.

12.27

Leigh Clement was not an attractive woman. She never turned heads--not even when she was twenty and at the peak of health, fair and smooth-browed. She supposed that the men in her life chased her for the only reason boys ever chased girls: the scar left in her trousers from where a girl's future happiness was cut from her in the womb. Leigh took herself for what she was and never told herself lies. It made things easier when Seymour, Daniel, Barnaby, and Ritchie left her. Her truth made things easier to break off with Joseph, Nigel, and Christopher. She held it close to her. She said it to herself as she faced the mirror. "I am not an attractive woman." She said it when men tried to pick her up in bars. She said it when women looked at her enviously. She said it when her father complimented her appearance at Christmas. She said it when her mother questioned the viability of a single woman living alone.
What Leigh never recognized was that her hair was beautiful, despite mistreatment. Her legs were sensuous, despite covering. Her waist was apparent, despite jacketing. Her voice was soft, despite confidence. her hands were delicate, despite misuse. What Leigh never noticed was that she really was quite beautiful. So, when anyone paid her a compliment, she would repeat again "I am not an attractive woman" as if to make it an impenetrable shell through which no arrow could ever pierce.
This morning, Leigh Clement broke the heart of another man. She finished with him in the small restaurant around the corner from the park where the two had first met. Tristan was five feet and ten inches in height yet carried himself as if six inches taller. They hadn't quite fallen in love, but were at the awkward almost stage in which the man has decided his commitment but the woman, fearful, holds back the true depth of her soul for fear that she'll drown herself. Leigh had never drowned; she took snorkeling lessons most summers at a beach near her summer home. Tristan was nothing if not sweet to her during the whole of their relationship, but she felt herself suffocated by his constant attention and doting. When Leigh pulled out her own chair and sat down to announce quite plainly that she did not see a future in their relationship, thank you, and she felt that all this business of friendship was propped up on the back of an ill-begotten sexual desire, long ago forgotten by both parties, and seeing as how a friendship with no basis in reality cannot survive, she had thought it best if neither of them met anymore, don't you think, at that moment Tristan looked every inch of his not inconsiderable five feet and ten inches of height, yet was somehow greatly diminished. Leigh moved to stand, and instead Tristan grasped her hand quite urgently and finally sat opposite her.
He said, quite slowly, "Everyone is beautiful in their own way. Few people are the most beautiful in their own way, and very few are the most beautiful in quite so many ways as you."
Leigh allowed his proverb to run its course, then lifted her sunhat from the table, stood, and whispered "I am not an attractive woman."
She left, and hoped that the next man would fight her more when she said it.

12.26

You're beautiful.
Why?
Why?! Why does a sunrise signify birth? Why does the color yellow make people happy? Why do plant's reproductive organs represent love? Some things are inexplicable, so just be happy that you're one of them.

12.25

[The only thing stopping me from Catherine is what I'm going to do next: assemble and re-read what I have]

She got that look in her eye (the one you love) when she looked at me yesterday. You didn't see it, but I did. I swear I didn't do anything about it. I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier, but I don't suppose you'd believe me.
That's not all the truth. I'm avoiding telling you the rest because it won't help anything, I swear. So I'll tell you anyway. In all reality, she and I started kind of becoming a thing . . . when? Two weeks after you and she broke up? Something. She came to see you, crying and about to collapse on our doorstep. I was there. You weren't. I didn't see the significance of it then: I just wanted to help a friend, really. Then, last week, when she tried to kiss me at three a.m. after the party, I think I kind of recognized it all then. She wasn't just trying to be friends with you; she wanted to be closer to me. Because I remind her of you, and I was there when she was crying and you weren't. I put her off, I swear. Nothing happened, and I'll say it even though you won't believe.
Oh, and on Sunday, when you found her outside trying to decide if she should come in? That was for me, too. She woke up with one of those vivid nightmares she gets and she texted me at five in the morning and kept texting me until she finally drove over to our house at seven. She was waiting for me to wake up when you met her on your way to work. You won't believe that, either.

So I'm going to burn this letter, collect the ashes, and leave them on your desk. Because you deserve to hear the truth.

12.23

Kat enjoys the words of sad songs that nobody knows. Nathan pays to watch women on the internet put shoes on. Ingrid burns holes in her socks when she wants new ones. Bridgett has taken twelve sensory deprivation baths in the last three months, trying to develop synesthesia. Dj buys stamps just to lick them.

Martha makes cookies with chocolate chips and bakes them according to the directions.

Holly kisses other women in bars to attract men. Bradley lives in New York and counts the buildings he passes on his way to work. Luther tells his friends that he is lactose intolerant so he'll feel important. Wynne tries to pull her teeth out every night before bed. Summer eats pebbles.

Martha cries at the sad scenes in films and laughs with the cues in sitcoms.

Erik watches hundreds of music videos and catalogues them as “lyp-synched” or not. Brenda makes her own toilet paper. Harold stoops to walk through doorways, despite his dwarfism. Anatole plays instruments she hates so she can brag to her imaginary friend. Harriet tears the fortieth page from every publication she reads in public waiting rooms. Grant refers to every vehicle as “hoss.”

Martha picks up things on top of piles. She eats at restaurants because they are popular and cheap. She wears shoes that are comfortable and fit her feet. She owns several types of deodorant because she doesn't keep track. She sometimes sleeps on the couch with her feet on the coffee table. She constantly runs out of bowls and must wash dishes. She owns a plunger. She pays to have her oil changed. She drives to work. She gives to an annual charity drive.

You know the most about Martha and she's still the least interesting person on the page.

12.21

Attractive
Beautiful
Certain
Dear
Faithful
Gorgeous
Honest
Intelligent
Just
Kind
Loving
Mine
Night
Open
Powerful
Quiet
Respectable
Special
True
Unbelievable
Valuable
Wonderful

P.S. Zenith. And if that doesn't describe you, nothing does.

12.20c

[I promised myself I wouldn't go past C in a day. I haven't. I won't.]

He was trying to be friends. Really he was. He hadn't screwed everything up beyond repair. He knew that. How else could she have smiled at him so genuinely? Unless she was a psychopath. He hoped she wasn't a psychopath. All he wanted to be was friends. But not with a psychopath.

He took his chalk set and wrote on her sidewalk. Big, round letters of neon yellow and red.

Vikki

sometimes

it is good

to hold on

to happiness

and

it is better

to allow the

rain

to wash

away

your hurt

Take my chalk

use it please

make sure

you write

the good things

under awnings

and underneath

roofs

but

the bad things

in the open

on sidewalks

and streets

He left his chalk, then, in a square he drew for it right next to her door. Then he knocked on the door and ran away. She saw his back as he ran, so she left to throw the dishes and hope for them to break. She would have loved his message, if she had known. But it rained.

Vikki

sometimes

it is good

to hold on

to happiness

and

it is better

to allow the

rain

to smudge

smudge

smudge blotch

blotch smudge chalk

streak smudge smudge

smudge streak

smudge smudge

streak streak blotch

smudge streak

smudge smudge

streak

smudge

smudge smudge streak

streak blotch smudge

smudge smudge

smudge streak

She didn't know what he'd said. She wanted to be angry but found herself sad.

Her hot bold tears flew to obliterate what was left.

12.20b

[I keep looking for comments and then remembering I haven't written anything. So here you go]

Everything started with Daniel, age seven. No one blamed him, not at the time. Of course, they didn't know what it meant. Maybe, if he hadn't lived in the smallest part of the largest city in the area, it wouldn't have happened. But this is a story of fact, not speculation.

Daniel left to go to school extra early, wearing his best sunday clothes with his best church shoes and his hair trimmed and neat. His mother was proud; it was picture day. Daniel was at school all day (his mother checked) and walked his normal route home (the baker saw him). When he didn't show up at home at three forty seven or forty nine like normal, his mother began to worry. She soothed herself with the thought that “he must have stayed to show off his new shoes to his friends” or “he must have stopped at the bakery to spend his allowance on a sweet roll” or “perhaps he made a friend he wanted to visit after school.” None of this worked. She called the baker: no Daniel. She called the school ma'am: no Daniel. She called her husband.

The police had no idea where Daniel could be. “How old is he, miss?” I'm married, actually. “Begging your pardon, ma'am. How old is he?” Seven. Eight, this June. “That's fine. What's his hair color?” Black, but browner down towards his neck and ears. “How tall is he?” Just so. “Big for his age, isn't he?” She choked back the tears. “Sorry, ma'am. Just a few more questions.” That's fine. “He hasn't been in any trouble, has he?” He's my baby boy. “That's fine. That's fine. We have all we need; we'll keep an eye out. You call us if anything changes.”

Daniel's mother left the front porch light on, just so Daniel could find his way home, just in case he was outside, just in case he was lost on his way home and needed the light. Daniel's father said it was going to be fine, and she should just turn the light off and come to bed. Daniel's mother disagreed. She sat in the front room until three in the morning, and then she laid in the front room until five, and then she slept, but not well, in the front room until five thirty, and six fifteen, and again until six thirty.

The next day (and the next, and all the subsequent nexts) Daniel's mother sat in the front room with the porch light on, waiting for Daniel to come home. The neighbors turned their lights on, to show their support. The old man on the corner had a street light put in, and never flipped the switch. The whole street glowed every night. Farther down towards the city, the full service gas station saw its business double because of the light, so the manager had floodlights affixed to the corners of his building. The restaurant next door followed suit. The hotel down the street noticed the light-advertising and put up a new neon vacancy sign, made to order just for them. The glassworks manufacturer started pitching his wares to every business in town. Soon, every door had an “open” “vacancies” “beer” sign on the door. After that, the hospitals, banks, and university were fully lit for security from the thieves that had been driven from the business district by the light.

The city itself saw an increase in revenue from the motorists stopping in the only island of light on the highway. The next town over caught the news and voted to put in street lights. Within a year, cities from New York to Los Angeles were brilliantly lit. Paris and London joined in, and Tokyo decided to light every street and start lighting the bay. Tourist destinations started aiming floodlights at edifices. National parks started lighting rock faces with sconces. Rock concerts started sweeping the sky with searchlights.

Everything was lit.

Daniel's mother was eighty when it happened. Her husband was dead. Her porch light was burned out. She no longer could contribute, but it was her fault. Earth—a rocky green globe, home to trillions of life forms—made the subtle transition from planet to star.

12.20a

[I haven't gone to sleep yet. I can still say it's the twentieth if I like]

“Pablo, if you could, you know . . . have . . . one celebrity, who would it be?”

“Oh, that's tough. You first.”
“No fair, I asked the question.”

“Hm. Audrey Hepburn.”

“No fair! Pick someone alive.”

“That was not stated in the rules, Casandra. It was not in the rules.”

“It is now. Pick someone alive.”

“Ugh. There are so many celebrities and only one me.”

“Pick a few then, and narrow it down.”

“I guess . . . if you're sure. Hm. Well, because she's funny, that girl on Community. Annie something. Allison Brie?”

“Really?”
“She's pretty.”
“I guess.”

“Um, well the woman from Requiem for A Dream. She's really beautiful.”

“She's old!”
“She wasn't then, silly face.”

“Old!”

“You don't like that? Fine, Cuddy from House.”
“She's mega old!”

“Mega.”

“Pick somebody real.”

“Katy Perry.”
“Too skanky.”

“Zooey Deschanel.”
“Who's that?”
“500 Days of Summer.”

“Too weird.”

“Briseis from Troy. The same actress is also in some new movie. What was it?”

“How am I supposed to know?”

“Woah.”
“Whoah what?”

“You got all defensive.”

“No I didn't.”

“Right. What's wrong?”

“Shouldn't you know what's wrong, mister I Know Everything?”

“Seriously, what's wrong?”

“Don't you think I'm pretty?”

“I don't . . . what? Where is this coming from?”

“I'm blonde. Why are you dating me if you don't think I'm pretty?”

“. . .”

“That's what I thought.”
“How am I supposed to answer that? How am I in the wrong for that? How is this my fault?”

“. . .”

“You're right, you're right. I'm sorry.”

12.13

She'll never be in the picture. I understood then as I understand now: it was a simple mistake. She stepped out of the room to use the restroom at the exact moment that we decided to take the group photo. There were fifteen of us in the room; we'll be excused for forgetting her. I didn't even remember to check for her until she came back from the restroom. By that time, it was too late. Patrick, Diane and Dennis had already gone. She said not to worry about it.

The funny thing is that I didn't - worry, that is - until recently. She and I fell apart. And you know how the poets say it's better to have loved and lost than never loved. Well, ok. But now I'm left here holding a picture without her in it, and I'm wondering if I should put it away in the box with her letters and the picture of her graduation and the perfume she bought herself with my money, or if I should leave it out on she shelf to mock me every day with the fact that she was conspicuously absent.

Do I let her take my past with me, or do I fight the loss with tooth and nail?

12.12

It's odd what sleep can do to a person. I swear she was fine when we rolled over, exhausted, off of the couch and into the bed. She was normal, you know, just normal. Like everybody else. Normal.
Here's the great frustration, for me: I liked her before. Nay, loved. You like that? I picked that up from a fancy play she dragged me to. Brighter of us wanted to go but it was the thing to do--there, that, you see? That was what I loved about her. Other things, like she hated to do the dishes and she always made me stomp the spiders in the bedroom but could always inexplicably stomp the spiders in the garage. Things like she snored in her deepest sleep, and she would fight you if you implied it, of course, but if I woke up at two am to take a leak, there she was, purring like a two-stroke engine. Oh, she was a thing of beauty. A real piece of work, all insecurities with the joy packed in around the edges. Normal.

When we woke up in the morning, well, when I woke up, that sleep, that too-much sleep, it really changed her. Bouncy. Happy. no fear, no desire, no longing, no buried fear of public speaking, nothing. Gone. All gone. I wish I could explain to you how much I miss her.

If I don't get my Sara back soon, I may have to sleep myself to death.

12.9

He gripped the pipe closely in his teeth. He didn't inhale. He was waiting for the right feeling to come over him--the same feeling that always did when he had the pipe in his teeth and his feet up on the coffee table.
Slowly, the feeling showed itself, cat-like, shy and timid. It broke into his consciousness slowly, like a single drop of pigment at the bottom of a glass of water which slowly diffuses and stains the purity of all. When he first became aware of it, the feeling had already fully gripped him, and he threw the pipe away and wept bitterly into his arm.

His wife found him there, curled in the fetal position and asleep. She picked up his father's pipe from the corner and put it back in the drawer where the couple kept their secret hurts--the love letters from his high school sweetheart, the locket her first husband gave her, the myriad photos of her failed first pregnancy, the stinging mail from his unsatisfied mother. She stepped over him to go to the kitchen, but stopped. Slowly she turned around again and walked back to the drawer. Taking the pipe, she sat down next to him on the floor.
She tried to cry. The effort wore her out.

12.6b

[Catherine (this will be how I introduce these from now on)]
Chronologically:
When I was born, my parents had planned on a girl. This was not uncommon for them, as they had wished for a girl as each of my four brothers was born. Thus (though I was a disappointment), it came as no surprise that they would have to ready a boy's name for me. After ten minutes of arguing, my father won out. I'm quite glad of this, because my mother wanted to name me Andre, and that name does not suit me.
If I had been a girl, I would have been Rose and called Rosalita. I know this because "Rosalita" was painted above my bed for the first ten years of my life.

12.6

I'm considering writing love letters and posting them to random P.O. boxes. These won't be love letters to the people who own the boxes, or (hopefully) to people they know. Credit where credit is due; this is not my idea. I saw it as I was perusing the weirder parts of the web: a woman has actually done this and taken pictures of the letters as she sent them. She took it one step further and actually pasted the note itself to the outside of the envelope, though I doubt that postal workers have the time to read a letter like that.
Anyway, the idea is to engage the reader in some sort of mutual voyeuristic relationship to which they cannot retaliate.
I don't know if this is a good idea or a terrible one, but I would like to try it, and make it mine.
Ages ago, a kid at camp took post-it notes and wrote "this is graffiti" on them and put them everywhere. I did that for a while.

I have a few things that are weird that I came up with myself, but they're few and far between. I feel like the cooler things I do are all stolen.
Thanks, Solomon. Thanks, Ecclesiastes. You make me feel better about myself.

12.5

Whenever I come home in the rain, she greets me with a smile. Whenever I can't find my shoes, she knows just where to look. Now, I'm not saying my daughter and I have a close relationship all the time, but she seems to love me just the same.
I don't know; I just haven't asked. She's two.

Someday, I'll tell her about boys and why they look at her funny. Someday, I'll tell her to "turn around young lady" and go change and she'll just sneak out the back way. Someday, I'll pick her up from a party where a guy dumped her. Someday, I'll pray when she runs from me.

Today is not that day. She's two.
God, let me make use of the time I have.
Amen.

12.4

If I were honest with myself, I could see the truths I'm missing. For instance: I broke mom's case at the age of three. It wasn't the dog. I never was nice enough to my grandmother. It wasn't her attitude. I stole a cd from the store. It wasn't a prank. I ran a car off a bridge. It wasn't the rain. I hit my girlfriend. It wasn't her fault. I'm addicted to liquor. It's not under my control. I'm not right with God. It's not his prerogative.

I'm dying in here. It's up to me to get out.
Too bad I'm not honest with myself.

12.3b

Rosalyn and I didn't often go to parks, but when we did, it was an event.

In our senior year of high school, we went to a local park near Ros's house and set up our tents and camped there until a policeman came to kick us out. When the poor man saw that we weren't hardened hobos, and were instead impressionable young girls, he basically shut down. We offered him a can of our cherry pie filling, heated on our fire. P.S. if you ever want a delicacy, hang out in a tent for a three-day weekend and then take the top off a can of cherry pie filling and stuff the butt of that thing in the coals of a dying fire. I mean, minutes later, the can is too hot to touch with bare hands and the cherries inside are the best thing any human has ever tasted and you can take my word for that.
After Ros's last final, she got back to the room, threw her books at the bed, and said "I'm in the mood for a park. You?"

We gathered our supplies and went to the mall because the park was too cold. In the mall, there was an atrium with trees in it, where the soft winter light filtered through the sad green of the tree leaves a world away above our heads. We sat down with our armloads of bags underneath the largest tree in the place. My mother always said to not be afraid to spend money on the things I find important, so Ros and I had spent more than a hundred dollars on craft materials (Popsicle sticks, glue, sparkles, paper, colored pencils, crayons, foam shapes, pipe cleaners, and beads. We devastated the craft aisle of a major department store.
We started building posters (mine had a cat on it who wore top hats for a living).

Ten minutes later, our ploy worked. A teensy girl walked by, holding her mother's hand, and made noises so high and so happy I swear my ears died. She struggled out of her mother's grasp and turbowalked straight to us. She landed somewhere in the bead bags and started sorting through the bags to find the fancy sparkle bag. The mother looked mortified. "Susan! Susan, come back here. These nice ladies don't want their crafts disturbed."
That was my cue. "Actucally, we don't mind. My name's Cath, and this is Ros."
"Hi." This, from Ros, who was fastidiously assembling a portrait of her favorite rockstar, replete with besequined suit.
"We brought our crafts to the mall because it's boring to be alone with a glue stick." I had been practicing this line all morning. I thought it was rather clever.
The mother looked defeated. "Susan, what do you say to these ladies?"
"My name's Susan. I'm this old." Four fat fingers flew up. I'm pretty sure she doubled her age on accident.
"The other, Susan."
"Thank you."
The mother sighed like she was tired from living through all the years of all of time. "Say please."
"Ok." At this point, I was ready to laugh right out loud. I didn't. Susan turned her big, round eyes on me and said "Pleeeeeeese?"
"Of course, Susan. Here, take this pipe cleaner for your beads."

Susan opened the floodgates. Soon, we had a dozen kids rolling through our Popsicle sticks and sparkle glue. A set of twins was collaborating on a picture of their house. A boy had made a dinosaur of pipe cleaners. A baby had turned a huge pile of paper into a mess of squiggles that his older sister was folding into swans.

Two security officers came to make sure nobody walked over the kids. Parents filled the benches of the atrium, happy for the test from running between stores. We stopped crafting and just watched.

It was a good parking, I thought.

Of course, malls being what they are, and my luck being what it is, Marco saw us. He walked in and sat down next to me and didn't say much of anything for a solid hour. Ros and I looked and said nothing at each other forty seven times. I didn't actually count. Marco made a cathedral from popsicle sticks and glue. When he stood up, he had a piece of construction paper stuck to his butt. I didn't laugh.

"Thanks," he said. "Weird thing you're doing. I like it. See ya on Friday."

Of course, I tried to be silent, but Rosalyn poked me in the ribs.
"Cath? What's this?"
"Oh, Ros, I think it's nothing but it might not be nothing, so I didn't want to tell you about it in case it was nothing, so Marco and I met up after my final on Tuesday and he asked me on a date, and--"
"What about the skin? Did you do what I said?"
"I did! I said I can't date boys I don't know but he said we should get to know each other so we're sharing autobiographies on Friday." I clapped my mouth shut and frowned.
Ros laughed at me. "Really? Is that it? I said only use the skin defense when a boy was asking you for sex!"
"I panicked!"
Ros shook with laughter. "So, are you gonna do it? Are you gonna write an autobiography?"
I shut up and put the finishing touches on my cat poster family.

Marco's cathedral went above my computer when I got home.

12.3

[I haven't written lately. I've missed writing. Then I read 1/4 of a good book and writing hit me as I was getting dressed for church. I'll be late, but I don't mind.]

There's no reason to get so dressed up
just to go into town and write "no" on the walls
with the lipstick you keep in your back pocket.

Why we do this, nobody knows,
but it's solidly ours and stolidly grows into
something we do together. Never apart--
both we and (the towntrips and wallwords).

Change.

There's no reason to get so dressed up
just to fight on the porch about how much I drink
or how long you linger and trace circles with fingers
on other men's skin.

Why we do this, nobody knows,
but the way that we argue makes the time slow
and crawl to a halt.
When time-lost momentum
and angry-face tantrums
sub-sequently end, we
fix all the blinds and pull all the curtains
and make love together on the semi-plaid couch.
It's angry and sad but it works, don't you think?

End.

There's no reason to get so dressed up
just to visit your folks in Chestervilletown
where the relatives glisten and shimmer and shine.

Why we do this, nobody knows,
but you, my dear, and that's why it shows
that you wear the pants,
ever since we wrote "no" to the world long ago in that corner of town where the beggars all go.

12.1

1. I shouldn't talk to her. She's basically unapproachable. I only stammer or choke or sweat when I'm around her. I wish I had his suavity, his courage, his strength. Then maybe she'd love me.

2. Why does she want that guy instead of me? We laugh and have inside jokes and understand each other so perfectly. Yet she wants that guy who can't talk to her because he's so nervous (trapped inside his own head).

3. I want someone who's nice, you see. Sure, he's ok and all. We're good friends, but . . . well, you know. There's this guy. He's so sweet and innocent and cute and I think he likes me, but he can't say it. It's adorable.

11.30a

Ok stretch groan yawn scratch under chin. Flip off blanket. Roll. Flip blanket back on.

Wake up.

What was with that dream?
I don't remember much of it--it seemed like hours and hours, and all I can remember are the last ten minutes. I climbed a wall. All my friends were sitting on top of it. There was only one ladder, so those who went up first were farthest away from the ladder, and couldn't get down without clambering down the edifice of the building, scrabbling on windows and bricks, fearing of falling. Those closest to the ladder had all the power they wanted. They could climb up or down at their leisure.

She was, of course, at the top of the ladder.

She would be, you know, at the top of the ladder, holding all the power, preventing everyone else's happiness, controlling, protecting herself. I don't know if it was symbolic, but it sure felt typical to me.

I edged my way past her and had to climb down the wall on the other side. (No ladder). I had to hook my legs through windows and drive my fingers into cracks.

When I got to the bottom, there was nothing there. Why did I climb down? I could look back up and see all my friends' legs, waving down at me. Symbolic? No. Just perspective. I was down, they were up. Easy to explain; I climbed down. I'm not worse than any of my friends, am I?

I turned around. She was there, suddenly, vibrant and alive. I hate her.

I wandered away and play with Andy Griffith. I calmed down.

Now awake. Do I still hate her? Probably not.

Here's a good question: does my brain believe what I tell myself?

11.27

[not Catherine. Sometimes I feel like I have no idea why or what is happening in that story. I have no idea how to pace a novel]

I just laughed with him. Not five minutes ago. I can prove it; people took pictures. It was a big to-do. It's not every day someone gets engaged. Of course.
See, she didn't know about it. Most people didn't. He invited all of his and her closest friends to a party. He didn't bother saying what for, just that nobody would want to miss it for any reason. But it was supposed to be a surprise for her, or else she might get suspicious. And when she's suspicious, that's basically the worst (she doesn't let go of a thing once she's gotten curious about it). All he said was that it was a surprise, so we didn't tell a living soul.
We all trucked it down to her park. Not hers, strictly speaking, but the park where, if you walk to the right spot on the cliff, you can hold hands with your woman and watch the sun go down in the valley until the last fingers of twilight are the only things illuminating your mad dash back to the car, and this all with laughing about the jokes you told and the things you saw and the kiss you're waiting for at the door of the car (the parking lot is fully black now; you've planned it exactly, and no one can see you as she pulls you against her and you back her against the car and you kiss so log and do sweet that when you break free, you wish you could repeat it, but of course night has settled at that exact moment and heaved its heavy sigh and folded its blackness down across the world. Forgive my indiscretion. All you need to know is that it had been her favorite park since she realized that she could have them, and preferences weren't limited to others.
She must have arrived more than a half and hour ago. Of course, we'd all arrived early--that's me, Cindy and Sherri, Dan, Elena, Tristan and Desiree, and, of course, Marcel. So we all stood around, kind of, waiting. It was a good kind of waiting: the kind where time doesn't seem to pass, but when everybody quiets down again, you realize that it's time to go again and all the waiting you've done has paid off and you can just continue on with your life. It's a good kind of waiting: the kind people wait their entire lives to have to do. Pleasant waiting. It's a novel concept.
She arrived, and when she came through the woods down the path, she had exactly that radiance which poets try so hard to capture but never can quite, and now I'm tempted to make a run at it just to see if I can explain how the sunlight filtered through the dying woods cut all the darkness from the light and left only golden, reddish glory to slash down to her face and gather there in her golden curls. She smiled and it made her cheeks blush the red of the sugar maples behind her. Her hair swayed with every step and flashed the gold of the oaks above. She was not a part of the woods; she was the woods, and when I realized it it tore a tiny hole in me that's been leaking ever since.
Strictly speaking, we didn't know what was going on, but we figured it out sooner than she did. And even so, people closest to the hurricane are least likely to see the size of it. So it's not like she's stupid.
Marcel pulled out his guitar and sang a song to her that another man wrote.
He used the words of a better man, an artist from a different age who had to search his soul for his words, who reached for his guitar when things were bad and when things were good and when things were just okay. He took the words of a man who had no advantages (no Internet, no predecessors, no collaborators) and used them to succinctly summarize his own feelings. It felt like uprooting and moving a sequoia to show New Yorkers how important the trees are. It felt like stealing money from a man to buy gifts for his wife. It felt like stabbing a man so you could do a good deed by driving him to the hospital. It felt like giving her another man's heart. But nobody else saw it, and if they saw it, they didn't care, and if they cared, they new better than to feel. I was the fool and felt. And it felt horrible.
I cried. It helped that everyone else was crying too, if for different reasons. I could at least imagine they all felt the same pain I did.
Marcel got down on one knee and asked her "D, will you marry me?"
She didn't even pause to consider her options.

So yes, I laughed with him. I smiled and laughed and clapped and cried, not five minutes ago, as my best friend asked my ex-girlfriend to marry him.

I'll tell you when it stops hurting.

Don't expect a call from me anytime soon.

11.26

I didn't quite pass out, of course. That would be silly. I didn't allow myself that luxury.
Ok, self.
Self.
Ok. Breathe, me. I can see me not breathing. Self, I have to make me breathe.
Gasp.
Good job, me. Again.
Hey, self. Am I going to get my skin eaten by Marco Who Speaks In Class? Is that my fate, me? Answer myself.

11.24

Black black black he takes his coffee black. I don't know why, but this strikes me as the manliest thing anybody has ever done.

11.23

[catherine tomorrow? If I can read what I've written, then yes.]
I didn't see her, really. What I saw was a tangled mix of messages to my brain. I saw the way her forearms tensed when she moved, the way her fingers slipped through the air, the way her hair curled down over her forehead, the way her shirt stretched over her breasts, the way her ear slipped out behind her hair, the way her body settled as she walked, the way she didn't look around but looked straight ahead, and the way her waist trimmed in like the feel of the first icicle I break off and hold in my hands and it's cold and real and yet I can see right through it to the center and beyond and it's my icicle mine from the eaves and it's fragile and precious and if I drop it it will break. But I can't see her, she's not mine, and though she feels like my icicle, I can't see through her and she's not mine. I can't see the trouble with her passive aggressive manager or the recent death of her grandfather or the man who keeps calling her in the middle of the night just to remind her that she isn't safe anymore and he's the reason why she carries the knife with her like the knife is going to do her any good at all but at least it's something it's something to let her keep living and not hide forever in her house it's a way to step outside and face the day knowing that at any time that knife is right there on her belt in easy reach just there next to her icicle fragile waist and below the shirt that ripples just there and the icy cold smile that doesn't look around and just looks ahead.

So what do I really value? The way her ear (coy) sneaks out from behind the single scattered curl, or the woman struggling to finish what she started (life) and make it to the other side?

I guess what I'm really asking is for forgiveness.

11.18

[This has been a week to end all weeks. I'll get back to Catherine. It won't take me a month, but I will finish. This I vow.]

It's not a lie, really. Just a half truth. Just exactly what you want to hear. It's not mean-spirited, or hurtful, or hateful. And yet you reacted so very badly.

"And do you think you can get away with that?" So say you.
"You haven't defined your antecedent." So say I.
I'm angry too. You aren't the only one allowed to be angry, anyway. Stop being angry.
"You said you wanted to be friends, and this isn't what friendship looks like." You.
"Friendship is a two-way street, I'll have you know." I.
"Easy for you to say. You haven't even tried to be my friend." You.
That's stupid and you know it. I'm here talking to you right now, aren't I? That's something friends do.
"That's not fair--" I, and yet you cut me off with a giant humph.
"I'm afraid of being friends on your terms. I don't know what it means." You? That doesn't sound like you. That sounds like anger and fear. You don't sound like that.

My terms? My terms are simple. Love me forever, but never tell me about it. Hold me in the highest regard, but never approach me. Always be there when I call, but don't expect anything of me. Be a perfect memory of my triumph in forgetting.
Oh! And never, ever, hurt me again.
Simple.

11.14

[I am super way behind. Nearly ten thousand words. Not tonight, I think. Unless the mood hits me. I had a pleasant evening, but I need to write a paper tomorrow and it's going to be a beast.]

What's a pleasant way to say this? How do I go about this casually? How can I point this out without being offensive and rude?
Excuse me, ma'am. I can see down your shirt. Either I'm too tall or you're too short, or God has gifted you unnecessarily.
Now.
What are we going to do about it?

11.10b

On the day of the final, professor musicpants mixed the class and put on a calm classical cd and passed out a stack of tests and then probably danced a little happy jig in his little happy heart because he just enjoyed causing so much pain and horror in his students.

11.10

In the last few days of Listening To Music, I knew I would never see Marco and never get to rely on him to Speak In Class again (or at least, I wouldn't be able to rely on him to secure the class a participation grade anymore). So I studied his ways and wiles. This was my only motivation. Don't believe the hype. I didn't like him, I just wanted to know how he could talk about so many things in class. And now, I have denied that I liked him too vehemently and you will assume I liked him anyway. Go ahead. Do what you like. I know the truth.

11.9

[again, not Catherine]

I am
a man.
I can prove it. See my chromosomes? One X, one Y. Crucial. There's more. Broad shoulders, facial hair, deep voice, height, love of well-cooked pies. It's all genetic.
There's more. Just one thing more, but it's there. I love her.
It makes me a man.
Not that it defines me, you understand, but it's what makes me feel most strongly as a man. You don't get it. That's fine. Let me use terms you understand.

When I hold her, my heart
     races.
When I touch her, my fingers
     tingle.
When she laughs, my laughter
     flies.
When I see her, my eyes
     smile.
When we talk, my words
     dance.
When I hear her, my mind
     churns.
When I miss her, my soul
     creaks.
When she loves me, my joy
     bursts.
When we kiss, my world
     stops.

And that makes me a man. I can feel it, right deep down in my soul and I never need to question because she's there and she knows and that's alright with me.
The only thing that I don't understand
is
I haven't found her yet.

If you see her, tell her to call me. I've missed her while she was gone.

11.8b

I like the taste of citrus. Limes, especially, are very good because they taste so good and clean and exotic and new and fresh and not at all like what you'd expect from a pitted green football shape that grows on a tree. They're almost perfect. Lemons are good too, because you can turn them into all sorts of things. Lemonade and lemon meringue and zest and lemon wedges for contests to see who can strip the enamel from their teeth the fastest. And grapefruit (so excellent as breakfast food or basically anytime food) because there's so much citrus in a grapefruit I don't have to work so hard to eat it. And oranges make me happy (especially navels, I mean who can turn down a fruit with a belly button) because they're sweet and tangy all at once and oranges are just so excellent as juice. And the segments? Segmented fruit? Whoever invented that should be taken to a dream castle where their every wish comes true. It is the best idea ever in the whole world, and it is so perfect that I can always tell when I am exactly halfway done with a fruit. Apples can't do that. Yeah, that's right. I compared apples to oranges, and oranges won.

11.8

[This is not Catherine. I can't believe I am at a point in my life where I must specify. I do so like short stories.]

I never wear cologne. I also don't understand why it must be called cologne. It's just perfume for men. I wear deodorant, but I don't go around smelling my pits. Normally, I just smell air, and that's it. Sometimes I'll smell my breath and freak out looking for a toothbrush, but normally just air.
That's why the smell of her is so overpoweringly important. I never smell anything but food and bathrooms. That's why the smell of her is so incredibly vital. If you never smell anything in your whole life unless you're going to eat it or clean it, you lose the part of you that recognizes the emotional power of smell.

Until I smelled her, I forgot the emotional power of smell. That's why the smell of her is so crippling. And when another woman sat down across from me and wafted over the smell of her, I wanted to stand up and leave the room and run to my car and drive to her.
Instead, I just thought about waffles and urinal cakes.

That's why the smell of her is a terrifying wound.

11.7b

Interesting fact about me: I can't bring myself to hate celebrities. Try as I might, I just cannot. I think it is a virtue to hate people freely and without restraint, because it shows some measure of mental cohesion and fortitude to make the choice to actually concentrate all the desires and fears of the mind into a single package of pure, unadulterated hatred.
I was never blessed with this gift. Instead, I was given the ability to see someone else's side in every argument ever. I can see the point that Brittany is just a tortured soul, Mr. Crocker. Or is it Ms? I can't tell anymore. The point is hardly whether or not Chris Crocker has chosen xer gender or whether xe will just fade into oblivion when all the people who have seen xer videos are dead. The point is that I feel both sides of every argument, and it hardly helps me sleep at night.

11.7

I realized at about November that I would have to learn to coexist with EnriqueRosalyn if I was going to continue without blowing up much longer. So I
"Hey, Rosalyn?"
"What's up?"
"I don't know--you wanna hang out on Sunday with a bunch of people? I know about this art exhibit the art department is doing and I thought--"
"You what now? You want to hang out with people? Catherine, are you ill?"
"No, I'm fine! I just don't want to go alone!"
Ros withered me a bit with her glare.
"And! I think it would be a great opportunity for me to get to know Enrique if he's going to hang around for much longer."
Rosalyn didn't swallow my lie, but she took the truth like the proverbial fish: hooklinesinker.
"Oh! That's great! I'll ask him if he's free on Sunday, and then where is this place? I bet we can get there by foot, right?"
She ran around the room trying to figure out where she was for a minute and then turned abruptly and grabbed me in a hug.
"Thanks, Cath, for trying. I know dealing with me is weird for you sometimes."
She had sad in her voice, so I just held onto her. There wasn't anything else to do.

11.6b

[I feel the need to write something not in the novel. But I can't.]

Her hair curls there over her ear. Her fingers work deftly, just so. Her lips pull up into a slight honey sweet smile.
She's not mine.

11.6

The funny part of rooming with Rosalyn is that she has fits of clean. Most of the time, her side of the room is trashed (she is spread mostly everywhere [and not just clothing, sometimes it's actual garbage. She ate the remains of three pizzas one day (she must have gotten them from a friend) and left the boxes on the ground] and I try to contain it to one side [not mine]). Every once in a while, though, the piles mysteriously disappear like a magical cleaning genie visited the room and granted Ros one wish: a floor to walk on. The fits of clean mysteriously coincided with the sporadic dates with Enrique. They weren't every week, so I couldn't guarantee any kind of regularity, but once in a while he would call and the room would be clean when I got back after lunch and I would know to text before I came back to the room. If I got a reply, it was an all-clear. No reply meant no entry.
I started carrying a heavy coat on days when the room was clean. I stuffed big knit mittens down in the pockets and when I felt the urge strike me, I wandered outside into the night.

It never snowed. It was supremely annoying. I wanted it to snow if it was going to be cold, because cold without snow is like brainfreeze without ice cream, like a plot without an ending, like nausea without a theme park. Totally not worth it. Since it never snowed, I had no need of snow boots. It was a big disappointment.
I did wander around the campus and learn it at night, however. That was a bonus. I didn't know before that the big clock on the ad building was illuminated from within. It appeared to be a tremendously old lightbulb, the kind that have a big swirly shape on the top because they were blown, not molded, because they were so tremendously old. I could not see the bulb, of course, but I assumed from the acid paper yellow of the light that it must have been incandescent. Every other bulb on campus was energy efficient halogen white. Impersonal. Cosmetic. Clean. Hateful. But that one bulb, way up high on the edifice of the grand old building--now that was home. It was safe. It was warm. If Ros didn't respond to my desperation texts, I sat and stared at that warmth so far away and imagined what it must be like to live in the clock (with the ticking regularity and the measurable pace of time, nothing out of place, nothing unexpected, ten, then eleven, every night as it had been and as it would be and nothing to displace you out of your home with an impromptu makeout session with a boy who certainly wasn't nobody and a girl who exploded too much for her own good and I just don't know why life can't follow the pattern I gave it when I was smaller and when life was easier to control) in the tower of the ad building.

And then I got the text and everything was alright and I could go home again to Ros and we could fall asleep on my bed for no reason other than it was warmer and it reminded us of high school.
"Ros?"
"Cath."
"Have you seen the clock tower in the ad building?"
"Cath, you know I don't like analog clocks."
"Oh, yeah. Good night."
Good night, me. Good night us. Again and again with the disquieting irregularity of broken faucet.

11.5

Time to face the music.
Not figuratively.

11.4b

[Really, it's not the content that's killing me. I could probably go on forever like this. As a matter of fact, I know I could. I could just write and write and write and never finish. It's the PACE that's killing me. I just don't feel like I'll ever really quite catch up. So I'm writing another thousand something right now, just to put myself within striking distance of being caught up. I NEED 8,000 WORDS! I have 5.5! CRAPPPP]

11.4

For a while, I assumed my life would go on without incident, that everything would be the same, and that I would continue to cling to walls and violently invade the shadows and everything would be alright.
I forgot basketball intramurals.

11.3

After classes, I ran back to the room Ros and I shared (in a co-ed [terrifying] dormitory [lame] on campus [helpful] which, as you will be pleased to know, had suite bathrooms [thank God]). I burst in the door, ready to ask Ros all the questions. I opened with
"Enrique--"
She closed with
"He's a boy. He's not the only one I find cute, anyway. I'm not you, Cath. I'm not you."

11.2

I saw Enrique today. Enrique isn't nobody. Enrique Iglesias sang songs when I was really young and gullible and pop music just because. Enrique is the name of the boy who apparently wears plaid shoes when he's not beating Ros at soccer. He stopped me in the hall of the Marianne Vargas building and asked
"Are you the girl?"

11.1c

I like these men. They jump with the music (not for show, but because the music kicks them there in the soft spot in their soul that resonates in time with the bow and the wood and the resin and it kicks them there then they jump). It doesn't matter quite to them what we think of them and their jumping weaving bowing swaying. They're here to make music. The audience doesn't matter at the end of all of it. I like these men.

11.1b

In my all-consuming quest to become the best I can be without ever once standing out or being noticed, I came into the same snag as always: Rosalyn. Ros was dynamic fire, twisting and contorting into every space she could find. Since she had so much energy, she went out for intramural sports. I was very very proud of her but at the same time very very afraid of the games. Ros walked, fearless, into huge sporting events like she was a goddess, trailing a retinue and letting her hair fly free in the breeze. I crept in like a mouse, keeping close to the walls and avoiding eye contact with anyone who smelled like a stadium bathroom. She blew in like the strong west wind and I faltered my way through the stands like an inconsistent spring rain. Our metaphors didn't even align. That's how far apart we were when it came to sports.

Yet, Ros dragged me into the stadium to watch her play nearly every time. "We're freshman! Homework is for upperclassmen!" was her admonition. So she raged across the field in reckless abandon and I waddled through the stands looking for an appropriate place to sit.

11.1

[I hate writing today. I had so much energy and hope for Catherine after I found her again. I tried to write at 1:30 am and Curtis just yelled at me to go to sleep. I gave up trying to make it sound like her and just hit submit. Here we go again.]

My brain won't stop screaming at me. "Stop writing, self! It's the wrong decision!" But I just want something halfway almost decent just to prove I can write. If I can't anymore--if I can't take an idea and deliver on it--what am I? Not a novelist, that's what. So I guess I'll just continue to write anyway. And besides, I have friends who read into everything I write. I feel like I'm writing Childe Harold's Pilgrimmage. Nobody will believe it's not actually me sometimes.

P.S. part of the reason why Catherine is so dead is because there's so little of me in her.

10.31

Ros and I attended the best high school in the state. We won at everything (spelling bees [does anybody ever know why it's a bee?], basketball tournaments, and social activism [and I recognize it's not a competition. We still won.]). People wore sweaters and scarves and the boys rolled up their sleeves when they worked at computers not because the desks were dirty (they weren't) but because it was what you did with sleeves. Girls' skirts were pleated or layered but just generally cute and nobody thought it was weird to wear skirts, even though jeans are a sure-fire guarantee that Rocky the jock can't see up your skirt when you forget to cross your legs in anatomy class. Basically, as you can see, high school was hell.

10.30

[I have decided to restart Catherine. I was just . . . hoping? Hoping is the right word. I was hoping for something more alive and vibrant and I just can't seem to do it. I guess it's true: change one thing at a time. I was trying to do too much (a female protagonist, a third-person narrative, a happy ending) all at the same time, and it just tanked. So here's try number two. I'm starting over. Thanks for hanging in there for as long as you did. I hope things are better the second time around.]

Catherine is the name of nobody famous. Catherine the Great, Catherine of Aragon, Catherine Zeta-Jones--you get the picture. Old dead ladies that nobody cares about. And whether or not they're all dead (Catherine Zeta-Jones looks half-skeletal anyway, give me a break), people laugh when I say that it's just me and aunt Cathy holding down the fort. And then mom tells me that self-deprecating humor is for losers.
Good job supporting your only daughter. When the judge asks why I ran away, I'll cite verbal abuse.

Since I'm basically destined to be dead and famous, I thought I'd enjoy being alive and unfamous for as long as it lasted. I chose boring, boring coursework, and boring, boring books to read. I did boring things on the weekend and generally avoided excitement. It's difficult to fit in and be invisible in college unless you do. The only flaw in my plan (the only gaping hole) was Rosalyn. Is Rosalyn. Will be Rosalyn. She is in all tenses simultaneously in a feat sure to make God himself contemplative. She is energy and explosion and my best friend. Rosalyn isn't bad, though. She drags me out of our caveroom and into the screeching light of day. She listens to my rants. She shares her rants with me. (I feel like hers are more vibrant than mine, because she has lived ever so much more life than I have. After she complains about guys proposing endless love to her, I start to feel like I've read a harlequin novel titled Rosalyn: The Taming of the Soul with her and some shirtless, muscled Mexican on the cover being attacked by a snake that symbolizes his sexuality which she tames violently with a sword of her own battle-hardened psyche. Basically, Rosalyn is amazing, and her stories are the best.)
Hey, self!
Yeah, self?
Can I ask a stupid question?
Of course, anything for me.
Why am I friends with Rosalyn?
This is an excellent question. Let me explain it to me. We met in high school when she got in trouble and had to go to the school library while I was tutoring there. I taught her Math. She taught me life. It was an environment like those tiny white birds that clean the crap out of alligators' teeth. Symbiosis. Mr. Patterson would be proud that his biology lesson was not a waste. Little did he know that one student would use one thing from his class one time to explain something completely unrelated. Thank you, high school, for teaching me that anything is useful if you break it first. So Rosalyn and I became friends before I knew her, if that makes any sense. We got to know each other in the library where she couldn't be loud, and by the time she invited me to her house to meet her whole family (there are six of them), I had already shared with her my deepest secrets and there was no looking back. We were best friends.
So, self, I guess you could say that the force that brought us together was elemental, unavoidable, and completely perfect.
Thank you, self. You did a most admirable job, if I don't say so myself.
Aren't we clever?

I'm nineteen, which mom says is a horrible age for me (I should be eight again when the world was simple).
I'm in college, which Ros says is a great place to be (all the smart boys go to college).
I'm wrong in all the right places, which I says is a mighty fine way to screw up your life.
I'm Catherine, dead and famous. Pleased to meet you.

[Curtis is writing last lines for me. "And Petey said to Julianne 'Thank you so much.'" "And they all lived happily ever after, except for the three lying dead on the floor." "And they all rode away to find new adventures. . . " I think he wants to go to bed. I like Catherine more already. I have plans.]

10.29

The people downstairs are playing music very loudly. I'm alternately glad that they're not hung over from last night and sad that I should even ask.
I've seen her leave our house wearing different pants. I wonder if I should ask or just keep my nose out.
I can clearly hear her phone conversation, but I keep walking because I know I shouldn't listen.

I ask how you're doing.

Was I justified? No.

10.28

I have no call to be here, but my byronic melancholy drove me out of doors. I pace and I cry and I cry out: oh, God! Give me purpose in life. I'm lost and alone.
I it's cold out. I roll down my sleeves. It's cold out. I pace on. Wander? Don't mind if I do.

I haven't found my meaning before I hear a pale, wordless scream from the woods. My head snaps up. A third of all women are raped before the age of thirty. I hope it's nothing; kids are playing ghost. A second scream rips out of the woods. Two? No. Three. I turn. If it was me, I would want some passer-by to turn. I walk into the woods. Nothing. Campus safety arrives. I leave.

Forty minutes and five empty, wordless screams. The campus safety official says there's still been nothing.

I should have run.
If there had been words, I would have run.
I should have run.
In the future, I'll sprint.

10.26

She wished her heart would slow down. "Hey yourself." She immediately told herself to stop being a ditz and sound like a human again. She had little hope of it working.
"So, you're home."
"Obviously. And you?"
"Well, I'm calling from in front of your house. You wanna go on a walk?"

Catherine smiled.

"I'll take that as a no, then?" Marco sounded puzzled that she hadn't responded.

"Ah! Yes, yes I'll go on a walk. Let me get my shoes on."

Catherine's mother called from the kitchen. "Where are you going, honey? It's almost supper time."

"Out. I'll be back for supper, don't worry."

Catherine rushed out the door and saw Marco at the corner, waiting. She walked to him, taking the time to pull her thoughts into order. They had been friends for only two months, but it had been a long time. Maybe he was ready for a relationship like she was. She looked up once and saw him smiling. It felt like sunlight through the windows in a cold car. Catherine's gait sped up. She stopped thinking, for the first time in a long time, about how she looked, or what she might sound like, or how she should stand, or what Marco would think of her shirt, or anything. She just smiled back.

When she arrived at the corner, the two stood awkwardly for a moment, unsure of how to greet each other. It occurred to Catherine that this was one of the first times they had been alone. So she just smiled at him again. Laughing, Marco stooped to open his backpack.
"I got something for you," he said. "I hope you like it. I wasn't sure if you had one . . ." His voice trailed off as he rummaged deeper into the bag. "Ah! Here it is."

From the bag, Marco produced an umbrella. It was plaid.

Catherine felt like crying, but laughing was more appropriate, so she did that instead. She reached up and pulled Marco into a hug. "Thank you," she whispered. She couldn't see Marco blush.

The two walked around the block twice. They talked about the stupid things people talk about when they have something else to say.

Catherine hated Jurassic Park. "It was completely unbelievable."

Marco loved mall kiosk salespeople. "They'll give you stuff if you just hang around and look skeptical."

Catherine needed hot milk when she was sick. "Mom says it's saved my life more than once."

Marco disliked when pop musicians tried to branch out. "She can't sing salsa."

Catherine loved boots. "Not like other girls. I loved boots before boots were cool."

Marco didn't understand moles. "What do they do, anyway?"

The two rounded the last corner. Catherine knew her mother would call her about supper soon. She slowed, and looked at Marco.

"Why are you here?"

He stopped walking, and he seemed shaken.

"Marco, why are you here?"

He stammered a bit, and then said "You know how, when you have something to say, and you're not sure if or how or when or why you should say it but it's something you've got to say anyway and you don't have any clue if you're going to do it right, and yet--you know what I mean?"

She nodded.

"Ok. Let me do this right. Cath, I really like you. I really do. If you'd caught me last year, this would be the point at which I would ask you to go to a movie with me next Saturday with the intent of movies every week and maybe meeting your folks and inviting all our friends to a picnic in a park and possibly, but not necessarily letting you see my room and asking, but not expecting to see your room and finally you know, going steady and proms and futures and all that crap."

She felt like she was choking on an ice cube, and the cold was spreading through her chest, and it just wouldn't melt, and she was going to die there because she was stupid and choked on an ice cube.

Marco continued. "I would do all that again today, except I have just gotten out of . . . ugh." He grunted. The look on his face was displeasure to see, and Catherine knew that he didn't want to say the next words, but he knew he had to, and that just complicated things. If he were horrible, he wouldn't say them, and she could leave with a clean conscience because he would be horrible then and that would be fine. But he wasn't horrible and she knew it. Marco cleared his throat. "I just . . . this summer, I fell in love with a girl. Not like, head over heels or anything, but I knew I loved her just the same. And she . . . she was . . . " He pursed his lips and frowned like he was two years old and trying to figure out how to argue his way out of a spanking.

"Marco?" Catherine said, low and soft.

"Yeah?"

"You don't have to tell me, if you don't want to."

"Good." Marco replied. "That makes it easier to do it. Here's the thing. She cheated on me. Then she told me about it in front of my older brother, just because she knew it would hurt me the most to do that. I wish I could say she's just a bitch who tried to hurt me, but I still can't." Marco took a raggedy breath. "I still can't. I have no idea what happened still. I'm trying to figure it out."

"So?" Catherine didn't know what to think, so she didn't. She just waited for Marco to speak.

"So. I can't ask you out. I can't ask to drag you into this. I can't ask you to date a broken man."

The two stood overlong. The tree above them dropped blood-red tear-shaped leaves that floated around and between them as they stood there. Catherine's mind churned through every option. Say it's ok? Forgive him? Leave him standing on a windy corner because the past is still more important to him than a future? Cry? She found reasons for and against every choice. She argued both sides with herself, mind yelling at conscience, awareness shouting at perception. She didn't come to a clear choice. She wanted to be with him because he was fascinating, and they clicked so well, and he was so beautiful, and he liked her. She wanted to run from him because he wouldn't put her first, and he was still hurt, and she was afraid that he was afraid. Nothing was right. Nothing was perfect like she wanted it to be.

Marco sniffed like he was holding back tears. Catherine pulled up her new plaid umbrella and they stood and listened to the leaves scudding across the ribs of the umbrella.

Catherine looked up. "Marco?" He opened his eyes. They were full of tears. "We don't have to decide anything today, ok? I won't go anywhere yet." Marco pulled Catherine into a hug that squeezed the breath out of her.

"Thank you." He whispered it without whispering it. She barely heard it over the sound of leaves and sunlight.

Marco kissed her cheek, picked up his backpack, and walked away.

Catherine assumed Marco had as good as asked her out, and now it was her choice of what to do. She didn't know, but it didn't bother her. She finally realized Marco wasn't perfect, but she was learning something she thought was more important. He was honest.

She stood in the leaves until her mother called her for supper, and she left the tree to empty itself to the sidewalk, crying blood-red tear-leaves until there were none left.

10.22

[not finished, but you deserve to read it anyway because I like the taste of lemon water]
Marco wasn't perfect. It took Catherine two months to find out.
Before that time, her assumption was that he was, in fact, perfect in every conceivable way. Apart from the heavenly gorgeous amazing incredible stunning smile that a loving God had planted on his masculine face, he had an eye for detail and a care for others that she never thought she would find in a guy. This fact she noticed very quickly indeed. Her rain boots were plaid. No one's rain boots were plaid, not in the entire school. This was a fact that made Catherine unceasingly proud.
"They're not from Walmart," she said, by way of explanation.
"Oh." Rosalyn was not impressed.
This non-support from her best friend made Catherine feel like the shade of an apple bruise. So she went around all day feeling like the shade of fruit that had been dropped from a counter and left to brown and sicken. She felt unappetizing. So when she saw Marco, she wasn't in the best possible mood. Between third period Biology and their mutual lunch break, the couple developed a pattern of meeting at the water fountain on third floor between their classrooms. She stood bruised apple shade at the fountain and waited for him. He stopped ten feet away and frowned.
"How can you look so sad in plaid?"
Catherine thought it was probably the corniest thing anyone had ever said to anyone, but it made her feel like the taste of water with lemon in it. Just right.

They sat just so in the cafeteria. On one side of the table, Catherine Rosalyn, on the other, Marco Enrique Erica. It was an odd social mixing. Three fourths of the way through nearly every lunch, Rosalyn would make an odd pronouncement and the entire table would dissolve into an argument about the relative worth of Uggs versus flip flops or Florida versus California or the Rolling Stones versus Michael Jackson. The argument never mattered, but Rosalyn continued.
"I'm sounding the depths," she explained. "They don't sound more than four fathoms yet."
She persisted until she struck on a topic that satisfied her. She found it in her God versus Pantheism argument. Marco assaulted her with the writings of an obscure Mongolian mystic, then Plato's republic, then the book of Job. She countered with Coleridge, Exodus, and Gilgamesh before turning to Catherine and nodding. She stood up, took her tray, and walked out. Marco, rounding the corner of his argument about Mesopotamian cultures, halted and swallowed, nervous.
"Did I offend her?"
Enrique and Erica continued feeding each other corn chips from a single bag.
"Seriously, though. Did I, like, attack her or something?"
He looked so small and careful that Catherine laughed to see the difference. "No, you didn't offend her. She approves of you, idiot." She threw her fork at him and laughed again. "She said she wouldn't let me date anyone who couldn't think."
"So?"
"So you can think."
"That's a good thing?"
"It's excellent." Rosalyn had never approved of anyone before. Catherine thought it wasn't quite fair, of course. Rosalyn usually rebutted that she could find a pig with wings before Catherine could find a jock with a brain. She hadn't. Catherine felt like it was a perfect day.
Two hours later, she got a text from Rosalyn. It was a picture of a pig with wings. It said "Good luck!"
Catherine didn't cry, but she felt like it would have been justified.

Marco asked her out in midOctober, when the weather and the trees and life were changing. He called her phone, which she didn't pick up because Rosalyn said it would be bad form to appear too desperate. Her mother called up the stairs "Catherine, there's someone on the phone for you!" Catherine pulled back from her textbook and stood up. Her mother yelled again. "It's a boy! What should I say to him?"
Catherine decided to start breathing again. Maybe it was him. She was completely unsure of if he would really call her house.
She grabbed her best lip balm and put it on, then changed her shirt. Her mother yelled up the stairs again. "Catherine, are you deaf or dead? There are no other options."
Catherine ran down the stairs and picked up the receiver. "Hello?" It was too-breathy, like the voice the other girls made when talking about boys they'd had sex with and the feel of their stomachs and the roughness of their hands. She took a breath and tried again. "Hello?"
"Hey."
She wished her heart would slow down. "Hey yourself." She immediately told herself to stop being a ditz and sound like a human again. She had little hope of it working.
"So, you're home."
"Obviously. And you?"
"Well, I'm calling from in front of your house. You wanna go on a walk?"

[in progress--I'll finish when I'm not at 1am]

10.24b

I'd like to meet
Wanna establish familiarity with the guy;
Are you interested in dating?
send me a note 




I am Alesia
Good day.
It's interesting to meet u!
Write me please.

Alisa

10.24

I think I shot a man in my sleep tonight but my head left the matter unclear. It was as if I didn't need to know or that my head began to show how I never ever really know the whys of all my woe. My head (it said, for it knew best) that I was an inconstant show. "What's that?" (I said, to my head) "Inconstant me? I'm trustworthy. I'm faithful, if I'm slow. I never go from friends I know nor shoot the friends I don't!" "There's the problem! There, you see!!" (it said, a rebuttal from my aching head) and an idea took up to grow. Perhaps my head has never said if the man was dead because I ought to know that it doesn't mean a gosh darn thing if my head should cover o'er the whole darn show in a single go or ever tell if he fell by my hand or another man because the [ ] I ought to know is that my head's the pro.
Dreams are best for all the rest. I'll stick to the sleep I know.

10.18

Catherine breathed in deep, and smelled the earthy musk of the still-wet garden. The muffled thump of a dance party beat through the door in front of her. Rosalyn opened her eyes and drew her mouth into a thin line.
"Are we going in, or shall we stand on the doorstep absorbing the popularity?"
Catherine had promised her father that she would check to see if there were parents, check the exits, carry mace in her pocket, and loudly announce to several people that she had AIDs and or gonorrhea to deter any possible sexual offenders. She intended on carrying through on exactly none of her promises. This was her chance to be popular. This night was her night. She had to seize life by the throat and kick it in the crotch. She just had to ring the doorbell. She reached forward and confidently pressed the glowing circle, her portal to instant fame.
She waited. Nothing happened.
Rosalyn sighed and opened the door directly. "Nobody can hear you in there. Let's go."
Catherine had seen teen party movies, but she never expected her life to become one. That's why, until she got to the party, she hadn't ever considered how much she wanted to go to a party where people sprawled over couches making out, drinking unspeakable liquids, and smoking rolled-up pieces of paper with drugs the quality of toenail clippings.
The party was disappointingly too-tame. The Macdonalds were home, and upstairs. Dan Macdonald was downstairs, playing music on his stereo and not even trying to put his hands in girls' shirts. No one was drinking anything or smoking anything. Catherine was very slightly disappointed. She expected mayhem. She wanted mayhem. There was no mayhem.
When Marco walked in, Catherine found the mayhem. Her ears filled with the sound of the blood rushing in her head, shutting out all other noise. Her chest felt full and tight, and it got difficult to breathe. She grabbed Rosalyn's hand and squeezed. His hair was curly and just long enough to cover up his ears just at the top. Catherine tried four times to follow the line of his ear through his hair and had to stop to look away each time. His hair was just the right length for running hands through. She tried to not picture him with her hands in his hair. She wanted very badly to know what that would feel like--what it would be like to pull a man (and not just a boy) a man (not like the boyfriends she'd had) a man be pulled in for a kiss and he just tall enough that he has to bend his neck down and she just short enough that she has to bend her head up, and he just broad enough for the perfect embrace, and she just thin enough for his arms to perfectly encircle her waist--what it would feel like to be perfect. She watched him walk over to the minifridge and rummage through it for a soda. He picked up a glass and poured the drink in and wait for the fizz to die away. Every other person drank from the can, but he drank from a glass. For some reason, this struck Catherine as a very important thing. Marco set the can down on the counter and looked up to survey the room for the first time.
Rosalyn was a good friend.
For Catherine, time froze as Marco's gaze swept to her and paused.
Rosalyn was a very good friend.
He smiled.
Rosalyn gave Catherine's hand a final squeeze and stood up, leaving exactly one free chair in the entire room. Rosalyn was a very good friend indeed.
Catherine licked her lips just a bit. Mayhem? Who needs it? This is just right. Marco walked toward her.
Marco sat down next to Catherine, and her world exploded just a little bit. She didn't let it show. She was collected, but at risk for hyperventilation. She just needed a little more air, is all. Don't judge her.
"You were in my"
"Chemistry class, yes."
"Yeah, I remember you. Brainiac!"
"I don't think so, I mean, I was just average." She hoped the heat in her face and neck wouldn't burn through her skin.
"Ha, fat chance of that. I remember you. You're . . . Catherine, right? Pretty cool."
Catherine hadn't ever prayed for death before, but if she were to begin, this seemed like a good time.
"Hey, I don't think we've ever been properly introduced. I'm Marco."
She shook his hand with the stiff formality of someone who had had taken statistics and knew the mind-blowing improbability of having all of one's dreams come true simultaneously. The thought occurred to her to check outside for her new convertible and personal money tree.
Marco smiled, and Catherine melted in the brilliance of it.

Rosalyn drank three sodas and talked two different boys out of their chairs to dance before Catherine stood up suddenly and turned to Marco. He stopped halfway through his story about dissecting a frog with his dad. He looked up at her, his mouth half open.
"You wanna go outside?" Her question was as sudden as a gunshot in still woods. He seemed to churn through the thought.
"Yes?" It was phrased as a question, as if he wasn't sure if it was an invitation or a polite way to get rid of him. She walked up the stairs and turned around. He blinked twice, set his glass on the end table, and bounded up two at a time. He laughed and grabbed his shoes.
"Out?"
"Out."
"Why?"
"That's for me to know, and you to find out."
"I love a woman of mystery."
She slipped into her flats and walked out into the night and the still-wet garden and the yellow acidpaper streetlights. He followed, hopping on one foot and tying his shoelace. She had no idea where she was going to go, and she didn't care. She had never liked the way people described their emotions: dancing, soaring, twinkling, shining, or any other nonsense. So the way she felt as she closed the door  was not anything of the kind. She felt like a mountaintop stripped of snow by the sun, with a field of flowers flying out through the scree to meet the sun.
Rosalyn had won an eating competition by plowing through the better part of a pizza, and been asked to prom by Dan Macdonald twice before Catherine and Marco got back. They had talked about foreign movies, the best type of car, the oddity of going to school as a profession, the fact that parents made love, the way hopes of teenagers never worked out, and the smell of old books.
Catherine walked halfway down the stairs and pause. Rosalyn saw it, and extricated herself from Dan's predatory pleading. When she got outside with Catherine, she asked the most important question of the entire year:
"So?"
Catherine just smiled.

10.17b

Well . . . (from Lesia Haley [burton.grayer@aol.com])

Hey!
Wanna date?
Alesia

[This latest missive is the most concrete, most comprehensible, and most depressing. Still, I'm incredibly excited about her interest in me, anyway.]

10.17

This is it.
This is the end.
I've really done it now.

I don't suppose I have much time left.

It hurts to be awake. Actual pain.

10.16b

She's right there. I'm glad I can't see how bright her smile is, or how lithe her arms are, or how dark her eyes are. All I can see is the back of her head. If I could see her ear through her hair, I'd be done for.

10.16

Catherine took an unattractively large bite of pasta and had to suction in the straggling strands. Rosalyn laughed at what was essentially a killing blow to hotness.
"Shut up, Roz!" Catherine said around the mouthful. It only further cemented how non-hot she was at the moment. Two tables away, Marco discovered the corn in his teeth and tried to pull it out of his teeth with his tongue and lips, which only caused his face to contort like a weird snarl. Catherine swallowed.
"If he's allowed to eat corn, I'm allowed to eat spaghetti. It's only fair."
"Decidedly not!" Rosalyn argued. "Your role is to be as hot as you can forever. He can eat corn and grow a mustache and run through the mud, but you have to be immaculate." Catherine, mouth now full of spaghetti, tried to protest.most of the sound came out as a muffled mmpfh. Rosalyn disagreed. "I know it's unfair to you, Cath, but hot women are cursed to forever be hot. That is, until you finally tie a man down and he has to realize you poop too. Really, you should poop in front of him on your honeymoon, just to make sure he gets the point. Basically, all marriages are ruined by the timing of the partners' poops." Catherine was incredulous.

Marco stood up in the middle of the cafeteria and announced loudly "I would like everybody to listen up! What I'm about to say is very important!" Eventually, the cafe quieted to murmurs. Marco stood up on his chair and yelled "Enrique has something very important to ask, but he's too shy. Can everybody give him some support?" His voice was full and strong and everybody heard it and Catherine wanted to know if he was this embarrassing all the time, or just this once. If he yelled a lot, he might drop on her scale from a perfect ten to perhaps a nine point fivefourthreesevenseven, or thereabouts. She wasn't trying to be exact.
The rest of the students started chanting "Enrique Enrique" and banging trays and clapping at a slow rhythm that slowly sped up. When they had reached a fast waltz, Enrique stood up and the chant dissolved into a roar.
"Hey, everyone. I just want everyone here to know I'm in love with the most beautiful girl in the world, and I want to ask her out." He turned to Erica. Rosalyn gasped and grabbed Catherine's arm and shook her violently. Enrique, quieter now, asked "Erica, will you be my girlfriend?"

Rosalyn was ecstatic at this point and practically squealed. "I knew Marco didn't like her. What did I say? What did I say?" The last trailed off into a high squeal.
Catherine just rolled her eyes and looked at Marco looking at Enrique looking at Erica looking at her hands. Nobody could hear what she said, but Marco jumped up on the chair again and yelled. The whole cafe roared out again, but Catherine could still make out his yell among the bedlam. She just stared at the way he threw back his head and let the sound ripple up from his shoes into his chest, where it built and exploded out, and she thought maybe he was just right. If he could do such an awesome thing for a friend, what would he do for a woman? She immediately tried to picture how he would ask her out. The perfectness of it wouldn't fit in her head, so she gave up and watched him jog around the cafe with his arms in the air.
Rosalyn turned and whispered deep into Catherine's ear. "Well, he's got endurance, at least."
The two giggled at the joke only they could hear, and Catherine shoveled an unattractively large bite into her mouth.

10.15

[I can't finish that story now. It will wait a day or two, I think.]

I am tremendous. I can step from one continent to another without wetting my feet. I can stand up on the bottom of the ocean. I can smell the moon.
I'm sure you've heard of me. I'm famous. I'm on tv. Most people can see me coming for hours. If I stand still too long, I cause wild temperature fluctuation. If I take a nap, I ruin local economies underneath me. I'm the leading cause of Brazil's deforestation. Like I said, I'm sure you've heard of me.

I'm the tallest man alive, but also the loneliest.

10.11

[I'm addicted to writing scenes. I can't help it; they're so much easier. Sadly, these scenes don't expand to be stories often enough for me to justifiably try to claim that I am a short story writer. I'm a struggling short story writer, trying to get quick fixes of scenes--like I'm taking meth to cope with my cocaine addiction.]

Marco wasn't aware of his effect on her. Catherine wasn't quite sure he needed to, especially, because it was kind of embarrassing, really. She knew girls weren't supposed to think this way. She knew that nice girls were nice, and didn't think about nice boys and the shape of their nice jeans over their nice butts, or the way their nice shirts slid across nice shoulders when they turned to be just overwhelmingly nice. Catherine knew this, but that didn't stop her from staring at Marco when he walked (though walk is tame, perhaps swaggered) through the cafeteria (though not swagger, really, it's just he walked purposefully, and some would describe it as a swagger. There wasn't any arrogance in it anyway). He had nice arms and she had more than once thought it would be nice if he were to wrap her in them. But she wouldn't ever tell him. And he wouldn't ever know. She had only told Rosalyn about it, and only on pain of death and because of permanent friendship. Rosalyn thought they would be great together, but only because their babies would be "so unspeakably cute." But both had sworn secrecy on the subject, and Marco continued to wear shirts that were just ever so slightly too tight and Catherine continued to look and think she was just ever so slightly horrible for wanting to know what his skin would feel like.

But it wasn't really truly fair, she thought, that she couldn't tell him about it. This is a liberated society, after all. And she was a powerful (empowered [power-hungry]) woman. And she was attractive (in more ways than one [both sexually and intellectually]), or at least that's what Rosalyn said, and Rosalyn had excellent taste in friends (at least, that's what Rosalyn said). Catherine thought Rosalyn was sweet, but perhaps a bit too free with her praise. Still, Marco didn't know quite the effect that he had on Catherine. She bit her lip pensively, but would never describe it that way aloud to Rosalyn for fear of dorkslaps. Marco sat down at a table a row away and started talking to his friends. She decided to not stare.

The next time she looked up, Marco was eating corn on the cob. It was, in her opinion, the least sexy food in the universe. He laughed at something Enrique said, and she could clearly see corn stuck in his teeth. This brief moment of humanity did not serve to humanize him at all. Instead, she wondered if he would brush his teeth when he kissed her.

Of course, Marco wasn't aware of his effect on her. She planned to keep it that way.

10.10

[Today is a palindrome, if you ignore the year. I said that last year on 11.11. Good luck?]

[I can't write anything today. I have tried. It was crap. I will write again in the morning.]

I can't feel hot breath on my face yet, but I know it's coming. I'm curled in a little ball in the boll of the tree and I can't feel the hot breath. I'm terrified to open my eyes and see it coming, but the good thing is that I can't feel it yet. I saw it from a ways off and immediately dropped to hide and I'm really excited that I can't feel. Maybe it won't find me. Maybe it will pass me by.

I can feel the hot breath on my face. It smells like death. Maybe, I think sadly, it's the other way around. Death smells like tiger breath, and I've been wrong all along.

It would fit. I would think death would curl too in the boll with me.

Good thing I don't have time to figure that out.

10.9

I can't lick the last of the ice cream out of the bottom of the bowl. It's right past the end of my tongue, and even though I'm sticking my whole face into the bowl, I just can't seem to get it. I'm super frustrated and only kind of angry but I decide to cry anyway.
I have a ring of ice cream around my forehead and chin. I bet I look ridiculous.
It feels so good to cry, I start to laugh.

Catharsis.

I'm trying to get the dog off of me, but he's snuffling my face as I lie on the ground. I'm laughing and hoping he doesn't shed in my mouth. He'll get off eventually when he gets bored, but for right now, I'm hugging him and he's smelling me.
I'm covered in fur from my head to my toe. I bet I look ridiculous.
It feels so good to laugh, I start to cry.

Overjoyed.

I tell her I have to move to Illinois, and I'm not sure what that means for us. She starts crying and asks if she can move with me. I say I'm not sure that's a good idea. She says she loves me. I smile and shake my head. She says she loves me again. I'm not sure what I can do about it.
She's bawling and her eyes are bright red. She looks ridiculous.
I feel great.

Schadenfreude.

10.8

The Bible says "thou shalt not covet," but what it feels like is "keep trying, kid. You'll never stop wanting what you can't have. Go ahead. Beat your head against a wall. You're set up for failure. If you get it let me know." What it feels like is "shut up and sit down, idiot. I give you things on my own time, in my own way, and it would be best if you just developed a pinch of patience and waited for a split second." What it feels like is "I'm going to give everybody else what you want and then tell you to not want it. Have fun." What it feels like is watching the girl in front of me text the boy she refers to as "My Nathan <3" and wondering why she exists geographically two feet from me, but the idea of her is miles off.

"My Nathan <3."
Anger.

10.8

I said I would delete it. But I'm against deleting memories.

Well, here goes everything. Crumple stuff squash crush tear rip squeeze push force shove mush cut break.
Click. It's gone. The other was the sound of my heart.

10.6b

Coy. Careful. Cautious.
I asked her if I could hold her hand. It was cold out and the stars we were staring at were sharp and clear and cut through the dark like ribbons of light from heaven. I asked soft, under my breath, sucked in air, and watched as her own curled up through the cold.
"Is it alright if I hold your hand?"
She pulled off her glove and held her palm up and giggled when my icy fingers laced through her soft warm ones.
I was probably wiser than she was.

Cautious. Crippled. Cut.
I asked her if I could hold her hand. It was hot out and the sun was beating down warm and smooth and full. It blanketed us in layers of glory. I asked soft, under my breath, sucked in air, and watched her hold hers as sweat not caused by heat grew on my forehad.
"Is it alright if I hold your hand?"
She angled her shoulder away from me and laced her fingers together in her lap and said to me that it probably wasn't a good idea.
She was probably wiser than I was.