“She taught me to revel. She taught me to wonder. She taught me to laugh.My sense of humor had always measured up to everyone else's; but timidintroverted me, I showed it sparingly: I was a smiler. In her presence Ithrew back my head and laughed out loud for the first time in my life”

“Of course we did other things too. We walked. We talked. We rode bikes.Though I had my driver's license, I bought a cheap secondhand bicycle soI could ride with her. Sometimes she led the way, sometimes I did. Wheneverwe could, we rode side by side.She was bendable light: she shone around every corner of my day.She taught me to revel. She taught me to wonder. She taught me to laugh.My sense of humor had always measured up to everyone else's; but timidintroverted me, I showed it sparingly: I was a smiler. In her presence Ithrew back my head and laughed out loud for the first time in my life”

“You liked me."I smiled. "You were smitten with me. You were speechless to behold my beauty. You had never met anyone so fascinating. You thought of me every waking minute. You dreamed about me. You couldn't stand it. You couldn't let such wonderfulness out of your sight. You had to follow me."I turned to Cinnamon. He licked my nose. "Don't give yourself so much credit. It was your rat I was after."She laughed, and the desert sang.”

“Every day I hold my breath until I see her. Sometimes in class, sometimes in the hallway. I can't start breathing until I see her smile at me. She always does, but the next day I'm always afraid she won't. At lunch I'm afraid she'll smile more at BT than at me. I'm afraid she'll look at him in some way that she doesn't look at me. I'm afraid that when I go to bed at night I'll still be wondering. I'm always afraid. Is that what love is - fear?”

“He stared at me. "She liked you, boy." The intensity of his voice and eyes made me blink."Yes," I said."She did it for you, you know.""What?""Gave up her self, for a while there. She loved you that much. What an incredibly lucky kid you were."I could not look at him. "I know."He shook his head with a wistful sadness. "No, you don't. You can't know yet. Maybe someday..."I knew he was tempted to say more. Probably to tell me how stupid I was, how cowardly, that I blew the bestchance I would ever have. But his smile returned, and his eyes were tender again, and nothing harsherthan cherry smoke came out of his mouth.”

“I’m not sure,” she said. “There’s no one answer to that. You have tofind your own way. Sometimes I try to erase myself. I imagine a bigpink soft soap eraser, and it’s going back and forth, back and forth,and it starts down at my toes, back and forth, back and forth, andthere they go-poof!-my toes are gone. And then my feet. And then myankles. But that’s the easy part. The hard part is erasing my senses-myeyes, my ears, my nose, my tongue. And last to go is my brain. Mythoughts, memories, all the voices inside my head. That’s the hardest,erasing my thoughts.” She chuckled faintly. “My pumpkin. And then, ifI’ve done a good job, I’m erased. I’m gone. I’m nothing. And then theworld is free to flow into me like water into an empty bowl.”

“Now," my mother sniffled, "WERE you abducted? Kidnapped?""You mean did somebody snatch me?""Yes. Well?""Why would anybody wanna snatch ME?""Megin. Just DID they?""Did who? Who's THEY?"ANYBODY! Snatch you?"I laughed. "Jeez no!" And she grabbed me again and we cried some more.”