“That whiff of smoke was enough to transform my sithere-trembling terror into get-the-hell-out-of-here terror.”

“I hate to disappoint, but I just lay there, curled in a ball, shaking in pure terror.”

“I used to think that teachers who gave homework on weekends should be forced to grade papers for an eternity in hell.”

“But even more than I wanted to check out and give my emotional wounds time to scab over, I wanted to live.”

“The most important part of seeing Darla every night wasn’t the fooling around. It was the few minutes we talked while holding each other, the feeling of security I got with her, the feeling of being understood and loved. Before the eruption, I wouldn’t have believed that I could cuddle up every night with the girl who starred in my dreams and not be totally preoccupied with sex. But the trek across Iowa had changed something. I wanted, needed to see her so badly that it woke me up at night. But making out was incidental to my need – nice when it happened, but secondary to the simple pleasure of sleeping beside her.”

“So I thought I’d feel different afterward, after the visible neon sign proclaiming 'virgin' had blinked out on my forehead. I’d spent years obessessing about it, so it seemed like somthing should have changed. Maybe it would have if I’d still been at Ceder Falls High School surrounded by the gossip and the braggadocio of teenage boys. But on my uncle's farm, nobody noticed, or at least nobody said anything. The next day, like every day, we dug corn, chopped wood, and carried water. And it didn’t really change much between Darla and me, either. Yes, making love was fun, but it wasn’t really any more fun than anything we’d already been doing together. Just different.”

“Condoms instantly shot to the number-one position on my mental list of must-find survival supplies, far ahead of food, water, and a way across the Mississippi River.”