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389 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 2013
I wasn't shy, exactly. That's never what it was. I just didn't know how to do this, is all, the clang and chatter of high school.
I had no friends in tenth grade. Okay, that's dramatic. I had friends. I didn't eat lunch alone on a toilet seat or anything. Mostly, I just didn't eat lunch. I went to the library.
"We'll just stop by for a minute," he always said before we got there, but in the end a minute usually took an hour or more.
I didn't want to, was the problem, and so I sat on the counter in any number of kitchens, drinking warm bear out of a red plastic cup and watching the minutes go by on the digital clock on the microwave, hoping no one said anything to me as they moved through the room, and wishing I was home watching reruns with Soledad. [..] Once, I brought a book and hid in the pantry to read it.
"You know, what I love about all this is how conveniently you forgot that you were on your way out, too, when I left. You told me every day."
I've been looking for Sawyer for half a lifetime when I find him standing in front of the Slurpee machine at the 7-Eleven on Federal Highway, gazing through the window at the frozen, neon-bright churning like he's expecting the mysteries of the universe to be revealed to him from inside.
"You can't just come here after all this time and try to joke around with me and act like nother happened. That's not - Stuff happene, Sawyer. You can't just be back.
"Come sit with me, Reena." He commanded.
"Why?" Reena asked.
"Because I said so."