using to help him. The professor wears a special microphone pinned to his shirt while he speaks, and then it takes the whole lecture and translates it through a computer somehow. It’s really amazing! It looks like Micah will have to do more reading than most, but I think he’ll be just fine.
You should see how excited he is! He’s already used to living away from home now, so going away to college shouldn’t be a problem. I heard his parents were sad he was going out of state though. I think they just want him to be closer if anything happens. I thought that would have changed by now. So many other things in society seem to be loosening up, but parents are still pretty serious about their children. That’s how my parents were; they never let anything bad happen to me if they could help it…
We were quiet for a moment. We were both thinking the same thing. I suddenly needed to be closer to land. I swam towards the surface while I continued to speak.
Jack has already decided he isn’t going to college. He’s been working in his dad’s auto shop on the weekends and over breaks; he’s getting really good at mechanics. He’s also falling in love with motorcycles. I think he thinks that if he’s around motorcycles enough and can prove to his parents how responsible he is with them, he’ll be able to talk them into letting him have a bike of his own.
She laughed. Jack’s disposition was a little like Elizabeth’s: playfully rebellious. They never meant any harm, but you never knew what they’d wind up doing.
I swam my way up to the surface, peeking out of the waves to see if the coast was clear. It was empty enough where I was that no one would notice me. The clothes I wore when I had jumped in earlier were still intact since I had been moving so lazily— soaked through and dripping, but still intact. I sat on the same beach I came to Her from this morning with my feet in the water, staying connected so we could still talk. She knew I was saving the best for last.
I had helped plenty of children since this idea had struck me so many years ago, but I had never been so attached to any of them as I was to Jillian. Jillian was smart, but very isolated. I was assigned to her in a big sister type of program, and we hit it off immediately. Everyone thought she had poor social skills, but Jillian was just shy. As we realized how much we had in common, she opened herself to me. And then, when she was comfortable with me, she opened up to others. The transformation was remarkable. The girl I met two years ago and the girl I knew now were different people entirely.
Jillian was funny and warm and easy to be around. I think she had been shy because she didn’t think she was very pretty, but when I showed up and someone asked if I was her sister, she started holding her head higher. I took that as a compliment. Once she convinced herself she was worth noticing, she started trying more and more things— writing and making art— and discovered she wasn’t half bad. Even with areas she was unsure about, she at least gave it a try.
We spent lots of time just “talking.” Jillian had grown up in Maine, and loved it here, but she ached to see California. I told her about my brief experiences in the Golden State, saying I had just come from there, skipping the states in between. I told her about how it was sunny almost all the time, and how if she went to the Getty, she could see the mountains and the Ocean at once. That fact thrilled me at the time.
Jillian loved movies and magazines and boys. The latter was the subject of so many conversations. Maybe that was the root of it all: We were just so much alike. She was like a sister in a different way. Where I was pushed to be close to Miaka and Elizabeth and Aisling, Jillian and I chose one another’s company and were so similar it was like we should have been together all along.
We were both romantics. One day when we were talking, I realized that the boys at the school
You should see how excited he is! He’s already used to living away from home now, so going away to college shouldn’t be a problem. I heard his parents were sad he was going out of state though. I think they just want him to be closer if anything happens. I thought that would have changed by now. So many other things in society seem to be loosening up, but parents are still pretty serious about their children. That’s how my parents were; they never let anything bad happen to me if they could help it…
We were quiet for a moment. We were both thinking the same thing. I suddenly needed to be closer to land. I swam towards the surface while I continued to speak.
Jack has already decided he isn’t going to college. He’s been working in his dad’s auto shop on the weekends and over breaks; he’s getting really good at mechanics. He’s also falling in love with motorcycles. I think he thinks that if he’s around motorcycles enough and can prove to his parents how responsible he is with them, he’ll be able to talk them into letting him have a bike of his own.
She laughed. Jack’s disposition was a little like Elizabeth’s: playfully rebellious. They never meant any harm, but you never knew what they’d wind up doing.
I swam my way up to the surface, peeking out of the waves to see if the coast was clear. It was empty enough where I was that no one would notice me. The clothes I wore when I had jumped in earlier were still intact since I had been moving so lazily— soaked through and dripping, but still intact. I sat on the same beach I came to Her from this morning with my feet in the water, staying connected so we could still talk. She knew I was saving the best for last.
I had helped plenty of children since this idea had struck me so many years ago, but I had never been so attached to any of them as I was to Jillian. Jillian was smart, but very isolated. I was assigned to her in a big sister type of program, and we hit it off immediately. Everyone thought she had poor social skills, but Jillian was just shy. As we realized how much we had in common, she opened herself to me. And then, when she was comfortable with me, she opened up to others. The transformation was remarkable. The girl I met two years ago and the girl I knew now were different people entirely.
Jillian was funny and warm and easy to be around. I think she had been shy because she didn’t think she was very pretty, but when I showed up and someone asked if I was her sister, she started holding her head higher. I took that as a compliment. Once she convinced herself she was worth noticing, she started trying more and more things— writing and making art— and discovered she wasn’t half bad. Even with areas she was unsure about, she at least gave it a try.
We spent lots of time just “talking.” Jillian had grown up in Maine, and loved it here, but she ached to see California. I told her about my brief experiences in the Golden State, saying I had just come from there, skipping the states in between. I told her about how it was sunny almost all the time, and how if she went to the Getty, she could see the mountains and the Ocean at once. That fact thrilled me at the time.
Jillian loved movies and magazines and boys. The latter was the subject of so many conversations. Maybe that was the root of it all: We were just so much alike. She was like a sister in a different way. Where I was pushed to be close to Miaka and Elizabeth and Aisling, Jillian and I chose one another’s company and were so similar it was like we should have been together all along.
We were both romantics. One day when we were talking, I realized that the boys at the school
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