Laura Anderson Kurk

Meg,_ he whispered. __t wouldn__ be real love if there weren__ the possibility for another response to him. If we couldn__ choose not to love him, then our love would be empty. That__ why there__ evil in this world, because there__ free choice in this world. He allows the one to prove the other.

Do you know how hard it is to paint kindness?_ She leaned her hip against a desk in the corner of the room, still watching me. __t__ the only part of a person I really want to capture. Everything else seems to get lost in layers of deception or defensiveness. But not kindness. You can__ hide it. And people either are or they aren__.

Most kids grow sullen and angry when they__e working through issues, but Thanet mustered up another kind of bull-headed strength. The kind that sees beyond circumstances to what really matters. How could anyone hurt a soul that lovely?

The ice cold fear I__ felt, not knowing if Wyatt was alive, pressed into the wall with other girls and surrounded by guys who were unspeakably brave, hit my body again in a wave. This was trauma__he gift that keeps on giving.

Hearing my brother__ words coming out of Henry, this stranger in a strange town, made me feel wild with all the loss__ild and wired with no place to put those feelings.

Wyatt told me once that if tenderness were a disease, I__ be terminal.

But I understood, now, that we don__ live only for ourselves. We__e connected by millions of shared experiences and dreams and nightmares, all tied together with compassion. I learned that even when we__e going through our darkest winter, spring is waiting to appear.

We all think when we__e young that we want excitement and highs and passion. To hell with ordinary.__ smiled and she chuckled. __ut when we find ourselves in these adult bodies,_ she said. __hen we wise up a little, or get slapped in the face by life, we realize we just want all things to be equal._ She put the heels of her hands together near her heart like the Yoga prayer position. __nd we want to understand them better.

It was the first time I discovered that some girls actually sneak out of the house during slumber parties and meet up with boys. I would__e never known if I hadn__ gone to the bathroom at midnight and caught Macy and Adrienne climbing through the bathroom window. They had on eyeliner, perfume, and cut-off shorts. Their only goodbye a glare that promised retribution if I didn__ keep my mouth shut.

We bumped into other silent lines of kids going in the same direction. We looked like we were much younger and our lines were headed to the cafeteria or recess or the carpool line. Or it could__e been a fire drill. Except for the stone-faced police officers weaving between us with rifles.

Every moment of our lives we make choices. Most we don__ even know we__e making, they__e so dull or routine or automatic. Some are beyond explanation__ike my mom choosing Wyatt__ memory over Dad and me.

I__ not sure about all the particulars that led to this moment. Do I believe life is a series of dots to be connected_or that no one can outrun destiny_or that all roads lead to truth and coincidence is a lie to distract us? The reason I was in this place no longer mattered. The harsh reality stared me in the face and demanded an immediate decision. Walk away and blame it on my age. Or stay and try to help a woman who had slowly become my friend over the last few weeks.

But with her eyes closed, she began to whisper. __f you have someone to love, then love. If you have someone to forgive, then forgive. You think, when you__e seventeen, there__ time enough for that, but there__ not. There__ no time at all.__ squeezed her hand, trying to think of how to respond. But she took the burden from me and kept whispering. __ou want to know why God gave us people to love? Because that__ the only way we can understand how he feels about us. Desperate and jealous.

Camus and Henry waved to me from that muddy truck. They both wanted me to get over myself.So, this was me, getting over myself. And it was about time.

What I know about you, Henry,_ he said. __s that you, as big as you are, know how to walk gently on this earth.

We formed an impromptu circle just so we could look at each other and memorize faces. We hardly noticed the waiting officials. We hardly noticed anything but our little family whose ties weren__ loosening at all. In fact, this impending separation only seemed to be binding us together with a double overhand knot, hard to untie and unfailing.

I get that. For you, it__ more than following a bunch of rules__o sex, no booze, no swear words, pray every night and twice on Sunday.

I couldn__ stop crying because it was so intimate, in that way I always thought being physical with him would feel. If someone had walked in they might have thought Henry was barely touching me. I knew the truth of it.He was laying me open and bare to him and to God.There wasn__ a more intimate act. I would never recover from this.