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9d3e741
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I know I'm still young and there's a lot of time for things to happen, but sometimes I think there is something about me that's wrong, that I'm not the kind of person anyone can fall in love with, and that I'll always just be alone.
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Lynne Rae Perkins |
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eab275b
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They looked for one another when nothing else was happening, the way you pick up a magazine or look in the cupboard for a snack. Not exactly by accident and not exactly on purpose. You could go out in the world and do new things and meet new people, and then you could come home and just sit on the stoop with someone you had never not known, and watch lightning bugs blink on and off.
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Lynne Rae Perkins |
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bf01d5e
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Their secrets inadvertently sidestepped each other, unaware, like blindfolded elephants crossing the tiny room.
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Lynne Rae Perkins |
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44bad45
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Whatever her name was, she was pretty. She had a thick, careless braid of chestnut hair, a quick smile, and dark, merry eyes. She wore some kind of a fuzzy lavender pullover, and when she crossed her legs and lifted her guitar onto her lap, she had an interesting way of tucking the foot of the bottom leg back under her chair that made Hector feel melty. He looked away in self-preservation.
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close-observation
girl
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Lynne Rae Perkins |
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dc3b3b5
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He was thinking that maybe love was like starting a fire with two sticks. You've always heard that it's possible, but how likely is it?
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Lynne Rae Perkins |
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6e9a405
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A good story makes a journey go by more quickly. A really good story makes you forget you are even on a journey.
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travel
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Lynne Rae Perkins |
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a68bdda
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Many girls at school were infatuated with his shallow athletic splendor and his golden handsome features that were biologically inherited and had nothing to do with the kind of person he might actually be.
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Lynne Rae Perkins |
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fc73bc0
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Lenny's face was smiling, too. For a minute they were both ten years old. Time travel in real life.
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smiling
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Lynne Rae Perkins |
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a2a85ba
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What can you do? You pick yourself up. You pull yourself together. You move on.
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Lynne Rae Perkins |
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c4a6fc4
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The trouble with being too careful about your wishes, though, was that you could end up with a wish so shapeless that it could come true and you wouldn't even know it, or it wouldn't matter.
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Lynne Rae Perkins |
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1188919
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My dance on the pedestal was my friendship with Maureen. I wasn't sure how I had lost my balance and fallen off. Or whether I was pushed. Everyone around me was trying to get me to dance again. The thing was, I hadn't quite given up on getting back up there. I still believed it was the only place where I could be happy.
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Lynne Rae Perkins |
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e6a112a
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Debbie wondered if it was true that there was only one person in the world for every person, and if she had already met him, and she either had to find a way to be around him again someday or always be alone. Romance-wise. She didn't quite believe this. What seemed more likely was that there were at least five or six people scattered around the globe who you could bump into and, wham, it would be the right thing.
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romance
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Lynne Rae Perkins |
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b42a2db
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I know I'm still young and there's a lot of time for things to happen, but sometimes I think there is something about me that's wrong, that I'm not the kind of person anyone can fall in love with, and that I'll just always be alone. But I think if I knew someone was going to fall in love with me when I'm fifty-three or something, I think I could wait. Maybe. If I knew it would at least happen.
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Lynne Rae Perkins |
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74c9bf2
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This was the danger of sharing your dreams with your parents. If you told them you wanted to learn to play the guitar, all they heard you say was, "I want to learn to play the guitar," and then they found some practical, convenient, cheap way, often involving a church basement, for you to do it. But Hector had not come up with any plan of his own. And owning a guitar seemed like an important stepping stone on the way to being a guitar playe..
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guitar
parents
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Lynne Rae Perkins |
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c0e5538
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Good-bye, ocean," said Alix. "This was the best time I ever had." "You always say that," said Jools. "It's always true," said Alix."
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Lynne Rae Perkins |
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211dfcb
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I thought Marie could handle whatever came along. I thought of her as someone who did whatever she wanted to. That's what she would have said. She skipped school a lot, and when she did come, no one seemed to care what she did. The principals and teachers at school had already given up on Marie. They hardly even saw her, except as some kind of blemish. She could have stood on her head wearing a burlap bag, and nobody would have noticed all ..
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Lynne Rae Perkins |
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eeaa310
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I tried to think whether I had ever had a great adventure. I decided that I had. It's all in how you look at it.
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Lynne Rae Perkins |
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9b293fe
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But at least I have my health," he said. It was a joke."
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Lynne Rae Perkins |
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ebb434c
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Step and land, step and land. That's all travel was. Throw in some running and a change of scenery. No big deal, right? And so, off he went. Off they went together.
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Lynne Rae Perkins |
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c7eb83b
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Life was rearranging itself; bulging in places, fraying in spots. Sometimes leaving holes big enough to see through, or even step through, to somewhere else.
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Lynne Rae Perkins |
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ead42da
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His fingertips lightly and unintentionally grazed her face and her ears, and Debbie's don't-get-in-trouble self felt itself making room for her alert-alert-something-new-is-happening self.
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romance
teenage-love
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Lynne Rae Perkins |
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9803547
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He tried to ignore the feather of longing that tickled his heart. But it kept tickling. Because he hadn't quite made up his mind to stay here.
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Lynne Rae Perkins |
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9fd7462
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Over and over and over, Mom and Dad towed them out, turned them around, then let go. The water whooshed them back to shore. The hot sun above, the cold water beneath: it was a feeling you could never get tired of.
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Lynne Rae Perkins |