I'm Only Being Cute Here. I Don't

Patrick Started Driving Really Fast, And Just Before We Got To The Tunnel. Sam Stood Up, And The Wind Turned Her Dress Into Ocean Waves. When We Hit The Tunnel, All The Sound Got Scooped Up Into A Vacuum, And It Was Replaced By A Song On The Tape Player. A Beautiful Song Called “landslide.” When We Got Out Of The Tunnel, Sam Screamed This Really Fun Scream, And There It Was. Downtown. Lights On Buildings And Everything That Makes You Wonder. Sam Sat Down And Started Laughing. Patrick Started Laughing. I Started Laughing. And In That Moment, I Swear We Were Infinite.

I Think They Were Afraid That Some Of Us Would Try To Kill Ourselves Or Something Because They Looked Very Tense And One Of Them Kept Touching His Beard.

When I Was Done Reading The Poem, Everyone Was Quiet. A Very Sad Quiet. But The Amazing Thing Was That It Wasn’t A Bad Sad At All. It Was Just Something That Made Everyone Look Around At Each Other And Know That They Were There. Sam And Patrick Looked At Me. And I Looked At Them. And I Think They Knew. Not Anything Specific Really. They Just Knew. And I Think That’s All You Can Ever Ask From A Friend.

And I Closed My Eyes Because I Wanted To Know Nothing But Her Arms.

Part Of The Reason I Wrote The Book Was I Wanted To Understand For Myself Why Such Good People Let Themselves Get Treated So Badly.