She Loved Attention. It Was Like A

When The World Moves Forward Too Fast For Some People, They Try To Pull Us All Back With Their Fear.

There's No Time To Be Modest. Reason Will Not Work Here. Without Warning, I Kiss Kartik. His Lips, Pressed Firmly Against Mine, Are A Surprise. They Are Warm, Light As Breath, Firm As The Give Of A Peach Against My Mouth. A Scent Like Scorched Cinnamon Hangs In The Air, But I'm Not Falling Into Any Vision. It's His Smell In Me. A Smell That Makes My Stomach Drop Through My Feet. A Smell That Pushes All Thought Out Of My Head And Replaces It With An Overpowering Hunger For More.

I Can See His Pain, See It In The Way He Runs His Fingers Through His Hair, Over And Over, And I Understand What It Costs Him To Hide It All.

No One Had Ever Said Anything Like That To Evie. Her Parents Always Wanted To Advise Or Instruct Or Command. They Were Good People, But They Needed The World To Bend To Them, To Fit Into Their Order Of Things. Evie Had Never Really Quite Fit, And When She Tried, She’d Just Pop Back Out, Like A Doll Squeezed Into A Too-small Box.

Sometimes We Seek That Which We Are Not Yet Ready To Find.