[S]omething had to change. Because I had changed.

I think I'm allergic or something. I feel kinda strange... sort of floaty and light-headed.""You ain't sick, hon," Mom said. She kissed me cheek and hugged me so tight I thought I might break a rib. "That's joy.

I felt guilty all of a sudden, as if just by existing and talking to him I was leading him on.

His shadow stretched out past mine. I remembered Mom telling me how frightening men were, all men really, how helpless it often felt to be a woman among men, and for the first time I understood what she meant.

I have a past, okay? And you really don't want to get involved with it.''Everybody's got a past,' he said. 'That doesn't mean you can't have a future.

Maybe secrets were part of life; maybe everyone had something they were lying to themselves about, or something they were hiding.I looked up at the cross again and wondered if I was supposed to hear this particular sermon at this particular moment for a reason. I decided that the people who had said God didn’t love me, who said I didn’t have a place on Earth—they were wrong. God wanted me to live, and this was the only way I knew how to survive, so this was what God wanted. This was what I wanted. I had chosen to live, and it seemed like, finally, I was doing just that.