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So Okaythis is

Okay Ithis is kind of creepy, Detective Pendleton I‘m sorry Bob You said I should call you Bob, like we‘re old friends or so the first tiain just yesterday when you caht be true That we‘re friends, I ht? I was unconscious and on a ventilator and had already died twice So I really don‘t thinkthat way counts

Anyway

You want me to tell the truth

The truth isI am so cold I should be dead Maybe I am

That would be okay

c

You knohat I was just thinking, Bob? Tell is such an interesting word There are soup stories I‘, there is another tell, as in telling the difference between night and day, girl and boy, fact and dreaa a player does or says tells the other players that he‘s bluffing? David Mareat movie, House of Games, all about that Yeah, I know Mamet Don‘t be so surprised When you spend four months on a psych ward and then the rest of the year at home in exile, you watch a lot of movies

Anyway, you knohat I liked best about that filirl; the shrink who shoots her lover, that con ets aith it and forgives herself

Wish I could do that

So, Bob, I can tell I can tell plenty But the truth? I don‘t knohat that is I thought I knew until this afternoon, but nowEven if I tellthe old me? Well, what kind of future is that?

Because let me tell you about the old me, Bob, the beta-version of Jenna Lord

Here‘s how Beta-Jenna thinks: They let o, and I’ll cut Walk out of this rooether, we’ll visit my crispy critter of a mother, who’s a drunk and wants only the best forback to being Beta-Jenna makes the truth just so attractive

The truth

Well, the year I was fifteen co I‘ve died twice, that‘s really saying so I was a month shy of sweet sixteen when I started , this science-techie school just outside Milwaukee for brainiacs, which I‘rade, tested out of classes, yada, yada It goes without saying that I‘ht-A-plus student, a quiet kid, sort of a loser, and the kind of girl no one would ever suspect

Or notice

Okay, other stuff, other stuff

Well, my cell phone is pink I‘m a very careful driver I‘ve never kissed a boy, which feelswrong Because I airl is supposed to find her prince and settle down

I used to pretend I was Ariel I had the doll and a blue gown for dress-up, like in the ht we first h you probably don‘t remember that because by then, I‘d died a couple of times; the dress was only soon

I don‘t remember much about the fire, the one that sed Grandpa‘s house eight years ago I do recall cowering behind the boiler and listening to Grandpa crashing around the kitchen Then, there was the angry sputter of an argument and, later, the thud as Grandpa MacAllister passed out, a lit cigarette still pinched between his fingers and twoon the sill over the kitchen sink That‘s where they said the fire started, you remember, Bob? How those lacy curtains, soaked in vodka because Grandpa knocked over the bottle when he blacked out, ht with a whump?

The next is a ju screae fla me in place

And then I re my name His voice was a lifeline, a hook that set inup the cellar stairs in a swirl of pale blue petticoat as Matt forced the door But the fire was greedy Its orange fingers snaggedshriek

And then I was screa fla with me in his arms, but the front door was still so far away and then

f

I heardwith the EMTs: Don’t you dare