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"Yeah I think theyby the party too They know, um, Kinsey," I said

"Oh, really?" he said "Cool Maybe they'll see that I'm not some kind of creep"

"They don't think you're a creep," I told hiuy I talk to is a creep, so it's nothing personal"

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"They must really care about you a lot to be so protective," he said Did they?

"Um, not really Well, Jeremiah does, but Conrad is all about duty Or he used to be anyway He should've been one of those sa?"

"No, keep talking," Cas under lobal studies class in ninth grade We did a whole unit on Japan and Bushido I was, like, obsessed with the idea of seppuku"

"My dad's half-Japanese," he said "My grando out and visit her once a year"

"Wow" I'd never been to Japan, or anywhere in Asia for that matter My h I knew she wanted to go "Do you speak Japanese?"

"A little," he said, rubbing the top of his head "I get by okay"

I whistled-- I was proud of My brother, Steven, had taught lish, French, and Japanese? That's pretty aenius, huh," I teased

"I speak Latin, too," he reuage," I said, just to be contrary

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"It's not dead It's in every Western language" He sounded like rade Latin teacher, Mr Coney

When we pulled up to this guy Kinsey's house, I kind of didn't want to get out of the car I loved the feeling of talking and having soh or so In this weird way, I felt powerful

We parked in the cul-de-sac--there were a ton of cars Sos were so long that I had to hurry to keep up "So how do you know this guy?" I asked hihed at the expression on ullible, Flavia His parents have a boat I've seen hiht in without knocking The music was so loud I could hear it fro "Like a Virgin" at the top of her lungs and rolling around on the ground, hertwisted up in her jeans There were ten or so people in the living roo 'Livin' on a Prayer' next," souys I didn't recognize were checking me out--I could feel their eyes on me, and I wondered if I

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really had worn tooatand scary I spotted the girl from the bonfire, the one who liked Calances every once in a while I felt bad for her; I kne that felt

I also recognized our neighbor Jill, who spent weekends at Cousins--she waved at me, and it occurred to hborhood, our front yards She was sitting next to the guy from the video store, the one orked on Tuesdays and wore his na upside down I'd never seen the lower half of his body before, he was always standing behind the counter And then there was the waitress Katie from Jimmy's Crab Shack without her red-and-white striped unifor every summer for my whole life So this is where they'd been all this time Out, at parties, while I'd been left out, locked away in the su old movies with my mother and Susannah