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"I’ve been around long enough to know no et a woman to open up if she doesn’t want to" Jesse rolled his n, too "I’d like to know, but I don’t need to know We have a right to keep our secrets"

My brow quirked "Spoken like a person who knohat it’s like to keep some"

Not a second passed before he replied "We all have secrets, Rowen Every last person on the planet And you knohat else? We all experience the sah therees" Jesse paused as he rolled up to a stop sign Checking both ways, he turned down a dirt road that looked like it went on for a hundred miles "If ere to just accept we’re not so different from each other, ouldn’t feel so alone"

There was only about an entire worlddigging fence posts when you can arrive at those kinds of ideas and put the over at Jesse He peered over at me "Get yourself a few certifications to fra preaching this kind of stuff to all the head-cases out there The money my mom alone spent on her shrink last year could keep a person living upper-middle class"

Jesse shook his head once "I think I’ll stick hat I’ too far inside of some people’s heads, you know?"

"Oh, believeby Other than a house or a far

Nothing except for blue sky and green grass So much color I al out here I usually worked with charcoal or pencil since it was easy to take with me and, back in Portland, hI could put soood use

"So what about you, Jesse? What’s your life story? What’s your Bible-sized biography?" I asked, utilizingit around

"I’ll give youto give you everything because then what kind of incentive would you have for opening up toback stuff about yourself be an incentive for me to tell you more about myself?"

"Because what I do tell you, and what you learn aboutto wantto need , but I rolled my eyes anyways "You won’t be able to settle with just knowing eighty percent of me You’ll want the whole one hundred and ten percent"

"Cockymy arm out thelike Jesse was I opened h the her hardest to pretend I’ at the road and s

That statement confirmed it: Jesse had a screw loose I wasn’t pretty, not by any definition of the word Edgy, yes Mysterious, maybe But pretty? Fuck, no

"So you open up toto su "Pretty much"

"Sorry to break it to you, Cowboy, but there’s a serious flaw in your little plan there"

"Oh, yeah?" Jesse replied, turning down another dirt road that looked like it went on forever "What serious flaw?"

"Assuiant-sized beast of a flaw

He slid his hat off and dropped it on the dashboard That mop of blond hair fell back into its perfectly imperfect style "We all want to open up to soh to open up to That person we’re not afraid to let into the darkest parts of our world"

By that point in the conversation, I wasn’t as shocked when that little gem came from his mouth He seemed full of theh to open up to?" I said, pulling my arm back inside the truck to cross my arms

Jesse lifted his shoulder "Only tihteen years of life, seen so the deepest kind of deep conversation with a Montana cowboy I’d met fifteen minutes earlier at a Greyhound station had to rate in the top ten

"Do you ever just do casual conversation?" I asked, hoping he answered with a yes or that Willow Springs was less than a minute away

"Once in a blueI’d never heard the blue moon reference come out of the mouth of someone who didn’t qualify for the senior citizen discount

"Since it’s still light out, let’s just assu to be blue," I said "It’s casual conversation tih What do you want to talk casually about?"

I rolled my eyes "If it’s easier, we could just not talk"

"Nah, that’s definitely not easier for me I like to talk I like to talk soon one-sided conversations with the cattle," he said, as Old Bessie hit a pot hole that ood foot in the air Apparently modern conveniences like paved and maintained roads were not so "ood listener, too You know, if you ever have anything you want to open up about"

I groaned and conte fro those ar like it was a two-pound duister