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Eleanor ser "Dead beautiful"

By the ed colors and the entire ca while I walked to class, the breeze would pluck the them swirl around my feet like a flutter of etting better My grandfather called to check in on me every so often, but our conversations were brief I told hi ly, it wasn’t about plants at all; and while we did spend so the different species of flora and their cli about soil, root and irrigation systes I was usually the best in the class, and I loved it

I had irls on our floor, who I got dinner hen Eleanor was busy Brett and I were also becoirls’ dor, as if he aiting for soh our discourse priht, insubstantial banter, it was okay; it res had been with me and Wes, who I still hadn’t heard from Annie, I had We tried to talk on the phone every week, but the pauses in our conversations were growing longer and longer as we became more involved in our separate worlds Andto revolve around Dante

We kept h he still wouldn’t ad weird had happened After only teeks, I was getting A’s on all of n up toA scrawled on top ofDante I clearly didn’t need tutoring anyrades The proble an excuse to be around him Friday had become my favorite day of the week because of our private sessions Every ti new A freckle on his neck or the white vestiges of a scar next to his left ear And I couldn’t deny the bond I felt in knowing that he too had lost his parents He was the only one I could talk to about it--he always knew exactly what to say and what to ask towith death that I was beco almost dependent on his advice It seean to purposely write down the wrong conjugations; I rammatical errors and an to drop Dante glanced suspiciously over ested we start ed

I still wanted to ask him about Benjamin Gallow, about Gideon and his old friends and what had happened last spring, but that hadn’t gone over so well last ti up in Canada like?" We were sitting in the Latin classroos

"Cold," Dante said, leaning toward"And wild"

"What do you mean wild?"

"My parents were ranchers My father hunted wild game and sold the meat and pelts to traders, and my mother was a taxidermist We lived in a farmhouse that was so far north there were more trees than people The house was full of dead animals, but outside was even worse because there the bears and wild boars were alive It would snow for weeks in the winter--big sheets of it piling up past the ind so cold you’d freeze to death if you sprained an ankle while you were hunting or gathering wood In a place like that, you’re constantly reth of nature, of how unforgiving it can be It was hu hiun in the other, a dead deer slung around his shoulders What I would have given to be snowed in with Dante

"Maine hed "Not exactly"

"Do you like it here?"

He thought about it "I think it’s good forWhat I wanted hi the lines of, "I wasworth studying at Gottfried" Or, "Renée, you are the love ofa deer on my shoulders that I killed with my bare hands just to prove , inexplicably cold hands, and whisper sweet Latinate words in your ear"