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"Goodnight, Josie"

"Goodnight Samuel," I whispered He backed away, black eyes on blue, and then turned and picked up the iteround Then he sloalked ho him Then I listened to his footsteps fade as he ht I tried to loseat ed over the years, froe loopy letters with heart-dotted i’s, to the neat script of a practiced hand I quizzedevery wordto be troubleso

docent: teacher, lecturer

immanent: My eyes stopped on the word, as a o, that I had discovered itssolish ho aloud and had coe not consistent with the word I thought I knew

"You knowi it’s about to happenit could happen any minute," Samuel had volunteered

"I don’t think that’s itor it’s spelled wrong if it is Look up immanent, with an ‘a’ instead of an ‘i’ in the hed and opened up the dictionary, quickly skies until he found the word He’d read it to hi his head in wonder

"You were right, it is a different word You have a good eye or hast, my hands had flown to cover my ears I had absentmindedly tucked my hair behind ain so it shielded the and they didn’t stick out frohtly pointed at the very tips And tome the look of one of Santa’s holiday helpers When I was little, my mother had told me they made me look like a wood sprite My brothers, of course, said theythem ever since

Samuel must have seen the dis to my cheeks had ripped the book in er to distract him from my cri the dictionary, his eyes cast down Then he reached up and gently tuckedif he was teasingfun at me

But when he spoke there was no mischief in his voice He said, "I like your ears They ive you an immanent beauty" His words were sincere, and I felt my curiosity peak My look must have conveyed my question, for he quickly supplied the answer

"I in nature and the souls of men" His eyes met mine seriously

After a moment, I slowly raisedfurther was said on the topic

When I got home from school that day, I wrote immanent on my wall and looked it up for ivenexistence only in the hed to myself and decided if the beauty of h for , I reached out and touched the word as I let the ely soothed and suddenly very sleepy I turned to my bed, climbed in, and fell instantly into a heavy and drea forsun the nextfor ed it, but there he was Today he wore sneakers and htly furred with dark hair He wore another USMC t-shirt in soft grey It fit snugly, clinging to his V shaped back and narrow torso Yu what to say Last night’s kiss was very fresh inwithon otten that about him He always took his tie to fill the silence That was Saht not reply at all After all, he was obviously co withyou’ll come with h fro these were probably the first words he had spoken out loud since we’d parted the night before

It was my turn to study him in silence, not sure what to make of his comment He met my perusal with steady black eyes We were quite the pair, standing in thestretches, not talking I laughed suddenly at our owlish behavior

I threw allantly "Wherever you want to go, I’ll follow"

Sahtened at the old nickna to hold you to that, Bionic Josie"

Samuel started off at a pretty brisk pace, and I wasn’t naive enough to think he was trying to impress me I knew better The man was fit, and he kne to run I kept up pretty well, finding a rhyth in We didn’t converse at all, just ran in quiet co their cadence We ran east a couple her as we neared the base of the canyon, until the fat orange sun had shoved off its mountain perch and hovered heavily just above us in the earlyat our backs, and ran back towards town We picked up our feet as gravity pulled us forward, gaining speed as we hurtled back down into the valley