Page 87 (1/2)

I think I found a place to live Thanks for sending the list, H I’ht now

Let us co what the hell is happening

To in there, Lola says Life is built of these little horrible iant expanses of awesoht This summer was the most perfect stretch of awesome I’ve ever had

Chapter TWENTY-ONE

JULIANNE REALLY IS a goddess because she calls before eight in the e, I ake before five, and have been pacing the tinyit would all work out and I wouldn’t have to spend another day apart inhand

I can hear the srateful--and enthusiastic--yes and then I look around the dingy rooh I’m ready to move into an apartment ten minutes away fro to take with o, there’s one more call I need to e my passion for dance, or even be kind about it, there is one person as at every dance recital, who drove me to every rehearsal and performance, and hand-sewed my costumes She did rew older, and stubbornly independent She cried during my solos, and stood up to cheer I’m horrified to realize only now that Mom weathered , and she weathered it because it hat I wanted to be doing She was there when I moved into the hospital room for a month and quietly drove me, when I was depressed and deadened, to the dorms at UCSD

I wasn’t the only one who lost a dream after my accident Of anyone in

I can hear the shock in her voice when she answers "Mia?"

"Hi, Mom" I squeeze my eyes closed, overcoood at articulating My fas, and the only way I learned was through threat of torture by Harlow Butmy childhood and what she did to helpti to Boston"

MyBut I know the cadence of her tiny gasping breaths as well as I know the sive her the address toin today and that I’ll tell her everything if she cos, I don’t need her money I just sort of need my mom

TO SAY I reseether, I always feel like people think I’m the Marty McFly version of her that has traveled frohties to present day We have the saht hair But when she steps out of her enormous Lexus at the curb and I see her for the first ti at my reflection in some sort of fun-house mirror She looks the sa Her resignation, her life settling, could have been me Dad never wanted her to work outside the ho, ceraned herself to a relationship that doesn’t give herher, but when I pull back and expect to see worry or hesitation--she shouldn’t be cavorting with the enerin