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“Hey” Paul sat down on the bed beside Ian “You’re wrong You’re co I’m very proud When I look at you, and how you’ve turned your life around, I’m so proud of you I can’t wait to see what you do next I loved Sara But you’re el”

Ian sighed and lay down on the bed His anger had faded, but it had been replaced with so, lost in his own thoughts

Paul put a hand on Ian’s leg “Do I really have to sleep on the futon?” he asked

“No,” Ian said with a deep sigh

“I’m sorry,” Paul whispered

Ian didn’t say a thing

The Attachment

Every five hundred years, give or take a century, part of Mount Rainier collapses, releasing a ton, rests in that valley on a foundation of mud that was at the top of Rainier about five hundred fifty years ago A destructive river of mud is, perhaps, overdue The three thousand or so residents of the farm town belo that if the mountain collapsed, it would take less than an hour for the sludge to co in its path in twenty feet ofat thirty miles per hour

About teeks later, Paul andering through the church, looking for Ian It was tio home, and he was nowhere to be found Paul finally discovered hi and had lost track of time He was completely splattered hite paint It was in his hair, on his clothes and shoes, and sed across his cheek

“Did you get any on the walls at all?” Paul asked

Without thinking, he reached out to Ian and, with his thu with his hand on Ian’s face when he noticed the two figures standing in the doorway TwoThey were frozen in the doorway—staring

The concept of gossip originated with the Old English word “godsibb,” which is a bit like a “God sibling”—a person related in God Hu a story binds us together A secret story is even h to receive information Gossip says, “I trust you with this information We’re on the same team”

Ian’s theory that people were too wrapped up in their own lives to care about theirs would probably have been true under normal circumstances—were Paul not the minister But he was the minister, the center of the community He was a common point of reference, a natural focal point for community stories

The story of Ian and Paul had everything: a church leader and a beautiful boy with a questionable past, the thrilling possibility of scandal, and the opportunity to increase one’s aging in entertaining hoood a for “Paul is dead” clues in Beatles records There was no chance that the ruo away

The carefully crafted biography that Paul had been trying to write about hiossipers were the authors They would decide theof Paul and Ian’s story