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We’ve only shared a few words in not much more than an hour, but I’m the kid so often trapped between worlds, split in two and finding my place. On rare occasions, you come across someone who just gets you, and you don’t have to figure out your place. Wherever you are is okay. I think he could be a “wherever you are” person.
don’t look up again but watch from beneath lowered lids as her moccasins take her out of the cell and away. It feels like I missed something or never had something that I’m sure would have been good. I know it’s unreasonable because I met her no more than an hour ago. We’ve had one conversation. Some people leave an impression. Lennix Moon Hunter has left more than an impression. She’s left her mark on me. And it’s shaped like a star.
cutting me off, Dad,” I tell him, slinging the words like stones catapulted over a wall. “I’m the one cutting you off.”
“What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.” —Henry David Thoreau
“It’s not science or magic,” Mena whispers to me. “It is hope. It is faith that connecting with the land, with our land, will tell the universe, tell the Creator, that we have been blessed and are ready for what is ahead. Now, dip to wash it away. Not just the pollen, but all the things that cloud your mind and blur your vision.”
her memory only lives in my heart like a knife lodged between my ribs. Grief is its own kind of intimacy, a bond of sorts between you and the one you lost. No one else feels it the way you do about that person you loved most.
“The one with the black hair,” I say, not waiting for my friends but taking the first step toward an old temptation that is no longer off-limits. “That one’s mine.”
“Ask me how many times I’ve thought about you since that protest.” My voice scratches gruffly against the cool silk of the quiet night. She stares up at me, and at first I think she’ll wave off my question, pretend this is normal, what’s happening between us. But she doesn’t do that. She doesn’t pretend or wave it off. She meets it head-on and answers with unflinching honesty. “Maybe as many times as I’ve thought of you.”
want it, too. I’m a girl who knows what she wants.” “I thought you were the girl who chases stars.” “What do you think I’m doing right now?”
That girl, the girl who drew me in that day, I would never expect things to be simple or typical with her.” For a moment, I’m stunned by his vision of me—of how he saw me so clearly. There are few things more affirming than someone seeing you exactly as you aspire to be—for them to say I see that in you.
You’re exactly who I thought you were.”
Would I set aside my ambitions and goals to follow some man?” Her scoffing breath clouds in the cool air. “No way.”
“Besides, it’s the dreamers, the inventors and entrepreneurs who change the world the most. Gutenberg, Edison, Stephenson, Jobs—something about the present wasn’t good enough, so they
made the future.” I almost choke on a jaded chuckle. “What do politicians make? They make war. They make profit off the misfortune of others. They make mistakes they won’t take responsibility for and decisions they never have to feel the impact of. No, thank you. Not for me.”
may end up with someone else, may even love someone someday, but there is a place Lennix Moon has carved out inside me in a matter of a few days where only she will ever fit. It’s irrational and goes against all the rules I’ve set for myself, but she feels like mine. For the next two days, she is mine. And then we’ll walk away.
and I think she’s as happy with me as I am with her.
‘The future is not a gift. It is an achievement.’”
Yeah, I’ll go to her after the trip. There will be time then.
“Since you found out that I’m a Cade,” he says. “I don’t have to hide anymore. There’s something you should know about us.” “And what’s that?” I ask, feeling hunted by the wolf gleam in his eyes. I want to deny what a thrill it sends through me. “We get whatever the fuck we want,” he says, dropping his eyes down the length of my body. “And I want you, Lennix Moon. I want the girl who chases stars.”
“My mother once said injustice never rests, and neither will I.” A sad little twist of my lips is as close as I can come to a smile. “She was an agitator. One of my earliest memories is of her hoisting me onto her shoulders at a protest. It’s in my blood.”
“In what world could you possibly think I would belong to you?” “In the one we make together.”
“And then Lennix says, ‘Happy holidays…” I pause for emphasis. “…Doc.’”
“It’s never like this,” I whisper, tears christening the corners of my eyes. “It’s never like this,” he agrees, linking our fingers and pressing our hands between our chests,
Just our two bodies, sun and moon, just our souls, earth and water. We are the sky and the sea, and the horizon is where our hearts meet. Every
