“There was always Jared,” she said. “Before he ever came, before I ever met him. I don’t know what I would be without him. It’s like wondering who I would be if I grew up in a totally different place, or if I’d had a different grandmother, but it’s more than that. Every thought I ever had, for years, I shared with him, and they were different from the thoughts I would have had on my own. He shaped the way I think, and the way I think is who I am. Maybe you wouldn’t have liked me if I was someone else.”
