Flashlight

by Susan Choi

“Being smart shouldn’t get compliments. Being smart isn’t something I did. It’s just something I am.

he does not recognize that everything that comes in contact with his body, or that makes its way inside, has been somehow created from just short of nothing by her.

The extent of their physical compatibility awed them, and they were grave and dedicated in its service.

The world had not been fit for either of them; this suggested they were fit for each other.

briefly shared, she might have created it, for one who’d never had anything like it, and whose inability to sustain it was no fault of hers.

Anne was certain Louisa smiled earlier than other babies, that when Louisa started pointing, she was expressing a complex idea for which she’d soon have the words.

Walter was always a little afraid—a big man like him!—and this knowledge, once she acquired it, would make her heart actually ache in her chest, the way her calf muscles ached long ago when she ran, when she really used them to their limits.

So she got good and mad and that got her through. She’s a fighter.

Every last one a New Yorker, incurious by training, secure in the knowledge that their city, and their status as its natives, would always matter more than any school, no matter how ancient or elite.

No one’s ever gonna offend me by not believing the same things I do. Just don’t try to make me believe like you do.