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For probably the millionth time in my life, I wondered why everyone else got watertight brains, while mine was apparently Swiss cheese.
“Many of life’s failures are experienced by people who do not realize how close they were to success when they gave up,”
Why in the world did I think I could beat Elliot? I squared my shoulders and pushed those thoughts away. Even a blind squirrel finds a nut sometimes, I reminded myself. Especially, I remembered as my insides squirmed uncomfortably, when that squirrel has some help from the future.
“Queen Obnoxious and the Grade-A Jerk,” I said. “What a team.” “Either that or a really delightful children’s book,” she said.
“So what’s your favorite century?” Eliana asked, coming to walk on one side of me while Tess commandeered the spot on my other side. I suddenly understood what the ham felt like on a ham sandwich, and I didn’t like it.
“It’s a peace offering. You know, for before,” I said, flapping a hand that I hoped encompassed twelve years of general rudeness and animosity.
“Worst-case scenario,” I repeated, wondering what he had up his sleeve. “You know,” I said, “it’s too bad we don’t have team names, because that would have been a solid choice for us.”
“History isn’t supposed to be pretty,” he’d said. “It’s downright repulsive at times, and you don’t have to like it or agree with it to preserve it. But remember that the healthiest forests grow the year after a forest fire, and that without extreme pressure we wouldn’t have diamonds. You can’t hurry history, and you can’t fix an injustice until people recognize that it is one.”
The longer I lay there, the more my brain churned. If my thoughts were milk, they would have turned into butter a long time ago.
