Just Listen

by Sarah Dessen

“The kind who live for music and are constantly seeking it out, anywhere they can. Who can’t imagine a life without it. They’re enlightened.”

“I mean, when you really think about it,” he continued, “music is the great uniter. An incredible force. Something that people who differ on everything and anything else can have in common.”

“Rephrase and Redirect,” Mallory told me. “It’s part of his Anger Management. If he says something inflammatory, you can tell him it hurts your feelings, and he has to say it another way.”

But you get only so many do-overs in this life, so many chances to, if not change your past, alter your future.

“Only a real asshole takes liberties with someone else’s car stereo. That’s serious.”