Out of the Easy

by Ruta Sepetys

could see the ugly just pouring out of her.

It went on. Each lie I told required another to thicken the paste over the previous.

You got a bigger story than that.”

She always said she could make tea in a tornado. Her ease relaxed me.

Riding with Jesse felt like letting a scream out of a bottle, and I didn’t want it to end.

Funeral preparation was a surreal experience. Somehow, with the help of others, we got from face to face and place to place. But a thick, jellied haze draped about the day and distorted it into some kind of disturbing, slow-motion movie.