“Why do you insist on being so outrageous? What do you possibly have to gain, apart from making us all a laughingstock and yourself a pariah?” Because if I try hard enough, Clarence, you might not propose to me at all. She didn’t say it. It was only a quarter of the truth; and besides, he’d never understand. He wasn’t born a girl, let alone one of five. He’d never grown out of childhood feeling himself get taller and taller as the life expected of him grew smaller and smaller, until he could barely breathe for the confines of it.
