Mad Honey

by Jodi Picoult

When I was in elementary school, he convinced me that fireflies were broken stars and that if I walked through the strawberry fields at night, I could find them lodged in the plants.

Asher, who as a little boy had whispered to whitecaps on the Connecticut River during a windy day—It’s okay. You just need to calm down—because I told him the water looked rough.

You wouldn’t believe the situations people can get themselves in by not looking ahead. By not being prepared.”

If you want to understand something, you first need to accept the fact of your own ignorance. And then, you need to talk to people who know more than you do, people who have not just thought about the facts, but lived them.

“Being gay or straight,” says Elizabeth, “is about who you want to go to bed with. Being trans—or cis—is about who you want to go to bed as.”

How similar does someone have to be to you before you remember to see them, first, as human?

There is no set of rules that dictates what you owe someone you love. What parts of your past should be disclosed? Should you confess you are trans? Alcoholic? That you had a same-sex relationship? An abortion? That you were abused by the person you trusted most in the world? When, if ever, is the right time for that conversation: before your first date, before your first kiss, before you sleep together? Where is the line between keeping something private, and being dishonest?