Flipped

by Wendelin Van Draanen

Honestly, one look at him and I became a lunatic. It’s his eyes. Something in his eyes. They’re blue, and framed in the blackness of his lashes, they’re dazzling. Absolutely breathtaking.

that it would be better if I let other people work out their own dilemmas,

“A painting is more than the sum of its parts,” he would tell me, and then go on to explain how the cow by itself is just a cow, and the meadow by itself is just grass and flowers, and the sun peeking through the trees is just a beam of light, but put them all together and you’ve got magic.

watching me to make sure I was okay.

“One’s character is set at an early age, son. The choices you make now will affect you for the rest of your life.”

satin, some in gloss….” He turned to me. “But every once in a while you find someone who’s iridescent, and when you do, nothing will ever compare.”

“To be held above the earth and brushed by the wind,” she said, “it’s like your heart has been kissed by beauty.”

There was other stuff, too, like how something can be so much more than the parts it took to make it, and why people need things around them that lift them above their lives and make them feel the miracle of living.

But if chaos is a necessary step in the organization of one’s universe, then I was well on my way.

“There’s nothing like a head-strong woman to make you happy to be alive.”

“Get beyond his eyes and his smile and the sheen of his hair—look at what’s really there.”

Maybe it was all how you looked at it. Maybe there were things I saw as ugly that other people thought were beautiful.