There's a lot that is awful. That's the struggle of getting old. To make sure you don't let what's hard...obscure the beauty.
Sara ZarrTag: inspirational beauty
It's as if once you hit high school, you're programmed, like a robot, to be an asshole to your parents.
Sara ZarrTag: growing-up high-school
When do you think you're leaving?" I asked.
"I don't know. Probably soon. Got what I came here for."
"Even though we didn't go back to your old house?"
"That was only part of it," he said. "Not the main thing."
A few more big flakes of snow drifted down from the starlit sky. "And what was the main thing?"
"This," he said. "Right here.
They're lucky," I said. I was already imagining our good-bye-we'd both cry, we'd have a good long hug, we'd say things we might be scared to say if we knew we had to look each other in the eye the next day.
"I don't know about that. I can be a pain." He laughed then, and bit into a donut. "You might have noticed."
I laughed, too. "Might have.
There are things I want to remember about Cameron Quick that I can't entirely, like the pajamas he wore when he used to sleep over, and his favorite cereal, or how it felt to hold his hand as we walked home from school in third grade. I want to remember exactly how we became friends in the first place, a definite starting line that I can visit again and again. He's a story I want to know from page one.
Sara ZarrThere was a present on the front seat of Ethan's car, a Gap box tied with a white ribbon. "Happy birthday, Jenna," Ethan said, leaning over to kiss me, his lips cool from the iced chai he stopped for every morning. I opened the box and pulled out an orange sweater with a cream-colored stripe down the arms.
"Thank you. I love it."
"I know," he said, pulling away from the curb. "That's what you said when you handed it to me at the store and told me to get it for your birthday."
"I'm sorry," I said, holding the sweater in my lap. I knew he was just teasing, but I wanted to be the kind of person who could enjoy surprises. I wanted to be as spontaneous and free as everyone else seemed to be and not feel all the time like if I didn't follow some kind of specific map of daily life, disaster would be right there waiting. "I just...really liked it."
"And wanted to make sure you got it," he said, smiling. "So basically you're greedy."
"Basically.
At the corner of K street and Fourth Avenue, I slowed down to let a pedestrian cross, a boy around my age. Maybe because he was so tall or maybe because of the way he walked-with a determined leaving into the cold-I couldn't take my eyes off him. His face was angled away from the car, and I got this strange urge to make him turn around so I could see it. I pressed my hand to the horn, but no sound came out, which was a relief. What was I thinking, anyway, doing something weird and embarrassing like honking at a stranger? Just then my cell phone rang from the pocket of my jacket. I pulled the car over, saw it was Ethan, and answered.
"Hi," I said, still watching the figure go down the street. "Guess what?"
"What? You got all your trig homework done?"
"No. Think more within the realm of possibility."
"You got a tattoo?"
"Ha. A car. I got a car.
Where do you think you're going?
I turn to see him, Cameron's dad. He is tall, a lot taller than my mom and most of the teachers at school, and has Cameron's big eyes.
I recognize you, he says, studying me with a smile. You're Cam's little girlfriend. He's got a picture of you in his room.
He sounds nicer now. Maybe he's just a regular dad, maybe what I heard him saying to Cameron before wasn't really mean, maybe it was like a joke. I don't know how fathers are. Mine's been gone since I was two years old. Maybe they are like this-a little scary and big but mostly teasing.
But then he says: I guess my little guy is a chubby chaser, huh? Well at least he's not a fairy.
Tears come to my eyes and my face is hot. I pull the hem of my T-shirt down to cover the part of my stomach that always pokes out, white and lumpy. It's baby fat, my mom says, baby fat that is also on the tops of my knees and inside my thighs that rub together and under my chin. She says I'll grow out of it.
I don't want to be here. It's only one step to the door. And then Cameron is standing there, behind his father, looking at me and I can't leave him. I can't leave him here alone.
Ethan didn't know anything about the fat girl, the Cootie Twin, the loner and reject. The only person who had ever picked Jennifer Harris was Cameron Quick, and sometimes when I was with Ethan I felt the smallest twinge of guilt, like being with him was a betrayal. The one thing that could never die or be buried was my loyalty to Cameron for everything he'd done for me and what we'd been through together, even if that loyalty was to a ghost.
Sara Zarr...reigning Miss Predictability," Steph said, "proudly representing the fine state of Utah."
"My inability to be spontaneous is part of my charm."
"It's true. You wouldn't be you otherwise.
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