Despite my dad's assurances I was strangely nervous my stomach tight ever since we'd hung up. Maybe Deb had picked up on this and it was why she'd pretty much talked nonstop since I'd approached her and asked for a ride. I'd barely had time to explain the situation before she had launched into a dozen stories to illustrate the point that Things Happened But People Were Okay in the End.

You, have this whole tall, dark stranger thing going on. Not to mention the tortured artist bit. And you, have that whole blonde cool and collected perfect smart thing going on. You're the boy all the girls want to rebel with. You, are the unattainable girl in homeroom who never gives a guy the time of day.

Society. The same society, I might add, that dictates that little girls should always be sugar and spice and everything nice, which encourages them not to be assertive. And that, in turn, then leads to low self-esteem, which can lead to eating disorders and increased tolerance and acceptance of domestic, sexual, and substance abuse." "You get all that from a pink Onesie?" Leah said after a moment.

And she was good to me: strong, fun, and fiercely loyal. And if I didn't have many other friends because of her-most girls were intimidated by her looks, or thought she was too pushy, or just flat-out feared for their boyfriends-it never bothered me. I never missed having a wide, thick circle of girlfriends: Rina was more than enough. We were comfortable with each other's flaws and weaknesses, so we stuck together and kept to ourselves.

It was a basic plot in any number of her books: girl strikes out, makes good, finds love, gets revenge. In that order. The making good and striking out part I liked. The rest would just be bonus.

Maybe it was true, and being a girl could be about interest rates and skinny jeans, riding bikes and wearing pink. Not about any one thing, but everything.

See," he began, leaning back into the booth, "I was at this car dealership today, and I saw this girl. It was an across-a-crowded-room kind of thing. A real moment, you know?" I rolled my eyes. Chloe said, "And this would be Remy?" "Right. Remy," he said, repeating my name with a smile. Then, as if we were happy honeymooners recounting our story for strangers he added, "Do you want to tell the next part?" "No," I said flatly.

Says the girl with no thyme.

I listened for the voice I knew so well, the one I always heard at the beginning. Good girl, Macy! You're doing great! You know the first steps are the hardest part! They were. Sometimes I felt so out of sync, it was all could do not to quit after a few strides. But I kept on, as I did now. I had to, to get to the next part, this part, where I finally caught up with Wes, my shadow aligning itself with his, an dhe turned to look at me, pushing his hair our of his eyes.