Julie Buxbaum Quotes

Those are my favorite kind of punchlines. The curveballs that make total sense. Like you think the joke can only end with A or B, and somehow, the comedian finds C.

Wake up. This is your life, for God sakes. It's time to face up to it. You can't get anywhere, can't get over anything, if you don't let yourself feel anything in the first place. It's time.

I'm sorry," I say. This hurts, I want to say. Even just standing here talking to you. It all hurts more than you could possibly imagine. I want to show her my watch, how time barely moves forward. How I don't much care for this version of me either. I stay quiet.

I know that love is not finite.

And pretty," my mom says.
Pretty doesn't fit Kit.
It's too small a word. Like her name.
"Not pretty," I correct her. "Beautiful.

All the tattoos I would get if I were the sort of person who had the nerve to get tattoos, which I am decidedly not. Instead, I'm the kind of person who has spent hours debating said theoretical tattoos, despite my crippling fears of both needles and long-term commitment.

Her hair isn't curly but it isn't straight either. It hangs in repetitive alternating commas.

Can you please also give me instructions for dancing?"

"Excuse me?"

"I need instructions for dancing. Like how do I move my body to music in front of other people? Break it down. Step by step."

"Seriously? Dancing isn't one of those things that come with instructions. It's not like putting together Ikea furniture."

"Please help me."

"Well, first of all, this is not the sort of music that will be playing." She motions to the pianist, who is bald and bearded, which I've always found to be a bizarre combination. You would think you would want cranial and mandibular hair consistency.

"No Ravel's Bolero. Got it."

"No classical music, period. They'll probably just play all the crap that's on the radio."

"I amend my original request. I need instructions for dancing to noise."

"You just move your body to the beat. Feel the music." Miney puts her arms up and sways to sounds I do not hear. She closes her eyes, leans on the tips of her toes, and jumps. After approximately ninety seconds, she stops and looks at me. "Your turn."

"I don't think so." Miney doesn't respond. She just waits.

"Fine." I copy her, jump up and down, though I don't actually jump down, which is a misnomer. I let gravity do its job. My sneakers make discordant squeaks along the marble floor.

"No. Stop. You look like you're having a seizure. Think of dancing like having a conversation but

I've always like bleachers, things ordered vertically from high to low.

I like to think of my people as mute optimists - leave the elephant alone and, eventually, perhaps with the help of a couple mimosas, he will disappear from the room on his own accord.

Pizza Palace?" David asks. It's just a few doors down. I picture my friends all huddled in a booth in the back. No need to combine David with my real life.

"Nah."

"I figured you wouldn't want to go there. Pizza Pizza Pizza is so much better and has that great two-for-one deal. I just didn't want to suggest it," David says.

"Why?"

"The name. It's not like they have three times more pizza than other places. Ridiculous."

"How about we not get pizza at all?"

"I thought you might say that too, since you had such a hearty, well-balanced lunch." He pauses. Clears his throat. Stares at the single car making its way down Main Street. "That's going to be one of those things I said out loud and then will regret later, isn't it?"

I laugh and it feels good. He looks sweet when he realizes he's said the wrong thing. His eyes go big and wide. To rescue him, I link my arm with his and start us walking down the street.

"Just so you know, if asked, I would have no idea how to describe your frequency," I say.

"Honestly, sometimes I think only dogs can hear me," he says.

"For what it's worth, I can hear you just fine."

"It's worth a lot," David says, and I blush, and I'm pretty sure he does too

Tonight , I leave the bathroom light on and double-check the lock on the front door. I rest in the middle of the bed again and make a few more snow angels. It is a fruitless exercise though, because when I am done moving my arms upward and downward, I end up in exactly the same place I started.

And that's why I finally ended it. I realized today that it's exhausting to be a coward.

If you could be anyone else, who would you want to be?" I ask, because I've decided that I admire how David doesn't self-censor. I should try it too.

I think about this all the time. Waking up in the morning, looking in the mirror, and seeing someone wholly different staring back. These days I'd give anything to be the old me, the pre-accident me, who could sit at my old lunch table and chat about nothing. The pre-accident me who aspired to be more like Lauren Drucker, former benevolent ruler and social chair of Mapleview. I really wouldn't mind being entirely full of shit, so long as I didn't notice.

"There's this guy Trey who teaches me guitar," David says. "He kind of pisses me off, actually, but he's just the type of guy everyone likes. He always knows exactly what to say. Like has annoyingly pitch-perfect radio waves. So I guess him?"

"I used to want my metaphorical radio waves to play music that was, like, quirky but also perfectly curated, you know? Something cool. But now I feel like I've become traffic on the hour."

"You are so not traffic on the hour," he says, and to my dismay dabs at his chin with a napkin. "Though I wouldn't mind even being that. Reliable, informative, albeit repetitive. At least people actually listen to it."

"I think your signal is in Morse code," I say with a smile.

"When I was eight, I taught myself Morse code. The clicks are highly irritating."

I lean over and for n

Five years ago, I said vows. And I believe in vows. I meant them, and not just when I said them out loud for an audience to hear but as a motto and a life choice. For as long as we both shall live. I hadn't anticipated the sandy flow of feeling, the yin-yang of love and dread, or the residual buildup of grievances and the slow draining of the benefit of doubt. In good times and in bad. Yes, sure, but in my naivete, I interpreted this as external; we would support each other when the world imposed and intruded. No one tells you that it's the internal that's the real challenge: those moments of decisiveness equal to taking a vow, when you feel the clawing grip of your pormises.

Not knowing the right thing to do is not an excuse for not doing anything.

Maybe when parents name their children they do it from the perspective of wishful thinking. Like when you go to a restaurant and ask for a rare steak, and even though there is no universally agreed definition of the word rare, you hope you get exactly what you want.

Because if I'm going to spend at least seventy-five percent of my waking hours doing something, I want that something to have meaning. I am tired of wasting my time. I am starting to realize that I want my life to matter in every way that it can.

I also have a list of favorite noises. It has one item on it: Kit's laugh.

I think about Kit, who smells nice and whose nose is perfect. Not too big and not too small, just right. She's a Goldilocks of a person.

My mom once told me that the world is divided into two kinds of people: the ones who love their high school years and the ones who spend the next decade recovering from them. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, she said.
But something did kill her, and I'm not stronger. So go figure; maybe there's a third kind of person: the ones who never recover from high school at all.

Miney smiles in that way she does when she's about to force me to do something scary. She's like Trey that way. Always pushing me out of what she calls "my comfort zone," which I'll never understand. Why would you purposely make yourself uncomfortable?

I was just going to call and say hi."
"Give me the phone." I hand it over. Jess, despite her scrawniness, is stronger than I am and could beat me up. She turns my cell off and hands it back. Clearly, I'm very drunk, because it appears to me that the matter is now closed.

Here's the thing about making a friend that I didn't understand before I started talking to Kit: They grow your world. Allow for previously inconceivable possibilities.

Time does not heal all wounds, no matter how many drugstore sympathy cards hastily scrawled by distant relatives promise this to be true.

Instead she has on a sweater that looks soft, the kind when I was a kid I would stop and pet whenever my mom forced me to go shopping.

I hate the word "bitch." I do. Using the B-word makes me feel like a bad feminist, but sometimes there is no other word.

Tears are kind of like urine. There is only so long you can hold them in.

Instead of trying to watch it happen differently, why don't you try to not watch it at all?

We are all strangers to each other in the end.

In the Venn diagram of my life, my imagined personality and my real personality have never converged. Over email and text, though, I am given those few additional beats I need to be the better, edited version of myself. To

I liked the feeling of her hand in mine.

His two front teeth are slightly crooked, veer just a tiny bit to the right, as if they've decided perfection is overrated. His smile is like unlocking a riddle. How does an imperfection make him seem more perfect?

You want to kiss her, right?"

"What?" I have lost track of our conversation. I was thinking about how if Kit called me her friend, then I would have multiplied my number of them by a factor of two. And then I considered the word flirting, how it sounds like fluttering, which is what butterflies do. Which of course looped me back to chaos theory and my realization that I'd like to have more information to provide Kit on the topic.

"Do. You. Want. To. Kiss. Her?" Miney asks again.

"Yes, of course I do. Who wouldn't want to kiss Kit?"

"I don't want to kiss Kit," Miney says, doing that thing where she imitates me and how I answer rhetorical questions. Though her intention is to mock rather than to educate, it's actually been a rather informative technique to demonstrate my tendency toward taking people too literally. "Mom doesn't want to kiss Kit. I don't know about Dad, but I doubt it."

My father doesn't look up. His face is buried in a book about the mating patterns of migratory birds. It's too bad our scholarly interests have never overlapped. Breakfast would be so much more interesting if we could discuss our work.

"So if you want to kiss Kit, that means you want her to see you like a real guy," Miney says, and points at me with her cup of coffee. She's drinking it black. Maybe there's nothing wrong with Miney. Maybe she's just tired.

"I am a real guy." How come even my own sister sees me as somethin

Did you know that it's not mathematically impossible for two snowflakes to be identical? They're made up of a quintillion molecules that can form in various geometries, so it's just highly improbable."

"A quintillion?"

"Picture a one and then add eighteen zeros." She shrugs and I don't think she pictures it. Which is too bad because the image of a quintillion looks just like a line of poetry. "The point is it's totally possible. Unlikely, of course. The chances are like one in a gazillion. Which is not an actual number but an exaggerative placeholder, but you get my point. It's possible.

Exactly, You get it. I am who I am, whoever that may be now.

Right. So what don't get is why everyone is mad at me, instead of realising that I am the one who has been wronged here. Not a single person has come up to me and said,"I'm really sorry this happened to you." Not one person.

Would you like some of my cranberry sauce?" I ask.
"I have the same thing, Emily," my dad says. "Why would I want some of yours when I have my own?

If that moment was a Russian nesting doll, I was paying attention to the smallest figurine.

I did not see all the other metaphorical dolls. The one wrapped around the smallest one, and the one wrapped around the next-smallest one and the next and the next after that.

What neurotypical people call the context.

Every happy moment from now on will have the lingering, bitter, heartbreaking aftertaste of loss.

One of the worst parts about someone dying is thinking back to all those times you didn't ask the right questions, all those times you stupidly assumed you'd have all the time in the world. And this too: how all that time feels like not much time at all.

Want some?" I nod, even though I don't like to share food. Kit looks perfectly healthy, robust even, and anyhow she'd be worth getting sick for, presuming I don't catch something that lingers, like mononucleosis.

Email is much like an ADD diagnosis. Guaranteed extra time on the test.

The image sears my brain too, and I wonder if I will ever be able to forget it. Although I realize that I am in trouble here, there is still a part of me that wants to giggle. The situation has moved so out of control, I half-expect him to pull out a pair of furry handcuffs.

Please don't take this the wrong way, but you're so weird," she says. I look at her, or at least her chin, and discover that an offhand comment by Kit can disrupt my respiration. "But good-weird, you know?"

Good-weird.

Good-weird is what I've been telling myself I am for years, when being just plain weird was too much of a burden to carry. Good-weird is the only solution to the problem, when normal isn't a viable option. Good-weird may very well be the opposite of cool, but I've never aspired to cool. At least not the version of it I'm familiar with.

"Thank you."

"Speaking of weird, I have a random question for you. What can you tell me about quantum mechanics?" Kit asks, and a shiver makes its way from the bottom of my spine all the way to the top.

Miney suggested that I think up some small-talk ideas in case Kit came back to my table today.

Top of my list?

Quantum mechanics.

It's almost enough to make me reconsider the entire concept of fate.

I try to think of other things. David's hand in mine. That was nice. Innocent, friendly hand-holding. I think of his tape measure. And his haircut. I think about what it might be like to kiss him. Not that I really think of him that way-like a boyfriend or even just some hookup-but still I imagine kissing him would feel good. A true thing. A real thing. I imagine he tastes like honesty.

Other people can't make you feel stupid. Only you can.

Once I read a study about prisoners with a life sentence. The ones without the possibility of parole were happier than those who might get out. Defies logic, but then, not really. Sometimes it's the hope that kills you.

Are you asking me if I did something to deserve Gem tripping me and calling me a whore, a slut, and a fat ugly bitch? Seriously? You are asking me that?"

"The answer is no. I have not touched a single guy in this school or actually pretty much ever, not that that would justify a fellow student calling me a whore or a slut. And as for the 'fat ugly bitch'? I presume that's subjective." . . .
"Do you need my BMI? I'm sure that can be arranged.

SN: what was under the glass tonight?

Me: Some sort of delicious fish and the big couscous. What's that called?

SN: Israeli.

Me: Ha, I know. Just wanted to make you use your shift key. I want to get you a T-shirt that says "No proper noun left uncapitalized."

SN: and I'm the weirdo.

These aren't physics notes. This is art. Seriously, you didn't have to do this."
"Seriously, I wanted to," I say.
"Well, thank you. Seriously," she says.
More banter, which may be my new favorite word.

I miss the way he used to kiss my shoulder whenever it was bare and he was nearby. I miss how he cleared his throat before he took a sip of water and scratched his left arm with his right hand when he was nervous. I miss how he tucked my hair behind my ear when it came loose and took my temperature when I was sick or when he was bored. I miss his glasses on my nightstand. I miss watching him take Sunday afternoon naps on my couch, with the newspaper resting on his stomach like a blanket. How his hands stayed clasped, fingers intertwined, while he slept. I miss the cadence of his speech and the stupidity of his puns. I miss playing doctor when we made love, and even when we didn't. I miss his smell, like fresh laundry and honey (because of his shampoo) at his place. Fresh laundry and coconut (because of my shampoo) at mine. I miss that he used to force me to listen to French rap and would sing along in a horrible accent. I miss that he always said "I love you" when he hung up the phone with his sister, never shy or embarassed, regardless of who else was around. I miss that his ideal Friday night included a DVD, eating Chinese food right out of the carton, and cuddling on top of my duvet cover. I miss that he reread books from his childhood and then from mine. I miss that he was the only man that I have ever farted on, and with, freely. I miss that he understood that the holidays were hard for me and that he wanted me to never feel lonely.

Sometimes, when Scarlett says I'm strong, I think she really means I'm numb.

Here's what I know: I eat mass quantities of red meat, curse religiously, sing out of tune but with conviction. I cry when it suits me, laugh when it's inopportune, read The New York Times obituaries and wedding announcements, out loud and in that order.

People like to say that the opposite of love is not hate but indifference. There tends to be a whispered reverence around the expression, as if it has magical healing powers. Better to be hated than ignored by that angry ex of yours; better to be hated than ignored, generally.

Otherwise, you may spend your life staring straight down the barrel of the opposite of love.

But I think that's bullshit. Nonsense print copy for a paper towel. A sound bit e to needlepoint on a throw pillow. Could indifference really be worse than hate? How depressing to think we could be spending most of our days surrounded by people who feel something worse than hate toward us.

SN: how's your day, Ms. Holmes?

Me: Not bad. Yours?

SN: good. been doing my homework in listicle form, because, you know, anything to make it more interesting.

Me: Do you think college will actually be better? For real?

SN: hope so. but then again, I just read about a guy who lost a ball in a frat hazing incident.

Me: Seriously? What is wrong with people?

SN: can you imagine wanting to be liked so badly that you'd give up one of your testicles?

Me: I can neither imagine having testicles nor giving one up.

SN: you won't let me use emojis, but an 'i heart my testes' one would be appropriate right about now.

Me: You know what I heart? Nutella. And pajama pants. And an awesomesauce book. Not necessarily in that order, but together.

SN: awesomesauce? 2012 texted and wants its word back. btw, do you eat the Nutella right out of the jar with a spoon?

Me: Used to. Now I share a kitchen with the Others, so I can't. Wanted to label it, but my dad said that would be rude.

Not feeling like I belong anywhere has made me crave constant motion; standing still feels risky, like asking to be a target.

I bump into a group of girls congregating around a locker. Jessica, Willow (who is notably the only Willow enrolled in our 397-student class and in our 1,579-student school), and Abby. Miney has labeled them in my notebook, in block letters and underlined with a Sharpie:THE POPULAR BITCHES.

When she first used this designation, Miney had to give me a long lecture about how this wasn't an oxymoron, how someone could be both popular, which I presumed meant that lots of people liked you, and at the same time also be a bitch, which I presumed would have the opposite outcome. Apparently popularity in the context of high school has a negative correlation with people actually liking you but a high correlation with people wanting to be your friend. After careful consideration, this makes sense, though in my case, I am both an outlier and a great example of the fact that correlation does not imply causation. I am nice to everyone but without any upside: People neither like me nor want to be my friend.

Come to think of it, I don't want to be my friend either.

We don't talk on the ride home. We don't have to. I feel warm and giddy and like I have a secret that I want to keep all to myself. David Drucker, who is so many different people all at once: the guy who always sits alone, the guy who talked quantum physics even in my dad's dental chair, the guy who held my hand in the snow. I kissed David Drucker, the guy I most like to talk to, and it was perfect.

I am kissing David Drucker. I am kissing David Drucker. I am kissing David Drucker. I Was wrong. I had assumed this would be his first kiss, that it would be fumbling and a bit messy but still fun. No way. Can't be. This guy knows exactly what he's doing. How to cradle the back of my head with his hands. How to move in soft and slow, and then pick up the pace, and then slow down again. How to brush my cheeks with even smaller kisses, how to work his way down my jaw, and to soften the worry spot in the center of my brow. How to pause and look into my eyes, really look, so tenderly I feel it all the way down in my stomach. He even traces the small zigzag scar on my eyebrow with his fingertips, like it's something beautiful. I could kiss him forever. I'm going to kiss him forever.

There's a famous expression that if you've met one person with autism, then... you've met one person with autism.
So you met me.
Just me.
Not a diagnosis.

I realize I hurt you. I forgot to think about you first. I did not put myself in your shoes, as the expression goes. (Though as a sidebar, I think wearing other people's shoes is kind of disgusting; I'm only okay with the concept metaphorically.)

So you know, you are all I think about.

FAVORITE GIRL IN THE WORLD. STILL MY FRIEND? Please meet me on the bleachers after school. Please. And I'm sorry. Sorrier than any person has ever been sorry in the history of sorry people. I'll put in one last please for good luck. Sorry. Again.

Perfect days are for people with small, realizable dreams. Or maybe for all of us, they just happen in retrospect; they're only now perfect because they contain something irrevocably and irretrievably lost.

Life is short and cruel and we shouldn't waste a single second of it worrying about stupid things like school dances.

Though everyone I knew seemed to be either settling down or looking to settle down, I was never on a deep-sea fishing expedition to find a boyfriend. And a "great catch," well, that seemed to be begging for heartache.

I convince myself that I am having fun playing big lawyer in the big city-working all hours, surrounded by a ringing phone and day-old pizza crust. That I am reveling in this life of a caricature. But that would be a lie, because the truth is that I don't really feel much of anything at all. Just a dull ache around my edges.

You know what I think? I think the reason high school sucks is because it feels so small. Like a too-tight turtleneck, " Noah says. "And even if you are brave enough to molt, there's all these people around you still, like, holding up and showing you your old skin.

They seem to understand that the world is a big, diverse place, and that different is not the same thing as scary. It's amazing to me how many people mistake the two.

I think about what it would be like to kiss her, to touch my fingertip to her clavicle cluster, to not worry about our physical boundaries. I imagine it would be like splitting an atom, a distillation into component parts. Everything small enough to be countable. Everything as perfect and forever as pi.

You know how it is. Mean girls get mean in seventh grade and they stay that way until your ten-year reunion, when they want to be best friends again.

Anyhow, high school is just…The. Worst."

"Funny that you became a high school teacher, then," I say, and she laughs again.

"Something I should talk to my therapist about. Speaking of which, you could speak to the school counselor if you want. We have a psychiatrist on staff. A life coach too."

"Seriously?"

"I know, right? Finding ways to justify the tuition. Anyhow, if not them, feel free to come talk to me anytime. Students like you are the reason I chose to teach."

"Thanks."

"By the way, I look forward to your and Ethan's 'Waste Land' paper. You're two of my brightest students. I have great expectations." Dickens is next on the syllabus. A literary pun. No wonder Mrs. Pollack was destroyed in high school.

"We intend to reach wuthering heights," I say, and as I walk by, she reaches her hand up, and I can't help it - dorks unite! nerd power! - I give her a high five on my way out.

I'm from Chicago. I think can handle the Valley.

Just so you know, I realize that what happened is not in any way okay, but I think we're going to have to pretend like it is.

Because it wasn't okay and never will be. We will power through it; I will continue to power through it-all the stagnant, soul-crushing grief-but it will never be okay that my mom is not here.

Okay, Drucker, we're expecting you to kick ass for us at next week's meet against Ridgefield Tech. The team is all Asian, so they're amazing," Mullet says.

"That's racist," I say.

"I'm Asian, though. I'm allowed to say it. My people slay at this shit.

I watch my classmates spilling out of school, in groups of two or three, their formations intimidatingly organic.
Atoms into molecules. Like usual, I am alone.

I think of his hands fixing me a plate, almost touching my banged-up face, and all I can think about is how much I want to kiss them: his eyes, his hands too.
All of him.
His damaged parts.
All of him.

Ruth smiles, which rearranges the lines on her face. She inverts her parentheses and transforms commas into apostrophes. The pattern is that of a woman who has no regrets.

Liam's hands are curled into fists, as if he is ready to throw punches right in the middle of IHOP, which is of course a dumb place to fight. There are children here, and polyester booths, and smiley-face pancakes. Multiple kinds of syrup. Some of the drinks even come with maraschino cherries.

I hear my mom in my head, for just a second, since her voice has mostly evaporated - water to air, or maybe disintegrated, dirt to dust - but for one easy second, she's right here with me

I wish we could keep on forgetting to remember ourselves.

And now that I've been exposed to this feeling, perfect mouth against perfect mouth, the natural order of things, I wonder why people don't kiss all day, every day. How does anything ever get done?

When we get off the plane, the fact that we are far from New York immediately becomes evident. Everything moves slower here; the change of pace feels something like relief. The Southern drawl has a laxative effect on Carl too, magically removing the stick from his ass.

Tears are kind of like urine. There's only so long you can hold them in.

I mean , I never even had to really come out to my parents. They always knew, and it was always okay. Or not even okay, better than that. Not something that had to be evaluated at all. It just was. Like having brown hair.

I'm not sure why I've always assumed that the responsibility of a conversation falls on me.

I smile, because if it's not exactly a joke, it is sort of related to one.

There's no way in that in less than twenty-four hours you could make out with a cool girl, find out your dad, who you thoughtwas alive all these years, is definitely, a hundred percent dead, and like this major hero, and then have your almost-first girlfriend die, who also happens to be be, like, this national icon. That would be too riduculous, even for you, Noah." Jack

Me: It will get better, right? Eventually, it will get better.

Scarlett: I'm sorry I'm not the type to lower our discourse to emoji use since you totally deserve a smiley face right now. Yes, it will get better.

Me: Ha. It's just. Whatever. Sorry to keep whining.

Scarlett: That's what I'm here for. BTW, that email you forwarded? My guess: TOTALLY A SECRET ADMIRER.

Me: You've read too many books. I'm being set up. And stop YELLING AT ME.

Scarlett: No way. I didn't say he was a vampire. I said he was a secret admirer. Most def.

Me: Wanna take bets?

Scarlett: You should just know by now that I'm always right. It's my one magic power.

Me: What's mine?

Scarlett: TBD.

Me: Thanks a lot.

Scarlett: Kidding. You are strong. That's your power, girl.

Me: My arms are v. toned from stress-eating ALL the cookies. Hand to mouth. Repeat 323 times. Hard-core workout.

Scarlett: Seriously, for a second, J? Just because you're strong doesn't mean you shouldn't ask for help sometimes. Remember that. I'm here, ALWAYS, but you might want to take up that offer from someone local.

Me: Whatever. Ugh. Thanks, Dr. Phil. I miss you!

Scarlett: Miss you too! Go write back to SN. NOW. NOW. NOW. Now tell me the truth? Anyone at your school unusually pale?

This is a dream. It has to be, because the three of them can't be SN, and I've had dreams like this before, when they're all there - Liam, Ethan, Caleb - morphing into each other, swapping shirts.

But no, Caleb is in gray. Ethan is the Batman. And Liam is wearing a button-down, because unlike his friends, he rotates his wardrobe. One point for Liam there.

If this is a dream, next they will break out into song. Serenade me with "The Girl No One Knows."

No one is singing.

This is not a dream.

Unimaginably bad shit happens. We are left to choose whether to grow or to wither. To forgive or to fester.

Will you think about the kissing?" he asks, and I laugh again and mimic his shrug. If only he knew how much I think about the kissing. "Will you reconsider hand-holding?" he asks, instead of answering, I move my arm so it's next to his, so we are lined up, seam to seam. He reaches out his pinky finger and links it around mine and a warm, delicious chill makes its way up my arm. We stay that way for a minute, in a pinky swear, which feels like the smallest of promises. And then I grab his whole hand and link his fingers in mine. A slightly bigger promise. Or maybe a demand: Please be part of my tribe. It's pretty simple, really. For once, things are not complicated. Right now, right here, it's just us, together, like this. Palm to palm. The most honest of gestures. One of the ways through. Maybe the best one.

How's things, buddy?" Trey asks after we run through a few finger-warming exercises. I realize this is what people call small talk. I also realize the world would be a better place without it.