The Light

I stood on the street, staring up at the most normal-looking house in the world. My house. I'd lived there my entire life. It was home. It was safe. It was haunted. The only other explanation was that I was demented. I couldn't say which I was rooting for.

I was disappointed in Coop. He hated being bored and so did I. He was always looking for different things to do and coming up with new adventures that kept us moving. That was his job. Trolling for girls at the beach was okay by me, but I didn't want it to be our sole focus. Besides, the girls I liked had more interesting things to do than spend every waking moment sitting around at the beach comparing tans.

I rode my bike home and did the one thing that always helped when things weren't going well. I read. Books were my refuge. Getting lost in a solid adventure story was the best way I knew of to turn off reality.

I'm not sure why that story came back to me while I sat huddled in Sydney's car on the way to the lake. It happened so long ago. I guess maybe it was because it gave me the assurance that when things got bad, there were certain people you could always count on.

Cooper's imagination was endless, I looked at the bales of felt and saw... bales of felt. Cooper was more like my mom. He didn't just see what was in front of him--he saw potential.

There's more to everything that what's obvious," he always said. "You just have to look for it.

My head cleared enough to realize she was talking to me slowly as if I was an unbalanced, crazy person, which was smart because I was an unbalanced, crazy person.

Some people would look at this and see junk," I said. "Others see history.

Squinting made me feel as if I had control over how much of it I would see at first.