XVI

Sometimes I wish I could just be like everyone else my age and not think at all.

That line between love and lust was thin as a whisper.

I'd choked back so many tears, they'd become a lake of sadness in my belly.

Religion seemed to me like one group of people telling another group that their color of red was the best. And that everyone had to believe that, or else.

I couldn't shake the impulse to help him. It seemed that the older I got the more I believed that everyone, homeless or not, deserved to be treated at least like a human.

A tiny part of me wanted to kick him, too, not because he was homeless, but because he was a judgmental asshole.

I'm afraid to have a boyfriend. I don't know how to do that and not lose who I want to be. And I'm afraid of what it means to be close to a guy, a guy I might really like." There it was: the truth.