say.â
âYou donât have to say anything. Just listen.â
âOkay.â
âYouâre like the strongest person I know. You always follow your instincts and are totally honest with your emotions. You have taught me to be truer to my own sense of self. So much of who I am is related to all the model qualities I see in you.â
âUhh.â Molly blushing. âThanks, but, uh.â
âNo buts and donât try to deflect.â
âThanks.â Still blushing. âI donât do well with compliments.â
âI know, thatâs why I wanted to tell you.â Pulling Molly into a hug.
âI may start to cry.â Molly, tearing up. âI hate you. Now I am going to look like Joan Jett the morning after.â
âI know. But sheâs a badass.â
Then Molly was saved from this praise-a-thon by a loud knock on the door.
âShall we?â Grabbing Jayceeâs hand.
âYeah.â
âI love you.â Kissing Jay on the cheek. âThis made my night.â
âMe too.â
Molly went on to give the best karaoke performance of her life. Pat Benatar watch out!!
That night Jaycee gave her this incredible gift by naming something Molly always sort of knew. Sometimes having a friend point out something remarkable and good is all one needs to reconfirm a dedication to living as oneâs best self by following gut instincts. After remembering this tender moment, Molly swallowed hard and promised not to let this life decision throw her. She wasnât going to let Jay, nor herself, down. She was strong and true and determined, and even if she was nauseated, she would get through this without any Pepto. She started the car, but before she pulled out, she erased Liamâs proposal. For a girl who used to save all his messages for weeks at a time, this was a major step forward. Although her fingers did shake as she pressed the buttons, and a few more tears eased down her cheeks, she finished the task and began the last leg of her journey.
It was much easier for Molly now that she was driving at night. The cool darkness seemed to comfort her, wrap her in a patchwork security blanket of blindness. What she could not see, she could not fear. When she was a little girl, her parents used to drive her around late in the evening when she couldnât sleep or had a nightmare. The slow rumble of the engine, the lights, the brisk air, all soothed her. They put her back to sleep, or at least into a calm awake state that resembled sleep and eased Mollyâs four-year-old nerves. Unlike some, even when she was that little girl with nightmares, Molly was never afraid of the dark, afraid some heinous monster would leap from behind her pink closet drawer and whisk her away to some rotting, moldy underworld. It was the clear details of day that frightened her. The trash, the traffic, and the throngs of rash, disgruntled people everywhere were more threatening than what was invisible or covered by blackness.
When she was twelve, Molly went on her first school camping trip. Unlike the rest of her girlfriends, Molly jumped at the chance to do a solo and spread her sleeping bag under the stars: she was all alone, at night, in the middle of the desert, and she was in heaven. While the rest huddled in tents somehow reassured by the thinnest layer of plastic, Molly was barefaced, staring at the stars. It was in the dark sky that her imagination flourished. With the obvious obscured, the facts cloaked by shadow, Molly was free to create her world her own way. It was at night that she evolved and grew into herself.
As she drove, the sky deepened into an impenetrable black. It looked like the saucers of a tripping raverâs eyes in the midst of an Ecstasy peak during a perfect Paul Oakenfold set. It was hallow, and dead. Molly shivered and reached into the backseat for a scarf. The chill kept her alert and awake. Tonight, and pretty much all of today, was a black
Wendi Zwaduk
Kelley Armstrong
Tom - Jack Ryan 09 Clancy
Sophie Shearer
Teresa Federici
Colin White, Laurie Boucke
Darcie Chan
Crymsyn Hart
Gary Franklin
Lisa Marie Rice