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Show 34? in my father's house/ draw, should I need them. During the grounding, I had lots of time to think. I struggled with myself, determining to change the course of my life. If Saul cared so much for me, then I would try to make my life something he would be pleased with. I would study harder, get a scholarship and go to college someday. Perhaps I would run for a student-body office _: - when I felt better about myself. But if I was to do these things, I knew I had to keep control of my life. And Brian threatened that control. He also threatened the frayed bond between my father and me. Brian was proof and reminder that I was branded a hussy, and in my confused conscience, that made us both somehow bad. The night I told him that I wanted to be 'just friends' he accepted my decision without question. But as he walked away, he slammed his fist against the windshield of a parked car, shattering it. There was another boy. He had stolen a car and a note I had written t o him was found in it, incriminating him. I felt an immediate, unreasoned responsibility for his dilemma. I was sorry for him, with his poor excuse for a mother, and no father at all. In that, he posed no threat to my peculiarity. And, unlike Brian, I could control him. Z I had not yet realized that someone else's problems can erode one's own solidarity as surely as a river will gouge a cleft in the hardest stone. And, while I had my strengths - my schoolwork, my capacity for abstract thought and useless rumination - I also had a great many points of vulnerability. The slightest trickle could seep through and quickly break up my reserves, wearing me away to almost nothing. |