OCR Text |
Show All the Variables & Other Love Stories 64 own friends, wanted to go forth, discover the world-find himself-and the more new reference points he had the more precisely he would know what he wanted. Still, a girl's heart is a living thing-in point of fact, Cara told herself, a girl needs her heart more than the heart needs a girl-and though she was able to forgive Zach she was never able to open herself so widely again. She understood Zach's reasons for leaving her-he'd simply reached a certain stage before she had-but part of her couldn't heal from the unfaithful heart of a ten-year-old. All this she could get over. It was even cute. But high school had been miserable for her, and Zach-Zach didn't care. It embarrassed her now to think that she had been an unlikable teenager. All those cruel girls, how could someone so pretty be cruel, she had wondered. Memories presented themselves to her like old nightmares she could only remember in parts. She was angry with herself that she felt ashamed to remember that time-the sneers, insults, taunts. No one would sit by her in the cafeteria. Sitting alone made her an easy target so she started bringing a bag-lunch she ate in the library. Zach saw it all, she specifically saw him watch girls pull her hair. Boys brayed like asses, made cutting insinuations about her lurid sexual habits, her feminine hygiene, none of which were true but it didn't matter. Zach witnessed all of this and did nothing, how could he just stand by and not defend her, she wanted to know. She couldn't feel warmth for Zach any longer. And the thing is she had never realized how much in love with him she was until it had slowly tapered and died. Some things you don't know you feel until you don't anymore. It had been agony for her. Cara rolled over to check her legs, wanted to be sure they didn't bum. She reached beside her for a few single-serving sugar packets, sprinkled them across the |