| OCR Text |
Show 9-7 "And, every time I look in a mirror, I hurt." He looked at me from under his hand. "Or when I catch people looking at me out of the corner of their eyes. Like my mother or the minister." He brought both hands to his mouth and closed his eyes for a moment. Then he looked at me again. "You're the only one, beside the sisters here and the other fellows, you're the only civilian, so to speak, who's ever looked at me. Like you're doing now." I could feel myself growing hot. I looked down at the bookbag. Now I smoothed its cover with my hands. "You're just a little girl but you're the first to treat me like I wasn't terrible." He suddenly stood up and leaned against the trunk of the huge tree that sheltered us. "OK with you if I smoke?" He paused with his hand inside the pocket of his robe. I nodded quickly. I watched as he tapped out a cigarette, lit it and blew out the smoke. It curled around his face and then melted in the hot air. "Maybe a kid like you shouldn't hang around a mess like me." He watched me through the smoke. "Maybe I'm giving you nightmares." He sounded like Mother. I shook my head. "No, Andrew, I promise. It doesn't upset me. Except that I worry that it hurts you." He sat down across from me again. "My mother . . . She said the same thing . . . That I shouldn't come anymore." "She did, huh?" He took a deep breath of the cigarette and blew it high into the air between us. "So why are you here?" |
