fiefoe

<Other people>

There was something guileless about her - all her unpleasantness was close to the surface, like the earth's crust; once you got below it, she was strangely innocent.
Later, one of our jokes was that she was an easy laugh, a laugh slut. But something I always appreciated about her was how she made you feel witty.
Father in particular had his own ideas and appetites, and he was not like a lamb in a petting zoo who would not bite back.
Perhaps Gillian always seemed comfortable, I thought, because she was not particularly interested in the world, because she did not question her place in it.
Our antagonism had always contained a certain sisterly intimacy; once, during freshman year, when we'd been standing face-to-face arguing, Dede had reached out and actually pulled my hair, and the sheer immaturity of the gesture had made me burst out laughing. She'd said, almost shyly, "What? What?"
Martha was the kind of person who would never leave her underwear around, whereas I was the kind of person who thought I wouldn't but actually would.
I simply accepted (Darden Pittard's) presence and it was a moment, I thought later, when perhaps I knew what it felt like to be someone else, a person who experienced life without dissecting it.

<Disappointments>

Didn't she realize that this wasn't a movie about boarding school, where the student and the teacher could have a little burst of chumminess and then it would cut to another scene, like the student at soccer practice or the teacher riding her bike back to her cottage on the edge of campus? No, we were still in the same room, both of its having to breathe and speak in the aftermath of her wink.
... the inconsiderate parents and my own family, for being somehow reliant on kindness that wasn't extended.
And, in fact, it was in falling short that I truly excelled. I might fail to be what the other person sought, but as a failure, I'd accommodate them completely.
I can imagine that such asymmetry might have created a fragile balance, requiring forgiveness from only one of us. But instead our resentment was mutually supportive, like a wall held up with equal force from opposite sides.

"Prep"