Lost in Time

As he rowed back and forth, he thought: that’s life. You push and pull and sometimes things catch fire and sometimes they don’t. You keep going: that’s the key.

Every dollar she spent was one less she had to invest, but the bike would cut down on her travel time around town (and save cab fares).

As she walked up the brick-paved path to the red front door, her heart hammered in her chest. Her palms oozed sweat.

“What can I do?” Adeline asked. Elliott studied her. “I thought you’d never ask.”

It needed to be addressed soon. Like so many small problems in life, it would fester and become a real issue.

They had secrets. Daniele did too. Everyone around her seemed to have secrets. Were those secrets the key to saving her father? Or were they simply part of the transition to adulthood—realizing that the world wasn’t what it seemed before, that everyone was hiding something,

What exactly are you telling me?

living a hedonistic lifestyle that brought her immense ecstasy at the time but that she now deeply regretted. One line of hers stuck in Sam’s mind long after she left: “I would do a lot of things differently… if that sort of thing were possible.”

For the past two weeks, the group of girls had heckled her mercilessly about her, in their words, “homemade hobo clothes.” Looking back now, Adeline figured it was simply the stress of starting school that made the girls lash out. Adeline had been an easy target. Her clothes looked different. So they picked on her.