Her next words took me by surprise. I lay as still as I could, barely breathing, afraid that if I moved she would stop speaking her heart.“My mom wanted six children. She only got me, and that sucks for her because I was a total weirdo.”“You were not,” I said.She twisted her head up to look at me.“I used to line my lips in black eyeliner and sit cross-legged on the kitchen table … meditating.”“Not that bad,” I said. “Crying out for attention.”“Okay, when I was twelve I started writing letters to my birth mother because I wanted to be adopted.”I shook my head. “Your childhood sucked, you wanted a new reality.”She snorted air through her nose. “I thought a mermaid lived in my shower drain, and I used to call her Sarah and talk to her.”“Active imagination,” I countered. She was becoming more insistent, her little body wriggling in my grip.“I used to make paper out of dryer lint.”“Nerdy.”“I wanted to be one with nature, so I started boiling grass and drinking it with a little bit of dirt for sugar.”I paused. “Okay, that’s weird.”“Thank you!” she said. Then, she got serious again. “My mom just loved me through all of it.
