Chapter 13
“Did you…did you, uh, force things…when you said you…got frisky?”
He shook his head. “What I did was enough, I guess.”
I considered. “No,” I said at last, in a deliberately decisive voice. “He freaked, you said. That was his responsibility. He could have just told you to keep your hands off.”
“He did. But he freaked too.”
I nodded. “That was unfortunate. But it wasn’t entirely your fault. Surely you see that part of it was his?”
Now Matt looked at me, his tear-stained face glistening in the light of the lamp.
“Yeah, but he’s normal, right?”
I made a disgusted noise, and Matt stared at me.
“Well, he was…right?”
I shook my head. “I had a friend, in high school. Her name was Ginger—it was kind of a translation of her name; she was Sikh. I don’t know whether these were part of her culture or not, but she told me two of the wisest things I’ve ever heard.”
Matt regarded me expectantly.
“She said that I shouldn’t take the world so seriously.”