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HERE NOW ACCORDING TO THE guidebook, Maui is shaped like a head. Our cab ride will take us across the neck, along the jawline, over the chin, mouth, nose, and up to the wide forehead. I’ve booked us into a hotel in Ka’anapali, which is in the skull just beyond the hairline, geographically speaking. We turn a corner and suddenly the ocean is just there, running alongside the road to the left of us. It can’t be more than thirty feet away. The vast endlessness of it is shocking. It falls off the end of the world. “I can’t believe I’ve missed all this,” I say. “I’ve missed the whole wide world.” Olly shakes his head. “One thing at a time, Maddy. We’re here now.” I look back at Olly’s ocean eyes and I’m drowning, surrounded on all sides by water. There’s so much to see that it’s hard to know what to pay attention to. The world is too big and there’s not enough time for me to see it. Again he reads my mind. “Do you want to stop and look?” “Yes, please.” He asks the driver if it’s OK for us to pull over, and he says it’s no problem at all. He knows a good place coming up, a park and picnic area. I’m out of the car before the engine’s off. The water is just a short walk downhill and then across the sand. Olly trails a distance behind me. The ocean. It’s bluer, bigger, more turbulent than I’d imagined. Wind lifts my hair, scrubs sand and salt against my skin, invades my nose. I wait until I’m down the hill to take off my shoes. I roll my jeans up as far as they’ll go. The sand is hot and dry and loose. It waterfalls over my feet and slips through my toes. As I get closer to the water, the sand changes. Now it sticks to my feet, coating them like a second skin. At the water’s edge, it changes again and becomes a liquid velvet. My feet leave impressions in this softer mix. Finally, my feet are in the surging water, and then my ankles are, and then my calves. I don’t stop moving until the water is up to my knees and soaks my jeans. “Be careful,” Olly calls out from somewhere behind me. I’m not sure what that means in this context. Be careful because I may drown? Be careful because I may get sick? Be careful because once you become a part of the world it becomes a part of you, too? Because there’s no denying it now. I’m in the world.
And, too, the world is in me.
- Page 107 and 108: LIFE AND DEATH OLLY’S NOT ON the
- Page 110 and 111: HONESTLY Later, 8:03 P.M. Olly: no
- Page 112 and 113: preparing for a bout. He’s trying
- Page 114 and 115: THE THIRD MADDY I’M ALMOST ASLEEP
- Page 116 and 117: “That’s enough now,” my mom s
- Page 118 and 119: MIRROR IMAGE I PULL THE curtains as
- Page 120 and 121: MORE THAN THIS MY MOM WORDLESSLY kn
- Page 122 and 123: NURSE EVIL MY NEW NURSE is an unsmi
- Page 124 and 125: I stare at the note, remembering th
- Page 126 and 127: HIGHER EDUCATION WITH OLLY BACK in
- Page 128 and 129: ALOHA MEANS HELLO AND GOOD -BYE, PA
- Page 130 and 131: LATER, 9:08 P.M. OLLY’S ALREADY W
- Page 132 and 133: THE GLASS WALL A WEEK LATER, someth
- Page 134 and 135: HALF LIFE IT’S A STRANGE thing to
- Page 136 and 137: THE FIVE SENSES HEARING The alarm
- Page 138 and 139: “Maddy—” “I’ll explain ev
- Page 141 and 142: At first I’m not sure what I’m
- Page 143 and 144: HAPPY ALREADY “MADS, BE SERIOUS.
- Page 145 and 146: I reach over and take his hand. “
- Page 147 and 148: eyes. “I must’ve missed a lot o
- Page 149 and 150: TTYL
- Page 151 and 152: THE CAROUSEL “I’VE DECIDED BAGG
- Page 153: MADELINE’S DICTIONARY prom•ise
- Page 157 and 158: REWARD IF FOUND OUR HOTEL SITS righ
- Page 159 and 160: three meals and two snacks exactly
- Page 161 and 162: eathed the same filtered air for so
- Page 163 and 164: GUIDE TO HAWAIIAN REEF FISH
- Page 165 and 166: I’m sure I don’t want him to. *
- Page 167 and 168: ZACH BACK AT THE hotel, Olly calls
- Page 169 and 170: Do you have my daughter? Is she OK?
- Page 171 and 172: THE MURPHY BED IT’S LATE AFTERNOO
- Page 173 and 174: ALL THE WORDS I COME AWAKE slowly,
- Page 175 and 176: MADELINE’S DICTIONARY in•fi•n
- Page 177 and 178: THIS TIME OLLY SMILES. HE will not
- Page 179 and 180: “Do you believe it?” he asks.
- Page 181 and 182: THE END SOMEONE HAS PUT me in a hot
- Page 183 and 184: My. Heart. Stops.
- Page 185 and 186: RELEASED, PART ONE
- Page 187 and 188: READMITTED MY MOM HAS transformed m
- Page 189 and 190: RELEASED, PART TWO Wednesday, 6:56
- Page 191 and 192: Madeline: but mine isn’t
- Page 193 and 194: GEOGRAPHY I’M IN AN endless field
- Page 195 and 196: LIFE IS SHORT SPOILER REVIEWS BY MA
- Page 197 and 198: PRETENDING I’M STRONGER WITH each
- Page 199 and 200: I’m trying not to focus on Olly,
- Page 201 and 202: FIVE SYLLABLES A MONTH LATER, just
- Page 203 and 204: HIS LAST LETTER IS HAIKU From: gene
And, too, the world is in me.
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