They say it's a small world. Well, Little Rock is a small town.

Blaze enters the store not even a week later. 

I'm not exactly sure what it is about him that I find most appealing. Maybe it's his unshakable good manners. Maybe it's his bluntness. Maybe it's the way he treats me like an actual human being, the way he looks at me as though I matter. I think it's mostly his smile. The way it says: I'm real. I'm listening. I care.

He's wearing carharts and a reflective vest and I wonder if he's gotten a construction job.

"Well, would you look at Mr 'I don't want to work at Wendy's,'" Bryan swoons from behind the sandwich station.

"Are you satisfied?" he asks me.

"I hate working front counter," I answer snidely. "What can I get for you, today?"

He half smiles. "An opinion," he answers and passes me an animated movie.

I raise my eyebrows. "Princess Mononoke?"

He smiles fully this time and I take a minute to catch my breath.

"Just watch it," he says and leaves.

I take it home and I do watch it, wondering if this is some sort of strange new way to woo a woman: passing movies and exchanging opinions.

I like the movie a lot and I tell him so when he visits the store the next day.

"You see," he says, "Princess Mononoke: she's a real princess. No fancy dresses or false words."

I raise an eyebrow. "Do you want to come to a family dinner with me this weekend?" I ask, not really sure what I'm getting at. I suppose I feel as though a man should earn a first date. As though he should meet your family first.

I'm not the same person I was the last time I saw my dad. I mean, I am, but I'm not, and it makes me nervous. My mom is the only one in my family I've seen since then. My co-workers may have accepted the occasional zombie Michigan, but they weren't as invested in my success as my family was. And I was worried about what they might think.

I have a medicine ball I like to use. It helps me focus when I'm doing something to occupy my hands. I also have a beanie I like to wear--I feel it helps to detract from my eyes.

I look at them in the mirror a few days later. They're different the last few months. I don't know if it's the lack of adequate sleep or the way they widen at the smallest noise now. When I smile, it's even creepier than I feel it's always been. I pull my pink hat lower over my forehead.

He texts when he arrives. I don't like people knocking on my door.

He's coming up the stairs just as I'm locking the front.

"Hi, Blaze," I say.

"Hi, Michigan."

He doesn't complain the entire car ride there or the car ride back. And then we exchange numbers and part ways.

I remember my dad's expression the next day as we watch a video in sign language class. I've decided to buck up, go back to school and finish my senior year the only way I know how. I can still pay the bills and sleep some if I work night shift and take two periods off a day for work study. So far I haven't gotten in trouble for wearing my beanie to school every day, and I sit in the very back of all my classes. But like in Little Rock, I function.

The video is a documentary on Deaf culture.

A little boy tries to sign to his mother and she ignores him and talks exaggeratedly back, saying "read my lips!" She pays thousands of dollars to send him to a special school where he is supposed to learn how to survive in the hearing world.

Two Deaf parents tell their three year old child that she doesn't need a cochlear implant, that the Deaf community is enough.

Two teens sign to the camera, explaining how all they need is eachother. How their parents never even bothered to learn sign. How they sit at the dinner table every night and watch their family's lips move and can't join in on any of the laughter because they don't speak the same language.

I cry quietly because the injustice hits me hard.

I remember the look on my dad's face when he sees me swapping the medicine ball from hand to hand. It's as though he thinks it's a crutch that I shouldn't need. As though he thinks I'm some sort of freak: if not before, then definitely now.

My little sister plays ball and we mostly listen to her talk. That part of the visit I enjoy.

Blaze agrees to meet my mom the next day.

Technically, all the hubbub is about my half-birthday. 

Blaze is astonished when my mom rushes out of her ford contour excitedly, birthday gift and chocolate cake in tow.

I blush. "You didn't have to do all this, mom," I say, (which is what I say every half-birthday).

"You didn't tell me that dinner at your dad's was for your birthday," Blaze accuses.

"Half birthday," I correct. I usually visit around the same time every year. "I'm not sure he even knew."

He scoffs but says no more. I make him sit in back alone so I can sit up front with my mom and unwrap my present.

I'm eighteen and a half now, but the number doesn't really hold as much significance to me as you'd think it would.

I do like my present quite a bit. It's a leather bound journal with unlined pages like I like. I thank my mom enthusiastically and think it's funny the way Blaze sulks in back.

It takes an hour before we reach our destination. Most of it is driving through the canyon which is peaked with color.

At the top of Cottonwood Canyon there's a skii resort which my mom and I have made it a habit to visit frequently since I started favoring the outdoors more than the indoors. Just before the resort itself is a lake that is open to the public.

It's here that I choose to go for my half-birthday.

The sign just before the entrance christens this lake "Silver Lake" and it seems reasonable since the sun peaks through the constant mist just right up here so that the lake sheens in the center. The edges of the lake are a perfect reflection of the surrounding mountain, with tall lines and grey rock rippling with the fishing boats along the water.

Vegetation also encroaches upon the edges of the lake where the boarded path traces along it. Tall white grass and moss-like green floats upon the water and the occasional stream is home to a beaver's dam. Trees cut across the dirt path that leads from the bridge into the brush. The point of their stumps show they were felled by a beaver's sharp teeth. The tallest pines seem to reach all the way to the cloud covered sky and sap oozes down their rusted-looking trunks. Bark flakes off of them like scales and the occasional moose or deer will wander from under their shade to the water which starts shallow and gradually deepens into the hollow void where ducks and fish swim.

My mom and I trek quietly around the lake and Blaze is content to follow just as mute. I enjoy myself quite a bit.

The following Monday in AP Psych I sit next to Annabelle. It's been a long time since we've hung out and I miss talking with her. She's still close friends with Beth and I'm glad we partner in this class because we agree to have a get together just the three of us sometime soon. And I wonder if Izzy has found new friends to replace us with yet.

The psychology teacher is an enthusiastic man who the classmates liken to Jesus due to his long hair. He asks us passionately why, when confronted with injustices--whether it be in the classroom, the district, or the the country--we don't try to change them. Why we don't think we have a voice.

He then goes on to teach us about a term written boldly in marker on the board called "Group Think".

"WWII. Internment camps. They weren't just in Germany, they were here, too. We locked away hundreds of thousands of Japanese Americans in internment camps here on U.S. soil after Pearl Harbor. Why? Why did no one stand up to say this was a bad idea? Was it fear? Ignorance?" He points to the board. "Group Think," he says, which is a term that describes a consequence that occurs when a group of like minded people fail to consider alternative viewpoints by isolating themselves from anything or rather, anyone who might oppose their unanimous decisions, thereby resulting in a lack of creativity, a false sense of righteousness, and bad decision making.

Blaze waits outside when I get off for work study. I'm touched that he's driven thirty minutes on the Eastbound just to see me. I'm also surprised he's holding a puppy with pointy ears, a bald muzzle, short fluffy brown fur and a long animated tail which wacks his chest every time it wags. I look into her ice blue eyes and sigh.

"Oh, gosh," I say.

"She's a husky mix," he explains, all grins.

"Oh, gosh," I say again.

Undeterred, he continues, "now, I understand that your apartment doesn't allow dogs, so she'll have to stay at my place, but since your b-day was last weekend, you can help me name her."

She loves sticking her head out the window, going on long car rides, and hiking. She's irresistible.