And then he realized something.

And he looked at Marvalyn. And got extremely uncomfortable.

“Pretty girls?” asked Marvalyn.

“Yeah,” said Steve, looking at Marvalyn. “Like you.”

Marvalyn laughed. And then almost cried. Because it had been a long time since anyone had told her she was pretty. She knew she used to be pretty. But she didn’t think she was anymore. She thought she was just fat. And old enough looking that she wasn’t getting carded anymore.

“Like me?” she asked.

“Yeah.” Steve was uncomfortable. And confused.

“Well, why should you be afraid of pretty girls?” asked Marvalyn, smiling.

“Well, because my brother Rob says they can hurt you ’cause they make you love them, and that’s something I’m supposed to be afraid of, too—love—but my brother Rob says that I’m really lucky, ’cause I’ll probably never have to deal with love, because I have a lot of deficiencies and not very many capacities as a result of the congenital analgesia.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa—wait—what do you mean you’re never gonna have to deal with love? Why would he say that?”

“’Cause I’m never gonna know what it feels like, Rob says.”

“Well, how does he know that?”

“’Cause it hurts.”

“Well, it shouldn’t.”

“And, plus, I have a lot of deficiencies and not very many capacities, Rob says.”

“You know what, a lot of people do.”

Steve had never thought about what Marvalyn had just said—that maybe a lot of other people had a lot of deficiencies. And not very many capacities. It made him feel like maybe he wasn’t as different from other people as he had always been told he was. And he hadn’t felt like that in … well, he couldn’t remember ever feeling like that.

He looked straight into Marvalyn’s eyes—and he hardly ever looked straight into anyone’s eyes. And Marvalyn felt a strange lightness fill up her insides. It made her feel like she had sunshine from a sunny spring day inside her. And like she had just let go of the rope swing at the quarry pond and was suspended in time and space.

And it made her feel like she had some promise in her.

And it made a strange combination of compassion and desire surge through her body.

And it made her lunge toward Steve and want to kiss him.

So she did.

Hard.

Steve made a sound that was part gasp and part groan upon receiving Marvalyn’s kiss. And his instinct was to resist. But he gave in to the kiss before he resisted. And he felt still and calm as he did.

And he couldn’t remember the last time he had felt still and calm.

And then he felt a strange lightness fill up his insides. It was as if a gentle fire from a fireplace was flickering inside him—and it made him feel like he was floating. The last time he remembered feeling that way was when he was little and had fallen asleep on the couch in front of the fireplace and his grandma would carry him to bed.