"Why does change have to be so hard, Jason?" Kira watched as they passed another barge, this one tied up alongside the river, a family working topside. "If change has to be, why does it have to be hard?"

"I don't know," Jason said, his eyes on the same barge. "It's like growing up, isn't it? That's change. Remember being a little kid and how amazing the world was? All of this new stuff to see and to learn, and new friends everywhere you looked. You didn't know enough to be scared of other people or of what was happening in other places or of what the future would be like. And even simple things were so much fun. Remember that?"

Kira smiled, remembering life before she had learned that her mother was the daughter. "Yeah. That really was a great time."

"Would you want to be like that forever?"

She bent her head, thinking. "We'd give up a lot, wouldn't we? We lose things when we grow, but we gain things, too. I already know how much I'd have missed if I had never gotten older than six. I can't imagine everything ahead."

"Change," Jason said. "It hurts, but it has to be, and it gives us new things."

Kira turned her smile on him. "Why do you say you're not smart? Jason, you have great ideas."

"Nah." He looked away, embarrassed. "I probably heard that someplace."

"No, you didn't. You came up with it yourself. Jason, stop listening to people who tell you that you're not smart."

He laughed. "Who am I supposed to listen to?"

"Me."

Jason's laughter stopped abruptly. "Why…why do you care?"

"Um…I don't know," Kira said, startled by the question. "Can't somebody care about somebody else?"

"Sure they can, but you…and I'm…I'm just a je—" He broke off. "I almost forgot I'm not allowed to call myself a jerk anymore."

"See," Kira teased, trying to lighten a mood that had shifted in ways she didn't understand, "you're listening to me already."

"Why are doing this, Kira?" Jason asked, his face averted from her.

"Doing what?"

"Making it seem like maybe it's possible that… Never mind!" He turned his body away, hunching over to close out the world.

"Jason? Are you all right?"

He didn't answer.

She looked over the water at the banks of the river going by, wondering why Jason was upset and why her stomach felt so tight.

* * *