But I want it now

I imagine Kindra laughing at something that Versimac boy is doing, the shy, romantic one that's replaced Josh for her since that boy turned into a ridiculous, artless teenager. It's the laugh she used to laugh when much younger Skinner sisters would put her in a ragged Snoopy beach towel and swing her forty apple-scented pounds dangerously between us. A self-conscious laugh tinged with fear, which can only mean that she's afraid of life. I wonder how well she knows herself, I wonder about the marks she makes on her skin with erasers, broken glass, her own fingernails. She once asked me what love is like and all I could think to tell her (being in pain, myself) is that the thought of that person makes you stronger. She didn't say anything but looked out the car window as if she saw her life flashing before her eyes instead of scenery. What do you give the girl you worry about for her 16th birthday? I'd give her, if I could, a life in a garden, with a pond and rowboat and various amusements, safe from society. But she's already run worse gauntlets than I ever faced, and there's nothing I can do to protect her, not even from herself. Especially not from herself. I can only hope for her, and I do that every day.