The boy was perhaps twelve—yes, twelve—and up to no good. She could tell these things. He had a way of walking, an unperfected swagger he was still trying on like a pair of new and uncomfortable shoes.
Each morning Paula feels like dinosaur bones. You know how they’re not really bones, but sediment or silt or something that’s filled in the spaces where the bones used to be? She feels like dirt in the shape of an organism, embedded in earth. She feels like bone-shaped sediment if bone-shaped sediment could also be having a mild panic attack.
