The hardest part is letting go of what you know just because you're afraid that whatever comes next might suck worse."Nicole studies my face with a di...armingly sincere expression, and I have to resist the impulse to reach out and run my hand through her hair. Instead, my fingers seek refuge with my wine glass once again, and I take another sip."Try out something new," she says. "Not just work, I mean. Go and hang out with some amateur theatre group. I'm sure they have those in Boston, too. Try. She had been closest to Gene, though. They had both been ostracized by the great body of the high school rabble, as they liked to think of them. The two of them spent lunch hours together in a far corner of the cafeteria, usually exchanging reviews of the latest science fiction novel the other had read. Although they had different gym classes, they both had a shared bond of suffering, each being the slowest and most awkward, each always winding up the last, most reluctant choice for any team. “I’ll go up to help the kids dress and keep them out of trouble. I think Candice would do her best to have wardrobe malfunctions and blame it on something else.”Two girls followed me to say they would help supervise. That got a big laugh from the adults.“I’m able to get my fingers in there but can’t push it in far enough quite to get it there,” the boy said from Candice’s bedroom. “Could you maybe bend over a bit to see if I can get it in more that way?”Both girls started to run past me, but I. ” Beth had assumed he was here to take her to see someone, but she was horrified to see him step into the cell and then he closed and locked the door. “So, we can talk undisturbed,” he said casually, as though being locked in a cell with a prisoner was the most natural thing in the world. Beth protested immediately, saying she wanted to see the governor, but then the full extent of the situation she was in hit her. “I am Jackson,” the man said and then in a polite tone he added, “please sit.”.