He was just less afraid, and less afraid because less wounded, and it turns out that the amount of fear you carry into a moment shapes what you are able to believe in it more powerfully than any amount of intelligence.

I envied him that, watching him stand there puzzled but not panicked.

I have spent a good deal of the time since trying to build, in myself, a little more of his unwounded ease.

He opened his mouth to say something, I will never know what, because before a single word came out, a sound rose up from outside that stopped both of us cold: the crunch of car tires rolling slowly onto our gravel driveway.

Chapter 16 — Tires on the Gravel