“Because it wasn’t just my private Idaho anymore. It was our private Idaho.”

“I straightened my tie. Looked in the mirror. For the first time in a long time, I liked what I saw. It was time to stop playing devil’s advocate. Time to grow up. Time to work at being a real devil’s advocate.”

“‘I didn’t come here to make friends,’ I shouted. Suddenly, her hand was on my shoulder. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘I know. But you made them anyway.’ The rest of them stepped out from the shadows, forming a circle around me. They were all my friends now.”

“‘If you can’t handle me at my best,’ she said, placing a hand under her chin and peeling away the skin, ‘YOU DESERVE ME AT MY WORST.'”

“Helplessly I realized that although I had shot for the moon base, I had missed. We had landed among the stars, and would die soon.”

“We screamed, then. For ice cream, certainly. But mostly for ourselves.”

“I can’t,” I sobbed. “I can’t even.” Her eyes were soft, and gentle. I believe in you,” she said. “I believe that you can even.”

“Ninety-eight…ninety-nine…one hundred years of solitude. Time to go home and see all of my friends, who were still alive after one hundred years, I sure hoped.”

“It hadn’t killed me. As I lifted myself free of my bonds, tossing screaming villagers left and right like droplets from a spring shower, I realized it had, in fact, only made me stronger. Terribly, horribly stronger.”

“‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Isn’t it pretty to think so?’ It was. It really was. I curled up next to her and we fell asleep smiling, thinking of how pretty it was.”

“But the lambs weren’t silent anymore. They were singing.”