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“Sure you are.”
“Please,” Becca said. “Kate was always the golden girl. Got all the good grades, did all the right things. I was always the black sheep of the family.”
“Really?”
“Uh, really,” she said. “I was always second best. Kate always got better grades, she was better at sports, she never got in any trouble.”
“You got in trouble?” Griz said.
“Drove my dad bonkers. He still blames his gray hairs on me.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Not outlaw biker level of trouble,” she said. “Just acting out, you know, defiant teenager stuff. I guess I didn’t know what to make of myself. I never had any talent at anything.”
“Of course you do,” Griz said.
“You’re just being nice. All I was ever able to do was get people to like me. Make deals, you know?”
“Yeah, but that’s a talent, too.”
“Meh,” Becca said. “Not really. Not like science or something like that. It’s not smart.”
“It’s just a different kind of smart,” Griz said. “You know how to talk to people to get them to do what you want.”
Becca frowned at that. “That doesn’t sound smart, exactly. More like manipulative.”
“That’s not how I meant it,” Griz said. “If your intentions are good, then you still have to convince people that your ideas are good ideas. You’re really good at that.”
“I think they call that Social Intelligence or something,” she said.
“There, see? Just another kind of smart.”
“Well,” she said, “you’re another kind of smart as well, Griz.”
How about these apples, she thought.I think I might actually have something in common with the Wookie. Who would’ve thought?
“To being another kind of smart,” she said, and raised her little plastic cup.
To her great and sudden surprise, Griz actually spoke without being spoken to first. It was such a shock, she felt like she should mark down the date and time or something.
“Why did you run away?” he said.
“I told you, I don’t want anyone else getting hurt because of me,” Becca said. “I screw everything up, I didn’t want to screw everybody else’s lives up too.”
“You don’t screw everything up,” Griz said.
“Uh, yeah I do,” she said. “I screwed up my whole life, just a couple of days ago, and then I came out here and screwed it up some more.”
“Did you ever think about living another kind of life?”
“What, like this outlaw biker thing?” Becca said. “Ha! No way.”
“Why not?”
“Well, for starters, the violence, Chewie. I told you, I hate violence. I never got in any fights growing up. I’d either run away or talk my way out of it. And that’s the way I like it.”
“Sometimes you have to fight,” Griz said.
