Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -… [60]

Silvia Dunn, Hector Quintanilla, Curtis Talcott, and Drew Baiter, along with my brothers Keith and Marcus. The other kids’ parents had helped with costs. They thought a proper baptism was important enough to spend some money and take some risks. I was the oldest by about two months. Curtis was next. As much as I hated being there, I hated even more that Curtis was there. I care about him more than I want to. I care what he thinks of me. I worry that I’ll fall apart in public some day and he’ll see. But not today. — , Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -…, 60

Note

The paragraph opens in ledger-keeping — full names, budgets, birth-order precision — and then abandons the ledger entirely for the admission it was avoiding. ‘I care about him more than I want to’ is the turn, and the clipped ‘But not today’ shuts the door the way Lauren always shuts a thought she can’t afford to finish in public.