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I’ll study business and engineering, possibly. I want to get married and have a family. I want to travel. I don’t like staying still, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.”
    She had. Simon was as ADD as they came, constantly tapping his foot or drumming with his fingers.
    “What about you? What’s your plan?”
    “I don’t know, exactly. I’ve never been a big planner. I like to live moment by moment, and see where that takes me.”
    Simon laughed. “What’s that like?”
    “Too complicated for mere mortals such as yourself to comprehend,” she said, reclining into the seat. “Seriously, though? I know I want to be someone who makes a difference. Even to just one person. And for me, that’s the dream. It’s a simple dream, but it’s my dream.”
    Simon smiled at the road, at the curve just before her house and the lights that guided them there. “That’s far from simple.”
    When he pulled in the driveway, he slid the shift into park and waited there. Something told her not to move. Not just yet.
    “Do you think people can change?” he asked. “Fundamentally, to their core?”
    She didn’t even have to think about it. “Yes. Absolutely. That’s what faith is for, isn’t it? Believing that God changes us?”
    “So you think there’s hope for everyone? You think we can evolve into this attainable, best version of ourselves?”
    “I do,” she said. “Don’t you?”
    His face hardened, his eyes fixing forward. “I don’t know. I’ve seen too many people incapable of change to fully believe it’s actually possible. I’d like to believe. I just have my doubts.”
    She didn’t know where this was coming from, and she didn’t know the right words to say to make him believe her. Of course people could change. They shifted and grew and sank every single day. Of course , she thought, of course we change.
    “Maybe you should pray about it. I think . . . people can change, if they really, truly want to.”
    “I reject that,” he said, his voice cutting across the dead air. “People can work their entire lives to be something, and never get it. Take dreams, for example. I may work years to own my own business, but that doesn’t guarantee it’s going to happen. I want to be a better person; I do. But that doesn’t mean I will.”
    “That’s a sad way of thinking.”
    “Prove me wrong, then.”
    He turned in his seat toward her, almost like a challenge. He really did want her to prove him wrong. He wanted her to give him the words that would make sense to him, but all she could offer was the feeling of what she knew so certainly within her.
    “It’s not about proof,” she said. “It’s about mindset. I can’t change your mind. I could list dozens of examples, but even that wouldn’t be enough. You’ll still believe what you want to believe.”
    He relaxed, just faintly. His eyes opening wider. “Interesting.”
    “What’s that?”
    “I think you know me much better than I realized.”
    “You underestimate me,” she said, without the faintest hint of a playfulness.
    “I certainly have,” he said.
    When she waved goodbye from her front porch, she had the distinct feeling that tonight, she’d made an impression, and that it was a good one.

Chapter 11
    Now
    In the end, it was the painting that made her want to leave home that weekend. Claudia liked it even more than Wendy expected, immediately hanging it up on the wall beside her bed, so it just propped itself up against the eggshell walls, taunting her. Wendy would see it every night before bed, when she’d pass by Claudia’s room. Claudia would sit in her bed, earphones plugged into her computer, beneath the scene straight out of her sister’s own life.
    Sure, it made Wendy a little proud. But ultimately, it made her sick to her stomach.
    She decided it would be best for everyone if she spent the weekend with Vivian. It had been weeks since she’d been out around people her own age, people who had more to talk about than taxes