“You don’t wear it?”
Nora looked up.
“Sometimes.”
“I thought you liked it.”
“I do.”
“Then why leave it there?”
Nora returned to her textbook.
“I don’t need people asking about it.”
Rose leaned against the doorway.
“Why?”
“Because then they tell me I was brave.”
“You were.”
Nora shook her head.
“I was scared.”
Rose crossed the room.
“Those are not opposites.”
Nora stopped reading.
Rose sat beside her.
“Brave does not mean comfortable.”
She touched the metal tag.
“It means the fear did not make the decision for you.”
Nora thought about that for a long time.
Then she nodded.
At sixteen, she still spent afternoons at the Steel Vultures garage.
Not every day.
Her world had grown.
School.
Friends.