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    The Walk: A Novel
    The Walk: A Novel
    The Walk: A Novel
    Ebook283 pages3 hours

    The Walk: A Novel

    By Richard Paul Evans

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    The first book in the inspiring New York Times bestselling series about an executive who loses everything he holds dear and embarks on a walk across America that changes his life forever.

    What would you do if you lost everything—your job, your home, and the love of your life—all at the same time? When it happens to Seattle ad executive Alan Christoffersen, he’s tempted by his darkest thoughts. Instead, he decides to take a walk. But not any ordinary walk. Taking with him only the barest of essentials, Alan leaves behind all that he’s known and heads for the farthest point on his map: Key West, Florida. The people he encounters along the way, and the lessons they share with him, will save his life—and inspire yours.

    A life-changing journey, both physical and spiritual, The Walk is the first of an unforgettable bestselling series of books about one man’s search for hope.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster
    Release dateApr 6, 2010
    ISBN9781439199909
    Author

    Richard Paul Evans

    Richard Paul Evans is the #1 New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author of more than forty novels. There are currently more than thirty-five million copies of his books in print worldwide, translated into more than twenty-four languages. Richard is the recipient of numerous awards, including two first place Storytelling World Awards, the Romantic Times Best Women’s Novel of the Year Award, and five Religion Communicators Council’s Wilbur Awards. Seven of Richard’s books have been produced as television movies. His first feature film, The Noel Diary, starring Justin Hartley (This Is Us) and acclaimed film director, Charles Shyer (Private Benjamin, Father of the Bride), premiered in 2022. In 2011 Richard began writing Michael Vey, a #1 New York Times bestselling young adult series which has won more than a dozen awards. Richard is the founder of The Christmas Box International, an organization devoted to maintaining emergency children’s shelters and providing services and resources for abused, neglected, or homeless children and young adults. To date, more than 125,000 youths have been helped by the charity. For his humanitarian work, Richard has received the Washington Times Humanitarian of the Century Award and the Volunteers of America National Empathy Award. Richard lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, with his wife, Keri, and their five children and two grandchildren. You can learn more about Richard on his website RichardPaulEvans.com.

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    Reviews for The Walk

    4/5

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    • 4/5
      Alan Christoffersen is a happily married, successful entrepreneur, until one day . . . it all falls apart. Unsure of what life is to bring, Alan gathers his camping gear and heads out the door for a walk.I glanced at this book during lunch, that turned into reading a few pages, and that lead to not wanting to put it down - now that's a sign of a good book. So, in other words, it grabbed me from the start. There is a bit of schmaltz and a smidgeon of unbelievability, but overall I really enjoyed this fast read.The best part? I really, really liked Alan. And, I love how Richard Paul Evans told the story. This is the first of five in the series. I'll definitely be watching for the second.Originally posted on: Thoughts of Joy
    • 4/5
      What happens to a man who has lost everything, his business, his home, his wife, he goes walking. What is he looking for, he does not know. A quick read. It was both sad and happy in parts. I am looking forward to the next one in this trilogy.
    • 4/5
      This book was a quick, easy read. I read it in one sitting. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it was a bit different than I thought it would be. For one, "the walk" didn't start until half way through the book - so I wasn't expecting all the things that happened before then. Tears, people. Wasn't prepared for that. The book reads more like non-fiction than fiction, as if Alan was a real person and this was a retelling of his true story. I enjoyed the second half of the book better than the first. I liked "meeting" the people he met along the way and hearing their stories. I thought the "walk" part of the book was a bit short. I expected him to get farther along on his journey before the story ended. It seemed a little abrupt to me. Overall, it was a nice, feel-good kind of book. 4 of 5 stars. It was good, but missing the "wow" factor.Would I recommend it to my BFF? Sure.Would I recommend it to my 13 year old daughter? Maybe. It would be fine for her to read, but I don't know that she'd enjoy it much.
    • 3/5
      The Walk by Richard Paul Evans - A man who loses everything decides to take a walk, from Washington to Key West. A great idea in itself - I am thinking about Forrest Gump. The folks he meets along the way are interesting and all seem to fit into a greater plan. But I found myself with just a few pages left and realized he was still in Washington. The next page invited me to follow his journey in The Walk part 2 which will be out in 2011. Maybe I should have seen it coming, but didn't, a disappointment.
    • 3/5
      Quick read!
    • 5/5
      “Why do we blame God for the bad things but not the good?”

      I read this book several years ago so this is a reread for me. I was in a major reading slump and wondered if it would help to read a book I’ve already read. Considering i finished it in 2 or 3 days, I’d say it definitely helped. Onto Book #2!
    • 3/5
      I really was pretty sure I wouldn't like this read. I knew was going to be all sappy and sad....But I did enjoy it; enough that I'm going to the next book.
    • 3/5
      An easy quick read. Glad it was short since it was pretty depressing. I would recommend this series to anyone struggling with grief.
    • 5/5
      love, no LOVEEEEEEEED this book. i seriously wrote like every entry from the diary in my quotes book. it was just... no words can describe it . it was great and i cannot wait for the next.
    • 5/5
      This book was referred to me by a close friend. What a beautiful journey to take. I haven't been so engulfed by a book in a long time. An inspiring and related story.
    • 1/5
      I did not find this story inspiring at all. It was full of cliches and absurdities that I found very disappointing, considering the serious nature of the subject matter.
    • 3/5
      A journey of one man's life - how you can go to having it all - to nothing. How small things in life and people are important with a purpose in your life. Very inspiring! Would like a sequel as he ventures to Key West! "
    • 1/5
      Twee & trite. The dust jacket says it all.
    • 1/5
      I really disliked this book because of the ending. I thought his "walk to contemplate life" would be more soul searching and have gut wrenching human emotion, but if fell short. Way short.
    • 5/5
      This is a wonderful read
    • 4/5
      Alan Christofferson is a self-made, very successful “ad-man”. He has it all; the successful business, the beautiful wife who happens to be the love of his life, the mansion and luckily the happiness to go with it. When fate strikes its nasty blow and he tragically loses it all in a matter of what seems like an instant he almost succumbs to a convenient handful of pills. Only the promise to his wife to “live life” keeps him from swallowing those pills. Instead, he embarks on a walk. But not just any walk. He decides to walk to Key West, Florida - the furthest point he can from his home state of Washington. The reader walks with him and meets the people he meets and sees the places he sees. Its not always an easy walk, but well worth the read. Mr. Evans is the bestselling author of THE CHRISTMAS BOX and this is apparently the first of a 5-book series. I will definitely be making the walk for the second book when it is released.
    • 5/5
      I read this last night. I just couldn't put it down. It broke my heart and gave me hope. I didn't know I needed this book...it just fell into my hands. Read this book. It will open you up and make you feel things you didn't know you needed to feel.

      Ordering the next one today.
    • 5/5
      The Walk by Richard Paul Evans; 4 1/2 starsThis is not great literature by any means but it was a very good read.Alan grows up being raised by his father as his mother died of breast cancer. McKale grows up in the house next door being raised by her father as her mother abandoned them.The two become fast friends at an early age and fall in love with each other at 17. They marry young and he goes on to University to become an advertising executive with a very lucrative business of his own. A friend comes in with him to be the go-between with the client and the creative process of the business.One day while in an important meeting with a huge perspective client Alan takes an emergency call from a neighbor. McKale was horseback riding and her horse spooked. She was thrown and it is very bad. He rushes to the hospital where he finds that his wife is indeed in bad shape. Her back is broken and they do not know if she will be paralyzed or not. They will watch & evaluate her and should know more at the 72 hour mark.Alan will not leave his wife's side. When the 72 hours pass the specialists come in to check McKale. She indeed has no feeling from her waist down. The family, her parents, Alan & his father are devastated. The doctors take her back into surgery to repair her spine even though it won't make a difference in her ability to walk they say it must be done. McKale goes through weeks of therapy to gain the upper body strength it will take for her to move in & out of the wheelchair, etc. Alan remains with her, trusting Kyle, his friend & partner in business, to keep things running smoothly at work which he has promised to do.The day comes when Alan can take McKale home. He gets her home and settled and begins to deal with their personal finances which she had always taken care of. The mortgage company calls & tells Alan that they are two months in arrears on the payments of their two million dollar home. Soon he is finding many, many unpaid bills. Upon calling his secretary at work to have money transferred so that he can pay all of these bills she tells him that his partner & friend has left the company taking all of the employees but her, all of the clients and of course all of the company money. Kyle has begun his own ad agency.When it rains it pours. He checks on McKale and questions her as to whether she is okay with him returning to work for a bit. She tells him of course so he goes in to see just how bad it is. Upon getting to his offices he finds out that it is much worse that he had even imagined. He returns home to find McKale half out of her head with fever. Her temperature is 104. So he calls the hospital and they tell him to bring her in immediately. By the time he gets her there her temperature has risen to 105. She has a bad infection and is septic. Alan has a difficult time understanding how this can be but soon realizes that she is in a very bad way. Soon McKale drifts away from Alan. She doesn't want to leave him but her poor tortured body simply cannot fight this.It's hard to want to go on living when your best friend & wife has died, your business has been stolen out from under you, your home is foreclosed upon, your vehicles are repossessed and you have more medical bills than you will ever be able to pay.Alan spends his days in deep depression and finally remembers a man who once told him that things didn't seem so bad when he went out and walked. So he got out a map and an old shoestring and measured out the furthest point on the map from Seattle that he could walk to. Turned out to be the Florida Keys. So he packed up a backpack, dressed in his hiking clothes and thus begins The Walk.This is a quick easy read. Sad but satisfying somehow. Recommended for those in the mood for something of this nature. (it isn't as depressing as it sounds)
    • 5/5
      Writing Style: 4.5; very conversational writing; smooth-sailingTheme: 5.0; Alan Christofferson sets off to Florida (on foot) after his wife (McKale) passes in an unfortunate accident and his business partners ditch him as he recovers from his trialsContent: 4.0; wonderful storyline; powerful writing; two cautions toward the end of book are when the author encourages the NDE phenomenon and on the next to last page when Alan relates his future with his wife he says, "You don't know me. I am no one famous or important. But, like you, I arrived here with a round-trip ticket. Someday I'll go back to that place from whence I came. Back home where McKale waits," of which relays a faulty belief that most if not all will go to heaven someday- which is not the case according to God's WordLanguage: 5.0; I believe one use of vulgarityOverall: 4.5; very inspirational and a great read with the above mentioned cautions; highly recommend***July 18, 2013***
    • 1/5
      I wouldn't have picked this up if I had realized how much of a preachy religious book it was. I guess I need to read blurbs more closely.
      I did read the whole thing. I found it predictable and cliche.
      I really wanted it to be about walking across the country. It's not. It's about a guy who meets one person after another who all have a religious message for him. Don't let the title fool you.
    • 1/5
      Maybe I should be ashamed to admit that I generally love Evans' novels. But, I do. This one gets one star because of it's shameless marketing ploys (ironic since the main character is an ad exec). So, Alan loses everything and decides to walk across the country. Fine. The book is fairly interesting. We see Alan dealing with grief, learning from people, meeting people who are kind to him, tenuously reaching out to others. I could do with far less narration of Alan's food choices, though, just for the record. Anyway, I start to notice that Alan is still in Washington state when he is supposed to be walking to Florida. I am 3/4 of the way through the novel. My suspicions are raised, and I finish only to find that this is part of a series. Moreover, the novel just cuts off. There is zero sense of finality or closure, very little emotional resolution. It's like Evans just decided, hmmm... that's long enough for a book. I'll stop there and use the rest of the story to write another one. Then, I make twice as much money. Um... you are breaking the rules! You are intentionally chunking up your already stretched-thin story into a money-making series. I have no problem with series that also function as individual books or functional cliff-hangers (Narnia, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings). I have a major problem with essentially chopping a novel in half and selling it in two parts. Not to mention, half of this novel is blank pages...chapter headings take up a whole page. There is a page with each chapter that contains one quote and nothing more. Most chapters are engineered to end in such a way that there is at least a page and a half of blank space before the chapter heading. I have taught college students, and Evans has essentially turned in a ten page paper in a size sixteen font with two inch margins. There is no reason, other than money, that Evans couldn't have cut all that crap and written a single self-respecting novel rather than an ode to publishing and the sheep who will buy this crap. Had I paid for this novel, I would be seriously aggravated...oh wait, I already am.
    • 4/5
      Another good book by RPE - my favorite author. Whenever I just want a good, easy, relaxing, enjoyable read I can always count on him! Thankfully I can move right on into Miles to Go!
    • 5/5
      Losing everything at one time is devastating. Reading about it is more real than you can imagine. Evans starts a 5 book journey through Alan's life. I feel like I know Alan and love how realistic his reactions are! You must read!
    • 3/5
      read it in about 2 hours--easy read and interesting enough to start a family conversation or two about what one might want to accomplish in life. Sappy, predictable...but a decent read!
    • 5/5
      I think the blip on the inside jacket drew me in. For some reason, this author never appealed to me....before this story.When Alan's perfect life falls apart, he decides to walk away. Literally! After his beautiful wife is killed as the result of an accident, after his successful ad agency is "hi-jacked" by those he left in charge, after his cars and home are repossessed, all in the same month, he reacts by leaving it all. He decides to walk from Washington state to Key West, FL. This book is the first in a series about his walk. It kept me captivated with the writing and description and the story. You can feel Alan's emotions in this book.One interesting thing.....he eats like a trucker because he is backpacking through the mountains at the beginning. I loved the descriptions of the food and the diners. EXCELLENT!
    • 5/5
      This is a great book. I happened to live in Leavenworth, Cashmere, and Wenatchee, WA, which is the path Alan takes on his walk through Washington State. I live in Rapid City, SD and his second book, Miles To Go, will be Alan's journal as he crosses through South Dakota. Although it is unlikely anyone else has happened to grow up and live in the first part of Alan's journey, it is an opportunity for the reader to see America from his point of view. My understanding is that the author will be writing five novels documenting Alan's travels to Key West Florida. I read the first book in about 4 hours and will likely blaze through the rest of them as they hit the book stores. A must read!
    • 4/5
      An easy, but profound read. If you let yourself feel emotion, you will. If you don't, you will still walk away with lessons learned. A rare book that entertains and makes you look deeper in yourself.RPE writes that "We can spend our days bemoaning our losses, or we can grow from them. Ultimately the choice is ours. We can be victims of circumstance or masters of our own fate, but make no mistake, we cannot be both". What will I decide?
    • 5/5
      Loved this book - inspirational tale of Alan and how deals with his losses. Fictional story but could be anybody's story.Having just dealt with the loss of my Grandmother, I could empathize with Alan. Richard Paul Evans never disappoints me.
    • 5/5
      Super quick read. Evans pulls you into the emotions of his characters. I believe his portrayal of a man losing everything, the resultant despair, and his coping methods was very realistic. His encounters along the way are inspirational and they make the reader think about what is truly important in life. I am looking forward to the next book in the series.
    • 4/5
      I thought it was a Interesting book some parts it was slow but most was pretty good.

    Book preview

    The Walk - Richard Paul Evans

    CHAPTER

    One

    Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it.

    —Kierkegaard

    Alan Christoffersen’s diary

    According to legend, once the sand of Key West is in your shoes, you cannot go back from whence you came. It is true for me. I’m alone on the beach watching the blood-red sun baptized in the Gulf of Mexico. And there is no returning to what I left behind.

    The air is saturated with the smells of salt water and kelp and the sounds of breaking waves and screeching seagulls. Some part of me wonders if this might be a dream and hopes I’ll wake in bed and find that I’m still in Seattle, and McKale is gently running her fingernails up and down my back. She would whisper, Are you awake, my love? I would turn to her and say, You’ll never believe what I just dreamed.

    But it’s no dream. I’ve walked the entire length of the country. And the woman I love is never coming back.

    The water before me is as blue as windshield wiper fluid. I feel the twilight breeze against my unshaven, sunburned face, and I close my eyes. I’ve come a long way to get here—nearly 3,500 miles. But, in ways, I’ve come much further. Journeys cannot always be measured in physical distance.

    I slide the backpack off my shoulders and sit down on the sand to untie my shoes and pull off my socks. My threadbare, once white, now-gray cotton socks stick to my feet as I peel them off. Then I step forward on the wet, shell-studded sand and wait for the receding water to return and cover my feet. I’ve had hundreds of hours to think about this moment, and I let it all roll over me: the wind, the water, the past and present, the world I left behind, the people and towns along the way. It’s hard to believe I’m finally here.

    After a few minutes, I go back and sit cross-legged in the sand next to my pack and do what I always do at the pivotal moments of my life: I take out a pen, open my diary, and begin to write.

    My writing habit began long ago—long before this diary, long before my walk. The Christmas I was eight years old, my mother gave me my first diary. It was a small, yellow vinyl book debossed with deep flourishes. My favorite feature was its brass key and lock. It made me feel important to have something in my life of such consequence that I needed to lock it up from the world. That Christmas night was the first time in my life that I wrote in a diary. I figured with the lock and all, only I would be reading it, so I wrote the entry to myself, a habit I would continue the rest of my life.

    Dear Alan,

    Today is Christmas. I got a Rock’em Sockem Robots, a set of walky-talkys and red sweetish fish that I already ate. Mom gave me this diary with a lock and key and told me I should write every day. I asked her to write on my first page.

    My Dear Son,

    Thank you for letting me write in your special book. And Merry Christmas! It is a very special Christmas. You will someday understand this. Every so often read these words and remember how much I love you and always will.

    —Mom

    Mom says it doesn’t matter what I write and if I wait to write just the importent things then I’ll probly never write anything, because importent things just look like everything else except when you look back on them. The thing is to write what yor thinking and feelling. Mom looked better today. I think she’ll be better soon.

    I’ve touched that writing so often that it’s barely legible. My mother’s entry was one of those events she spoke of, the kind that look like nothing except through time’s rearview mirror. My mother died from breast cancer forty-nine days later—on Valentine’s Day.

    It was early in the morning, before I usually got up for school, that my father led me into the room to see her. On the nightstand next to her bed there was a single yellow rose in a bud vase and my homemade Valentine’s card, with a drawing of a heart with an arrow through it. Her body was there, but she wasn’t. She would have smiled and called to me. She would have praised my drawing. I knew she wasn’t there.

    In my father’s typical stoic manner, we never spoke about her death. We never talked about feelings nor the things that gave rise to them. That morning he made me breakfast, then we sat at the table, listening to the silence. The people from the mortuary came and went, and my father managed everything with the steadiness of a business transaction. I’m not saying he didn’t care. He just didn’t know how to show his feelings. That was my father. I never once kissed him. That’s just the way he was.

    The reason we start things is rarely the reason we continue them.

    Alan Christoffersen’s Road Diary

    I started writing in my diary because my mother told me to. After her death, I continued because to stop would be to break a chain that connected me to her. Then, gradually, even that changed. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the reason I wrote was always changing. As I grew older, I wrote as proof of my existence. I write, there-fore I am.

    I am. In each of us, there is something that, for better or worse, wants the world to know we existed. This is my story—my witness of myself and the greatest journey of my life. It began when I least expected it. At a time when I thought nothing could possibly go wrong.

    CHAPTER

    Two

    The garden of Eden is an archetype for all who have lost, which is the whole of humanity. To have is to lose, as to live is to die. Still, I envy Adam. For though he lost Eden, he still had his Eve.

    Alan Christoffersen’s diary

    Before my world collapsed, I was a Seattle advertising executive, though, admittedly, that title rings a bit pretentious for someone who decorated his office with Aquaman figurines and Einstein posters. I was an ad guy. You could ask what got me into this line of business, but I really couldn’t tell you. It’s just something I always wanted to do. Maybe it was because I wanted to be Darrin on Bewitched. (I had a boyhood crush on Elizabeth Montgomery.) In 1998, I graduated from college in graphic design and landed a job before the ink on my diploma dried.

    I thrived in the ad world and relished the life of a young rising star. A wunderkind. I won two ADDY’s my first year and four the next. Then, after three years of making my bosses rich, I followed the preferred path of ad agencies, law firms, and organized religion and split off to form my own company. I was only twenty-eight years old when they pressed the name of my agency in vinyl lettering on my office door.

    MADGIC

    Advertising and Graphic Design

    The company grew from two employees to a dozen in just nine weeks, and I was making more money than a Barbra Streisand ticket scalper. One of my clients proclaimed me a poster boy for the American dream. After two years, I had all the accoutrements of material success: my own business, a Lexus sports coupe, European vacations, and a beautiful, $1.9 million home in Bridle Trails—an exclusive, wooded neighborhood just north of Bellevue with an equestrian park and riding trails instead of sidewalks.

    And, to complete this picture of success, I had a wife I adored—a brunette beauty named McKale. Potential clients would ask me if I could sell their products, and I would show them a picture of McKale and say, I got her to marry me, and they would nod in astonishment and give me their business.

    McKale was the love of my life and, literally, the girl next door. I met her when I had just turned nine, about four months after my mother died and my father moved us from Colorado to Arcadia, California.

    It was late summer, and McKale was sitting alone in her front yard at a card table, selling Kool-Aid from a glass pitcher. She wore a short, above-the-knee skirt with pink cowboy boots. I asked her if I could help, and she looked me over for a moment then said, No.

    I ran upstairs to my bedroom and drew her a large, poster board–sized sign:

    Kold Kool-Ade

    Just 10¢

    (I thought the K on Kold was a nice touch.) I went back down and presented my creation. She liked my sign enough to let me sit next to her. I suppose that’s really why I got into advertising: to get the girl. We talked and drank Dixie cups of her black cherry elixir, which she still made me pay for. She was beautiful. She had perfect features: long, coffee-brown hair, freckles, and chocolate-syrup brown eyes that even an ad guy couldn’t over hype. We ended up spending a lot of time together that summer. Actually, every summer from then on.

    Like me, McKale had no siblings. And she too had been through tough times. Her parents divorced about two months before we moved in. As she told the story, it wasn’t a usual divorce preceded by a lot of yelling and breaking of things. Her mother just up and left, leaving her alone with her father, Sam. McKale’s mind was always processing what had gone wrong though, at times, she seemed stuck, like when a computer locks up and you sit there watching the hourglass, waiting for something to happen. It’s a shame that humans don’t come with reset buttons.

    Our broken pieces fit together. We shared our deepest secrets, insecurities, fears, and, at times, our hearts. When I was ten, I started calling her Mickey. She liked that. It was the same year we built a tree house in her backyard. We spent a lot of time in it. We played board games, like Mouse Trap and Sorry, and we even had sleepovers. On her eleventh birthday, I found her there sitting in the corner, crying hysterically. When she could speak, she said, How could she leave me? How could a mother just do that? She wiped her eyes angrily.

    I couldn’t answer her. I had wondered the same thing.

    You’re lucky your mother died, she said.

    I didn’t like that. I’m lucky my mother died?

    Between sobs she said, Your mother would have stayed if she could. My mother chose to leave me. She’s still out there somewhere. I wish she had died instead.

    I sat down next to her and put my arm around her. I’ll never leave you.

    She laid her head on my shoulder. I know.

    McKale was my guide to the female world. One time she wanted to kiss just to see what the big deal was. We kissed for about five minutes. I liked it. A lot. I’m not so sure she did because she never asked to do it again, so we didn’t.

    That was the way it was with us. If McKale didn’t like something, we didn’t do it. I could never figure out why she always got to make the rules, but I always followed them. I eventually decided that’s just how things were.

    She was very frank about growing up a girl. Sometimes I’d ask her things, and she’d say, I don’t know. This is new to me too.

    When she was thirteen, I asked her why she didn’t have girlfriends.

    She answered as if she’d given it a lot of thought. I don’t like girls.

    Why?

    I don’t trust them. Then she added, I like horses.

    McKale went horseback riding just about every week. Every month or so, she invited me to come, but I always told her I was busy. The truth was that I was terrified of horses. Once, when I was seven, Dad, Mom, and I took a summer vacation to a dude ranch in Wyoming called Juanita Hot Springs. On our second day, we went on a horseback ride. My horse was a paint named Cherokee. I had never been on a horse before, so I held onto the leather saddle horn with one hand and the reins with the other, hating every moment of it. During the ride, some of the cowboys decided to race, and my horse decided to join them. When he bolted, I dropped the reins and clung to the horn, screaming for help. Fortunately, one of the cowboys turned back to rescue me, though he couldn’t hide his contempt for my city boy ways. All he said was, I been riding since I was three. Not surprisingly, I never shared McKale’s love of horses.

    Horses aside, we were almost always together, from elementary school through the awkward ages, including the middle-school years—the armpit of life. At the age of fifteen, McKale physically matured, and high school boys started buzzing around her house like yellow jackets at a barbecue. Of course, I noticed the change in her too, and it drove me crazy. You’re not supposed to have those kinds of feelings about your best friend.

    I was purple with jealousy. I didn’t have a chance against those guys. They had mustaches. I had acne. They had muscle cars. I had a bus pass. I was remarkably uncool.

    McKale’s father’s parenting style was best described as laissez-faire, and when he let her date in junior high, she could barely keep track of her own social schedule. After her dates she would come over to my house to debrief, which was a little like describing the buffet meal you just ate to a starving man. I remember after one of her dates she asked, Why do men always want to possess you?

    I shook my head. I don’t know, I replied, wanting to

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