Run, she almost says, when the first girl smiles at her for the first time – Run fast, don’t dare look back, there are wolves in these woods and they are hunting.

She wants to leave herself, just buy a bus ticket and keep right on going ‘til she reaches a coast somewhere, too hot and bright for wolves to live or woods to grow; she wants turn back the way she came and curl up in the dark belly of that house, where she’s safe with the covers pulled up to her chin, always warm and always fed.

This is what it takes to get out: another girl’s loneliness and the lure of a love too close to hunger; he honors them because he wants to honor her.