{"product_id":"2940013399921","title":"Stubbs and Bernadette","description":"She's finally found a friend she can't drive away. And he's a boy.\u003cbr\u003eHe's finally found the perfect girl. And she's wrong in every way.\u003cbr\u003eYou cannot be yourself, until you know who you are.\u003cbr\u003e---------------------------------------------------\u003cbr\u003eBernie kicks a tiny pebble off the edge of the curb, then walks a stately circle around him, his hand in hers. He scans the sidewalk once, looking for the people he always feels must be staring at them and their odd ways, but there’s no one. After the first turn or two, he makes her drop his hand so he can stand still and wait for her, and she trails her fingers around him at waist level as she takes a few more orbits.\u003cbr\u003e“I have a syndrome,” she announces, hitching up her pack and taking off down the sidewalk. He’ll never know how tough that was for her to say. She hopes she’s done.\u003cbr\u003e“A syndrome?” he says, catching up to her. So she’s not done. Well, he can wait. She tightropes slowly down the length of a meandering crack.\u003cbr\u003e“Disorder, disease, complex... some stupid thing. Whatever. Excuse me,” she says politely, nose to nose with the telephone pole living at the end of the crack. It stands there, not moving.\u003cbr\u003e“Excuse me!” she says. No movement from the pole, but behind her, Tyler looks around again.\u003cbr\u003e“Step aside, pole!” she says rudely, waving the pole aside with the back of her hand and moving on. She’s quite pleased with herself. She’d thought it would be harder to tell him. It was actually pretty easy. Well, maybe he’ll need more than that... She walks slowly, watching her feet and trying to feel his mood. The solid heft of him there in the air behind her, she can feel that, the anchored-ness of him, but not anything resembling a mood.\u003cbr\u003e“Pills,” she says, out of the clear blue.\u003cbr\u003e“Pills?”\u003cbr\u003e“Yeah. Pills. I’m supposed to take them.”\u003cbr\u003e“You don’t?”\u003cbr\u003e“You kidding me?”\u003cbr\u003eThey walk another block in silence, and then she sinks to the bench of a bus stop. He settles beside her, his arm along the edge of the bench behind her thin shoulders. He studies her ear lobe a while, wondering when he’s going to get up the courage to kiss her. Wondering which is worse, trying too soon or trying too late. He looks away.\u003cbr\u003e“No pills,” she says. “No alienness. No... whatever,” losing him completely. He’s used to it. He just waits.\u003cbr\u003e“This is me... you don’t like me, you step aside, like that stupid pole. This is me. Pills... pills are just... Pills are alien. Pills and syndromes and stupidness like that,” and she’s up off the bench and moving fast.\u003cbr\u003e“Better the me I am than the alien I’m not,” she says when he catches up, and then three blocks go by in total silence.","brand":"Inflatable Rider Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47068758474992,"sku":"2940013399921","price":4.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013399921_p0.jpg?v=1763591954","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013399921","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}