dupe
Her way of preserving peace between us is to think that I'm incapable of coming up with my own ideas. My head is a bucket, basically, and other people come along and drop ideas into it. This means that when I disagree with her, it's not really out of my own willfulness; I just didn't protect the inside of my bucket-head well enough. (The alternative is to think of me as a calculating opponent, purposefully against her.)
fibrosis
There are relationships held together by scar tissue and not much else.
indignant
A car protesting at getting towed - its alarm going off in the early morning.
lures
She tosses food to the birds, but not to feed them - only to get them closer to her when she begins her chase.
scattering
Her brain trips her up. She makes rapid deductions, but can't focus well. She chases down each stray piece of information no matter how irrelevant it is.
scholastic
It's a theater of the academic: pants rolled at the ankles, square-framed glasses, bike and backpack, a spotty beard.
staged
The barrel outside the store has filled with rain, and now the lamplight dances in it.
