Flipped – Get a grip, man

这一章里也有对Bryce很细致的心理描写,对Juli的态度转变:

Spare me. I mean, what’s wrong with letting a guy cut down a tree on his own
property so he can build a house? His lot, his tree, his decision. End of story. The
piece in the paper was gag-me gush.
Except. Except for the places where they quoted Juli. Maybe it was just in
contrast to the reporter’s slant or something, but Juli’s parts didn’t come off ohwoe-is-me like I was expecting. They were, I don’t know, deep. Sitting in that
tree was seriously philosophical to her.
And the odd thing is, it all made sense to me. She talked about what it felt like
to be up in that tree, and how it, like, transcended dimensional space. “To be held
above the earth and brushed by the wind,” she said, “it’s like your heart has been
kissed by beauty.” Who in junior high do you know that would put together a
sentence like that? None of my friends, that’s for sure.
There was other stuff, too, like how something can be so much more than the
parts it took to make it, and why people need things around them that lift them
above their lives and make them feel the miracle of living.
I wound up reading and re-reading her parts, wondering when in the world she
started thinking like that. I mean, no kidding, Juli Baker’s smart, but this was
something way beyond straight A’s.
A month ago if I’d read this article, I would have chucked it in the trash as complete garbage, but for some reason it made sense to me now. A lot of sense.
A month ago I also wouldn’t have paid any attention to the picture of Juli, but
now I found myself staring at it. Not the one of the whole scene — that was
more emergency rescue equipment than Juli. The other one, on the bottom half
of the page. Someone must’ve used a killer telephoto lens, because you can tell
that she’s in the tree, but it’s mostly from the shoulders up. She’s looking off into
the distance and the wind is blowing her hair back like she’s at the helm of a ship
or something, sailing into the sun.
I’d spent so many years avoiding Juli Baker that I’d never really looked at her,
and now all of a sudden I couldn’t stop. This weird feeling started taking over the
pit of my stomach, and I didn’t like it. Not one bit. To tell you the truth, it scared
the Sheetrock out of me.
I buried the paper under my pillow and tried to remind myself of what a pain
Juli Baker was. But my mind started to wander again, and pretty soon I had that
stupid paper out from under my pillow.
This was insane! What was I doing?
I made myself shut out the light and go to bed. I was slipping, man, and it was
definitely time to get a grip.

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