Cousins

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Laurie and I were first cousins and next-door neighbors. We were both fifteen, though I was six months older, and were in the same grade in school. We were both only children, and not having brothers or sisters, we had grown up close to each other, almost like brother and sister. If asked, we would both characterize the other as best friend.

One main reason we were so close was that we were both afflicted with the same malady-overwhelming, shivering, breakout-in-cold-sweat shyness. I would get tongue-tied around girls of any age and was too quiet to have any boys as close friends. Laurie was the same. She would blush bright red if a boy even spoke to her, and her interests were too different from other girls her age for her to have any close girl friends. We both loved to read and to listen to music, and these shared interests together with our mutually recognized shyness drew us together like opposite poles of a magnet.

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