When I was little, I used to go to the local ice-skating rink. In my mind, I always felt like I could twirl and jump, but when I got out onto the ice, I could barely keep my blades straight. When I got older, that's how it was with people: In my mind, I am bold and forthright, but what comes out always seems to be so meek and polite. Even with Evan, my boyfriend for junior and most of senior year, I never quite managed to be that skating, twirling, leaping person I suspected I could be. But today, apparently, I can skate.

Or maybe it's not a miracle. Maybe this is just life. When you open yourself up to it. When you put yourself in the path of it. When you say yes.

Suddenly, it's all too much. Bryn and the bump watch. Vanessa with my high school yearbook. The idea that nothing's sacred. Everything's fodder. That my life belongs to anyone but me.

Losing me will hurt; it will be the kind of pain that won't feel real at first, and when it does, it will take her breath away.

Concert' doesn’t mean standing up like a target in front of thousands of strangers. It means coming together. It means harmony.

And the voice grows stronger and stronger, and it’s my voice this time and it’s asking a question: How does she know?

It takes certain kind of naiveté, or perhaps just stupidity, to know things will end and still hope otherwise.