I wanted to tell you everything. And that hurt because some things were too scary. Some things even I didn’t understand. How could I tell someone—someone I was really talking to for the first time—everything I was thinking? I couldn’t. It was too soon.

I’m going to be mentally ill in fifteen years, and that’s why my husband doesn’t want to be around me.

I sat. And I thought. And the more I thought, connecting the events in my life, the more my heart collapsed.

I decided to find out how people at school might react if one of the students never came back.

And everyone knows you can’t disprove a rumor.

No one knows for certain how much impact they have on the lives of other people. Oftentimes, we have no clue. Yet we push it just the same.

I want to look back. To look over my shoulder and see the Stop sign with huge reflective letters, pleading with Hannah. Stop!