I wasn't very happy in high school: it was a confusing and sort of sad time for me.

Your mother won a special reward," she told me, "because everyone had a head in her pictures. We all applauded.

You know, I think I knew you for about three weeks before I ever really saw you smile. And then one day, Morgan said something and you laughed, and I remember thinking it was really cool because it meant something. You're not the kind of person who smiles for nothing, Colie. I have to earn every one.

She was just a shell of her former self, functioning and talking but hardly alive.

It's still a memory worth having, even if it's not exactly what you imagined.

None of it meant anything, and all of it was important.

But it was too early to know: there were always more pages to go, more words to be written, before the story was over.