You can't just plan a moment when things get back on track, just as you can't plan the moment you lose your way in the first place.

But anyone can begin. It was the part with all the promise, the potential, the things I loved. More and more, though, I was finding myself wanting to find out what happened in the end.

And guys don't get attached, guys don't give themselves over completely, and guys lie. That's why they should be handled with great trepidation, not trusted, and held at arm's length whenever possible.

As Isabel acted out her date, both of them laughing, I stayed in the kitchen, out of sight, and pretended she was telling me, too. And that, for once, I was part of this hidden language of laughter and silliness and girls that was, somehow, friendship.

And I felt a sudden whirl in my head, knowing this leap was inevitable, that I wasn't just standing on the cliff, toes poking over, but already in mid-air.

I would have thought this would make me feel better.. getting to be the one to leave and not the one left behind. But it didn't. Not at all.

So many versions of just one memory, and yet none of them were right or wrong. Instead, they were all pieces. Only when fitted together, edge to edge, could they even begin to tell the whole story.