That was the thing. You just never knew. Forever was so many different things. It was always changing, it was what everything was really all about.

Everything, in the end, comes down to timing. One second, one minute, one hour could make all the difference.

Self respect, Colie. If you don't have it, the world will walk all over you.

But something, somehow, had made all these paths converge. You couldn't find it on a checklist, or work it into the equation. It just happened.

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

When I pictured myself, it was always like just an outline in a colouring book, with the inside not yet completed.

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 standing there alone on the landing, I thought of Grandma Halley and how she'd held me close against her lap as we watched the sky together. I'd always thought I couldn't remember, but suddenly in that moment, I closed my eyes and saw the comet, finally, brilliant and impossible, stretching above me across the sky.