There's a kind of radar that you get, after years of being talked about and made fun of by other people. You can almost smell it when it's about to happen, can recognize instantly the sound of a hushed voice, lowered just enough to make whatever is said okay. I had only been in Colby for a few weeks. But I had not forgotten.

It's all about you, Colie." She touched one finger to her temple, tap tap tap. "Believe in yourself up here and it will make you stronger than you could ever imagine." There is something infectious about confidence. And for that one moment, with my eyebrows burning and my eyes watering, I believed. "And good hair never hurt either.

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.

I thought again how you could never really know what you were seeing with just a glance, in motion, passing by. Good or bad, right or wrong. There was always so much more.

With total strangers, it had always been my policy to expect the worst. Usually they-and those that you knew best, for that matter-did not disappoint.

It's harder that in looks," I told him when I finally got back in the car. "Most things are.

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