Just like that, with one phone call, she was a daughter again.

I looked down again at the sign in my hand - ENJOY THE RIDE! - and it seemed, suddenly, to be just that. A sign.

Times like this it did seem real I was leaving, and even more that my family, and this life, would go on without me. And again I felt that emptiness rise up, but pushed it away. Still, I lingered there, in the doorway, memorizing the noise. The moment. Tucking it away out of sight, to be remembered when I needed it most.

Because the truth sometimes hurts," I said. Yeah," he said. "So do lies, though.

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

In midair, dangling lost above the world.

But even more so, it reminded me that this was all really happening. Stanford. The end of the summer. The beginning of my real life. It was no longer just creeping up, peeking over the horizon, but instead lingering in plain sight.