Angela picked at her food, pushing it around on her plate and occasionally bringing a small morsel to her lips to nibble at. Her mother scrutinized her, concerned. “Are you okay, sweetie?” Edna asked. She reached out and felt her daughter’s forehead. “You feel a little feverish.”

“I’m fine, Mom. Really,” Angela protested, pulling away from her mother’s hand. “Just… thinking about an assignment I have for class. That’s all.”

“Oh, really? What kind of assignment?”

“It’s a scrapbook,” Angela said slowly. “We have to basically outline how we’ve changed since we’ve started school.”

“Well, there’s a whole bunch of your old photos that we can go through, and I’ve saved your old report cards and drawings. You could start there,” Edna suggested.

“Maybe,” Angela replied with a shrug.

“If you want, I’ll help you out,” Jill spoke up. “I’ve always been good at artsy stuff.”

Angela feigned a cheerful smile and chirped, “That would be great!”

Who cares about the past? Angela thought. Right now, I’m more concerned about ensuring that I have the kind of future I want. That’s the project I’m more interested in!


“Goddamn them,” Jade growled, slamming her apartment door shut. “I ****ing hate them!” she added, yelling.

Mark hurried out of the bathroom, startled. “What happened?” he asked, anxiously.

Jade whipped around and exclaimed, “You’re still here? I thought you were going back to your place!”

“Yeah, to feed my cat. I fed her and then came back. I figured I could cook something for you and be gone by the time you got back.”

Jade smiled a little and replied, “You don’t have to do that, you know.”

“Well, I don’t want you to feel like I’m using you.”

“You’re not. Promise,” Jade replied. Sometimes, I feel like I’m the one using you, she added, to herself.

“So, what happened to tick you off so bad?” Mark asked.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s nothing you should be concerned about.”

“Really?”

“Really. Look,” Jade replied, feigning a big, cheerful grin, “I’m fine. Happy, happy, happy!”


“I can tell you what’s wrong with Jade. She’s a psych major, right? Psych majors are the most messed up in the head,” Valo declared, “and I’m allowed to say that because I am one.”

“Yeah?” Ophelia replied. “How are you messed up in the head?”

Valo smirked and said, “With me, the better question is, how am I not messed up in the head? If I started going into all the stuff I’ve dealt with, you’ll probably think, ‘How is it that she’s not on serious medication?’ or something like that.”

“Try me,” Ophelia challenged.

Valo held her arm out and pointed to a scar. “Got this when I was about 13 or so. My much younger brother scratched my arm hard enough to rip skin off and draw blood. My mom said I shouldn’t complain, that the kid didn’t know any better. Trust me, he was old enough to know not to scratch hard enough to rip my skin off and make me bleed, and he knew what ‘no‘ meant. Care to hear about the time my mom didn’t bother to bring me to the doctor until my tonsils were so swollen, I had a space roughly the size of a coffee stirrer to breathe through?”


“No, you’ve proven your point,” Ophelia responded quickly. “Now, back to the discussion of the scrapbook thing.”

“Right,” Tacita spoke up. “You could try more unconventional methods, like a PowerPoint presentation, you know.”

“That’s kind of a cool idea,” Emily said, nodding.

“Or a video scrapbook,” Valo added. “Like, videotape yourself with the different artifacts and explain why they’re important to you. Or, even better, show home movies in there, like when you were the lead role in the third grade play. Stuff like that. I have a bunch of pictures and stuff like that from when I was in a lot of plays; I did a lot of acting when I was a kid.”

“Really?” Tacita asked, surprised. “Why did you quit? Hell, come to think of it, you hate getting up in front of class and talking. What changed that?”

Valo shifted awkwardly and looked down at the floor. “I guess I let the b*****ds get to me,” she mumbled. “Got picked on one too many times.” She quickly smiled and said, “Come on, this isn’t about me. This is about helping Emily with her scrapbook.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Tacita replied. “Sorry.”

“Actually, you know, we can go to my house and look at my scrapbooks and all, for ideas,” Valo suggested.

“Really?” Emily asked. “Are your parents going to be happy about that?”

Valo shrugged. “My dad won’t care, and my grandma will be so happy that I brought friends home,” she replied, making a face.


“So, this is you when you were in kindergarten?” Julia asked, giggling at the picture. “You were such an adorable kid! Look at your cute little dress and pigtails!”

“Give me that,” Mae cried out, blushing. “That was kind of before I had much say in what I wore.” She added the photograph to the stack of photos she’d chosen. “I want to have more than just pictures, so I think I might use some of my old report cards.”

“Probably not too many ‘plays well with others’ comments,” Julia joked.

Mae chuckled a little and replied, “Actually, you’re right. I was a pretty bad kid. Dad was always being called in because of something or other that I did.” She grinned and looked at the old report card. “According to this, I need to learn to get along better with my peers and should learn to share. I guess some things never change.”

“Hey, here’s a class photo from when you were in third grade,” Julia remarked. She scanned the list of names. “Hey, look who was in the class with you-- Emily, Ophelia, AJ, Tiffani, and Angela. Kind of weird, huh? You’d think they would have been friends sooner.”

“Nah, even back then, Tiffani was friends with the popular girls, Emily was part of the brainy group, Ophelia and I were kind of a two girl clique, AJ was friends with the cool guys, and Angela was… well, she was the class weirdo,” Mae replied. “It is kind of strange, though.”