Hello.

I was one of many faces you saw last night, my short haircut blending in rather than sticking out like it usually does. The slight smile ghosting my face matched those of my peers as we all stared at your spotlit figure in awe. I beamed and shook in my seat as you gave me a fresh perspective of the story I felt I'd thumbed through a mere week ago. Only it wasn't a week ago, it was a month ago. The last seven days were spent trying to sort through the emotional hiccups I'd begun to experience yet again as I fought to make this school a home.

I'm not anybody special, not that you know of. I'm just another first year- that's what they call us here, with an accompanying heavy handed stroke of pleasure or resentment- It's hard to tell. I'm not someone you'll remember, but you know my story. You read it to me last night.

I'd never been to Hollins. I hadn't set foot here--home--until I was moving in and watching my father drive back to Texas as I walked in the opposite direction. I wasn't that worried. I had experience with this sort of thing. I was living someone else's life- that of a girl who had gone to college before me and made a mess of it- and I found it was easier to bear that way. What was happening all around me was not anything I was ready to claim. I left home and went to college and inevitably messed up. I haven't done that last one yet, but I'm waiting. It'll happen.

I lived my new life in a rather selfish way- through a girl who had many more problems than me, and far less if you think of it that way. I did the unexpected- the possible. I made my home among strangers, and despite the jolts and earthquakes, I'm doing just fine.

Only I'm not fine, not one bit, because you came to my home and you stood on the stage of the theatre and you knocked something loose inside me. I quivered and crumbled and you looked at me, but you didn't see me. You saw the sticky notes in my book and you asked me what I had done, and when I told you that I don't write in books- that my words will never belong next to yours- you crossed out three now meaningless lines and signed my book, "For Em, you have to write in your books."

I don't know what it is, but every time I meet someone who writes books and has an audience for them- which is significantly different from someone who simply writes- I feel a small flame grow large enough to scorch the back of my mouth, but I'd never tell you any of this.

I'd never tell you how much it meant to me to meet you, that you became what I wanted to be, and I was so reassured of my dream until I saw the blank look in your eyes from across the table and knew I was nothing special. I'd choke up if I tried to say that I was completely unphased by your impending visit up until the moment when I saw you slip through the stage right doors because when you did, I lost any sense of normalcy. I was unabashed in my eager jitters, only stopping to consider how others were perceiving me when I practically sprinted to your signing.

I made a mess of everything, and despite that, I pulled through all right. I'm sure a certain protagonist could say the same.

Thank you for telling my story.

Yours sincerely,

That one beaming face in the crowd.