The tears ran down the steering wheel, meshing with the already-torn leather and digging into Mia's hands; her friction with the wheel only made the tears go down further. With this, she would occasionally wipe each hand on her bare lower thigh, but that with the sweat induced by the August Vermont summer only made this disgusting, leather-liquid hybrid. She knew she was going to cry for this. She was definitely well-prepared in a material sense given that she brought pocket tissues with her, which currently sat forgotten in her dashboard. She would only get them out when she got pulled over for a broken headlight just two weeks later, and the sight of her tissues, in the midst of retrieving her registration, made her cry on the spot, rendering the police officer unable to give her a ticket from a perspective of emotional obligation.

And to think, she was just in this parking deck just an hour ago with Cameron, and they were still together. They were making fun of the parking jobs of some of the drivers, talking about what it would be like to work as the owner of a parking garage, and, if you would live close to the parking garage, and if you would bother having a home garage or just parking in that same parking garage, and if you would reserve a spot just for yourself just like a spot is reserved for the principal of the school, and if students of a school would ever park in all the reserved parking spots for a senior prank (but not the handicap ones because that would be in poor taste), and that they wish Cameron's grade could have done that for their senior prank instead of putting all their phones in their lockers and having their phone alarms go off at the same time so that the janitors had to get them all out (which was actually in poor taste, but in a different kind of poor taste), and that having janitors in a school might be a good thing for the students but not a bad thing for the students, and that Cameron argued that it's good for the good students because they don't need to struggle because of the complacency of the bad students, and that Mia said that the bad students shouldn't be forgiven for being complacent, and that Cameron said a good administration would catch the bad students and would reprimand them accordingly, and that Mia wishes she didn't have to say goodbye to Cameron, and that Cameron wishes he didn't have to say goodbye to Mia.

Their conversation was, as shown, rather normal. Their trains of thought went like the wind, as the saying goes, and their impending separation did not impede but instead galvanized on that trend. They wanted to be like they were until the moment they weren't. And they did this as they went up five levels, took the stairs back down five levels, took the steps back down five levels, walked across the main floor of the garage, walked across to the airport entrance, went to Cameron's gate, and then said goodbye at security.

"It's a little anti-climactic, right?" Cameron said, approaching security with Mia. "You would always see in old movies saying goodbye right at the terminal, before the little connecting thing that connects the airport to the plane."

"I always call it 'the accordion,'" Mia said.

Cameron laughed. Anyone else would question his inclusion of humor at this moment, especially with Mia's sullen (albeit engaged) expressions. However, anyone who knew Cameron would know he always went about with positive tones and body language, even if he was expressing negative thoughts — like at that moment. "Yeah! 'The accordion', I guess. Then you would watch them go off on the airplane while some Elliot Smith song is playing non-diagetically, and maybe the other person who is on the plane would conveniently be at the window seat on the side of the plane that was facing the airport."

"And the runway wouldn't end a hundred yards away from the terminal."

"But, now, in this post-9/11 world, you just say goodbye to me at security, and you get to watch me take my shoes off."

"And your belt," she said, raising her eyebrows suggestively.

He laughed again, but with a little sadder tone this time. "And my belt." He was looking ahead at security, analyzing. He looked at her, and she knew it. He was going to say goodbye.

Mia had (and maybe this happened to other people, too) always started something--or thought about starting something--with the end also in mind, parallel to the start. It had to do with commitment: whether she'd be able to do other things when that thing would end and if it was worth it toward the end. Would she go out and drink that night? No. She has to work in the morning, and she would rather not do it with a hangover. Should she study for this test? Yes; she would still have time to listen to music after.

She took the same approach to Cameron. Although she did start dating him freshman year, maybe it was because he was a sophomore that bothered her. She knew that there would be an end to high school. But that was three years from now; he's so attractive, and she would just like to kiss him — just once; so, yes, she would like to be his girlfriend.

Throughout the next few years, however, she would think more and more about the time that would eventually come. Where it would be. If they'd still be dating. What her favorite color would be. What she would look like (which, luckily, for her, meant a fuller, more mature face and breasts that matched the curvature of her body better in tighter t-shirts.) These thoughts became, fuller and more comprehensive, but the leisurely pace in which it arrived made it feel much more cautious and non-threatening.

And she thought it came a bit of a shock to her that she was actually crying, given that she did know this moment was a long time coming. She just felt very overwhelmed at the moment, and her crying was a side effect of that. It would end soon, but she also knew this was good, like every tear was a step further in the grieving process.

Mia actually hadn't cried this much since her dog died when she was nine. Her mom, older brother, and she had just gone hiking for the day. Her dad was home for a vague reason that satisfied someone at nine years old. The day was nice — sporadic, definitely — and it was good she got to spend some quality time with her brother, who, at the time, was 18 and just about to graduate.

She did find a few things suspicious, though. Her mom would keep checking her phone (which she doesn't do normally, and especially not with the backdrop of the wilderness), and her brother would keep asking her mom if it happened yet. Mia would always hear and instantly go, "what happened, mom?" and her mom would always come back with, "nothing, honey," followed by a scowl toward her brother.

And Mia got more and more nervous, and she actually started tearing up in the backseat of the van on the way home, thinking about the worst, which would obviously be Roxy dying. And it felt so surreal, coming home and hearing her mom yell "Phillip, we're home! Meet us in the dining room!" and telling Mia to sit down; they need to have a family talk and Mia asking where Roxy was and her brother saying "that's why we're having a family talk" in a sincere but misguided way.

They waited for ten seconds, the longest ten seconds of Mia's life, and her dad came down, and he said, "Mia, have you seen that Roxy has been very sick?"

"A little bit," Mia said, "but I was just playing with her this morning."

"Mia, Roxy passed away this morning. While you were out hiking with mommy and Lucas."

She instantly burst out crying. She wanted her family to feel the pain. "How did it happen?" she asked. "Was it of natural causes?" Mia didn't know what "natural causes" exactly meant, just that she saw it in obituaries in the paper a lot and that it sounded peaceful.

"We gave her a drug the vet prescribed us a few days ago," her dad said, every word concise and direct. "She went peacefully. She was still biting on her favorite bone."

"So you killed her! You killed Roxy!"

"Mia, he didn't," her mom said.

"I mean, technically," Lucas said.

"Lucas!" her mom yelled. "Do you need to leave the table?"

"No."

"Then shut your mouth."

"You killed Roxy, daddy! I--I hate you! I hate you!"

"Mia, I'm sorry. I didn't want to do this. It was awful."

"You didn't even let me say goodbye! I could have said goodbye, and you didn't let me! I'll never see her again!"

"Mia, your daddy and I thought really long and hard about this."

"And you didn't let me say goodbye. I hate you, daddy!" she yelled. She walked up the stairs, each step harder and louder than the rest, and she slammed her door, catapulting herself on the bed. She cried for what must have been an hour, until her stomach hurt and her throat felt completely, absolutely dry.

She got over it, eventually, when she went to summer camp and slowly forgot about it. She regretted saying she hated her dad eventually. She apologized to him a year from then, when she truly felt bad for what she had done. She had technically apologized that very night Roxy died, but it was certainly not genuine. She definitely knew that, and she still knew that when she drew an "I'm sorry" card to her dad made out of printer paper, folded hamburger style. Her mother strong-handed her to make this. Mia executed her retribution in the forceful, pressured strokes of her black crayon, making the words crooked and duplicitous.

And, like most suburban families, their family got another dog a year later, letting the other dog go behind. But, before they did get the dog, which Mia was foolish in requesting the name "Roxy 2" (the name ended up being "Marley," unironically named after the movie "Marley & Me,"which had just come out), her mom told her, "are you sure you want to get this dog? He or she will die some day; you have to know that." Of course, Mia would be around her twenties when her dog would die, and both of them knew she would have a stronger emotional palette, but her mom figured she might as well turn this into a lesson; it certainly worked.

But it wasn't all this depressing, existential lesson. Mia found a positive side of it on her first day of middle school. She was alone, flung into the throes of the new environment, and it seemed like everyone from her elementary school had taken memos and knew how to make friends with kids from other elementary schools. Had they met during that summer or something? She would walk up to her friends, trying to get them to introduce her to their new friends, but they would just brush her aside. And these weren't people she was just "okay" with in elementary school. (Then again, in elementary school, who are you just "okay" with? That seems like more of a passive-aggressive office workplace thing.) These were her good friends, abandoning her.

Anyway, the lesson of good things going away someday worked for Mia on the flip side, and it got her through her first day of middle school. Bad things end someday, too. She was going to get through middle school, and there would be a time where it would be twenty years since she graduated from middle school. Of course, that would mean Marley would have died at that point, too, but you got to take the good with the bad.

And she also knew, in a much shorter time, that her first day of school was going to end sometime, too, even though, in ninth period math, it seemed like it was going to take forever. Their teacher, Mrs. Yates, forwent the usual rigmarole of syllabus work (which Mia appreciated) and went right to a worksheet. "This is new material," she said, "so you can work with a partner."

Mia did what she was told, going to the girl next to her. She was smaller, and she was the only girl Mia met that day that wasn't wearing spaghetti straps (which were against the rules.) "You ready to do this?" the girl said.

"Sure."

"Do you mind if I lead this worksheet? I think I got it. I'm supposed to be in advanced right now; I'm not supposed to be here!" She clenched her fists in a faux-dramatic kind of way. "I guess I'll just work my butt off and get into Algebra next year."

"Go ahead. I'm pretty lost here as it is. Math isn't really my strong suit."

"Oh yeah? Well, this is super easy. Let me show you." The girl really did take Mia through everything, teaching with a clarity that was better in one period than Mrs. Yates had all year. In two minutes, Mia got fractions, and she completed the rest of the worksheet correctly with twenty minutes to spare.

"What should we do now?" Mia said. "Should we let Mrs. Yates know we're done?"

"What are you talking about? Do you want her to give us more work? We can just chat until everyone's done."

"Well, what should we talk about?"

"Do you have any pets?"

"Yes. I have a dog."

"What's his name?"

"Marley."

"Like the movie?" This would be the first of one hundred and thirty-seven times Mia would be asked this follow-up question.

"Yep." The other answers she had used in response consisted of "yes," "uh-uh," "yeah," "that's right," and, if she wanted to go a little crazy, "you got it."

"That's cute!"

"Do you have a pet?"

"No, but my parents used to take me to farms a lot, and I got to see so many animals. Cows. Chickens. You name it."

"Have you ever milked a cow before?"

"Of course. You?"

"No. I would go to a farm with my elementary school every once in a while for field trips, and they would let us try, but I thought it was so gross! I would always be the one person to sit out of it."

"If we were to go now, would you do it?"

"Probably not."

"Is it because you're still grossed out, or because, hypothetically, we're pre-teens just randomly walking onto a farm?"

"Probably both." Talking about this all, cows and dogs and their families, made Mia forget she was still in middle school, and, when the bell rang, she thought it was a mistake; class couldn't have ended that early.

Her partner, like most people that day, was ahead of the curve; she was handing her worksheet in and walking out the door already.

"Wait!" Mia said. "What's your name?"

"Denise."

"I'm Mia."

"Well, Mia, I'll see you tomorrow."

The bus ride home was a re-telling of all of the students' war stories of the day. Of course, these still appeared inferior, given that they were still in the front of the bus, whereas the eighth graders in the back of the bus were over the whole thing, simply listen to their iPods and looking out the window smugly. But these seventh graders somehow went through a lot on their first day of middle school, and they were so eager to tell everyone else.

"I got a lunch detention during homeroom."

"I walked into the wrong homeroom, and I didn't know until first period."

"There was a food fight in my period."

"Jason asked me out. I said yes, but we broke up during gym."

"There was a girl in the locker room that refused to change for gym."

"I think my science teacher is a lesbian."

"One of the vice principals caught me chewing gum."

"An eighth grader asked me if I wanted weed."

"We played dodgeball for gym today, but you could only hit people below the waist."

"I think I'm going to try out for the basketball team."

"One of the boys apparently streaked across the gym and ran through our locker room while we were changing!"

"I already put a note in an eighth grader's locker."

"I put one in, too, but I didn't write anything in it. I just put my gum in it and folded it. The same gum the vice principal caught me with."

And, relatively, Mia's initiation with Denise wasn't that special. Maybe it was a little more special than the gum chewing incident, but at least Jack Peterson followed it up with putting it in an eighth grader's locker. But Mia doubts that any of those first day stories would ever still be relevant to people at the very last day of middle school, after which Mia and Denise walked a mile to the Rita's Italian Ice down the road to celebrate their getting into high school and finally out of high school. (The only other story that would be considered still "relevant" would be the case of the boy streaking across the girls' locker room. His name was Rob Duke, and that first day was just the start of a downward spiral to an expulsion just two months later. On the last day that Denise and Mia had middle school, Rob's family had just moved into their fourth new home in two years.)

In between was two years of sleepovers, doing homework together at pizzerias, and talking about boys. "Talking" about boys unfortunately was more prevalent than actual encounters, although Denise did say she was asked out by her neighbor, Oscar, someone neither Denise nor Mia were particularly fond of. Alas, they both made the agreement that they would both try to get each other boyfriends in high school, only after the boys matured emotionally and they matured physically. They would be each other's wingwomen, putting each other in the best positions possible to talk to boys, whether it be talking each other up at high school parties or saving spots for each other on the bleachers of high school football games.

Although that was their idea of high school, an idea formed after many sleepovers in which John Hughes movies and Ben & Jerry's was present. The actual high school was much less cliche and much less archetypal. It was nice. They were treated more like adults there, so much so that every day, before Mia and Denise walked home, Mia would meet Denise in a teacher's room, and they would be mid-conversation about some real world topic as if they were hosts of a radio talk show. It would be them and a boy, a boy who was definitely a sophomore, although Mia did not know his name. Whenever she saw him in the hallways, she would just call him "cute skinny kid" in her head.

"What's his name?" Mia asked Denise, walking out of school one day.

"Mr. Jenkins?"

"No. The guy. The student."

"Oh. Cameron."