PROLOGUE My Normal I’ve always lived a normal life. I didn’t really excel in many ways, but I also wasn’t behind the pack in any particular aspects. I didn’t have any special friends, but I got along well with everyone, and a few kids from my class would even come to rely on me for some things. I wasn’t especially liked or disliked. I passed the days quietly, modestly, eschewing both exciting entanglements and the sorrow that comes when they suddenly end. It’s okay to be average, I always told myself. Being average leads to happiness, or so I seemed determined to prove. So over time, I built up transparent walls around myself. I wouldn’t connect deeply with anyone, nor would I let anyone connect deeply with me. Yes. I pretended that was what I wanted. I cloaked the weeping little girl inside with an amiable smile. But that day, in that classroom… I met you. I’d never even spoken to you before, but you marched right into my most painful places with your heavy shoes on and rummaged through my locked drawers without even asking. Even as I reminisce about it now, my first impression of you was that I hated you. But that night, in a quiet moment… You found me. You took that word, normal, that I never really wanted to claim. You took my suffocating way of life that I’d been clinging to for years. You took the memories I actually really did want to cherish… …and you lit them all up, there in the dark. Now that I think about it, the emotion that quietly bound itself to my little finger was… Well, anyway, that’s why I made a wish to the moon I couldn’t see. It’s okay if I’m not your special person. I don’t have to be your girlfriend, or even your best friend. But if you ever need someone…I want my name to be the one you say first. I just want to be by your side, in that average way. That would be more than enough for me.
Chapter 82
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