It’s the beginning of senior year, and your bulletin board is full. It’s covered in reminders (some for events that have long since happened,) tiny sticky-note doodles, and things you just find cool. There’s an awards ribbon from your middle school science fair, a newspaper clipping from one of your track meets, and an old friendship bracelet. Easily the most eye-catching, though, are the photos.

The first photo is of you and your friends from your first year in high school. All three of you smile as you pose awkwardly together. It’s not a particularly flattering photo, but it’s funny to look back on it and see how much you’ve grown. You’ve come so far that it feels odd to look back to the past.

The second photo is from one of your track meets. One of your friends has her arm around your shoulders, her hand in a peace sign. She’s holding her cell phone camera up and smiling widely. You’re sweaty and tired in the picture, but it’s one of your favorites. It had been a hard meet, and the picture reminds you of your triumph at the end. The friend in that picture was one of your first friends at this school. You sat next to each other at freshman orientation, and you’ve been close ever since. You’ve gone through a lot together. She’s also the one who drew most of the sticky-note doodles.

The third is of you and one of your other friends studying in your school’s library. You took it from the school’s social media.  In the picture, it looks like you two are studying diligently, but you remember you were discussing movies. That’s how you met in the first place—he had really bad movie opinions, and the rest was history. You worry about that friend sometimes. He’s prone to working himself to death. You wish he would tell you what he was struggling with so you could help.

Another picture is of you and your 10th grade lab partner. She’s sketching an idea for your final project as you watch intently. You wish you could have known each other better, but she seemed determined to close herself off to you. You think she runs the newspaper club now. You haven’t talked much since that year, and you wonder how she’s doing now.

The last picture is of a kindergarten-aged you and a young girl with ginger hair, arms around each other’s shoulders. A teenager stands in the background, her brother. You two had sworn you would be best friends forever. She had given you the beaded friendship bracelet, which she had worked on painstakingly every night before she went to bed. It had been so long since you saw her. (You wonder if you’ll ever see her again.)

You shake your head. How likely would it be that, of all the people in the world, you would see her again? Would she even recognize you? Probably not.

You look away from the bulletin board. Your physics book (demanding) and your laptop (tempting) sit on your desk. You know you have homework to do, but you could probably find information on her mom or her brother if you looked them up. You push your laptop into the center of the desk, and start to type in your password.