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until it landed on my own face. I looked at the little girl. Her smile was wide but I knew that she was fidgeting outside of the range of the camera.
    I was wearing a pink, frilly dress that day. It must've taken an hour to get me into it, but my mom insisted. She wasn't going to let me go to school in overalls.
    "Just for one day," she said, " One day . Can't you look like a girl for me?"
    Of course, my answer was no, but you don't have much of a choice at that age do you? I sulked all the way to school, stomping my little white patent shoes and frilly lace socks.
    I hated wearing it, but what I really dreaded was seeing Asher. He would make fun of me. I was sure of it. He would pull my hair and... I didn't even want to imagine the rest. So I avoided him for the entire day.
    Then school was over. All I had to do was make it home. Easy. Just a little bit longer and I would have been successful. But then I turned a corner. And there he was.
    Asher opened his eyes wide and dropped his mouth open.
    "Lily?"
    I took off running before he even had the chance to make fun of me. And I kept running. All the way home. I only stopped to pick up balls of dirt and rub them into the fabric of my dress. I wanted to destroy it. I wanted it to be so terrible that my mom would never think about putting me in a dress again.
    When I got home, she was shocked.
    "What in the world happened to you?" She yelled.
    I refused to say a word.
    The next day at school, I went dressed as normal. I didn't avoid Asher this time, he didn't avoid me. But we never said anything about it. We just pretended that the dress had never happened.
    I flipped the pages again. A little further back this time, to Thomas. But before I could get there, something fell out. A piece of paper.
    It was folded into a square, but I had no idea where it could have come from. I opened the yearbook, looking to see if there were any more surprises hiding in the pages. There was. Just one.
    At the back of the book, the back cover was peeled away from the hard surface. It looked like it had only been held on by some school glue that had finally dried up. Had this note been hidden back there all this time? I had never even noticed that something was strange about the back page.
    I almost didn't want to read it. I wanted to put it back in its hiding space and seal it up forever. But instead, I picked up the yellowed paper with my shaking fingers.
    The school ruled paper was thin and brittle. Just seeing the pink and blue stripes brought me back in time. Then, I unfolded the note.
    I knew what it was as soon as I saw the writing. If I was honest with myself, I knew before I opened the note, before I even touched the paper. But what made it certain were those angular little strokes.
    Boy's handwriting. Asher's handwriting. I used to make fun of him for it, say it was like chicken scratch, now I treasured each little mark.
    The page was covered in smudges. Probably from his hands, from the graphite rubbing against itself for so many years, and from the places where he erased, rewrote, and rewrote again.
    The words started out the way you would expect them to:
    Lily,
    You really should pay more attention to where you leave your things. You know how easy it was to steal this yearbook?
    If you don't be more careful, it could get you into trouble one day.
    Yeah, tell me about it.
    When I saw you on picture day, I didn't say anything. I couldn't.
    I like your overalls. I like that you don't mind getting dirty, unlike the other girls.  
    But in your pink dress, you were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
    A tear fell from my eye and I tried to blot it up with a tissue. It was hard to keep reading.
    The next few words were written on a cloud of grey, as if they had been rewritten over and over again.
    You'll never see this, so it's safe to say it.
    I love you, Lilly Clarkfeld.
    Always. Forever.
    No matter what.
    -Asher
    By then, the paper was totally wet with tears. I gave up trying to blot