"I... one of the people who mattered a lot to me from home," she started, trying to think of the least embarrassing way to refer to Astin. "Once, they told me that they were a Heroic Spirit. They were transforming, the same way I was. They were kind of the first person I told my whole story to... not the transformation part, either. The part about who I was between moving to the city and then."

She tasted their lips on the end of her cigarette.

"There was a part of my life that summer where I turned into a different version of myself... one who didn't know who Astin was. When the real me came back, they'd fallen off the app." She probably needed to explain that part, but. Maybe not. She knocked her head against the back of the tree and looked out, instead, at the people gathered. The ones she knew, the ones she didn't. The friends and loved ones she'd made in her time here.

"They didn't remember me except as this girl from down the hall that they thought was hot. They didn't remember any of the stuff about Astolfo, or... any of the conversations we'd had."