“Sometimes,” she said, squeezing my fingers and letting them go, “I think the real tragedy of life is that we’re always the people we were, and it’s only our outsides that change. And then one day we wake up to find we’re the only adults left in the room—but inside, we’re all just children pretending.”

My throat tightened. “So what are we supposed to do?”

She smiled. “You rise to the occasion. You step up. You take responsibility for your actions, you do your best to be a force for good in the world. And you keep close to the people who have known you through both the highs and lows of your life. They see the person you are at your core. The one you’ve always been”