Spring came slowly to Halloran. The snow melted and the grass came back and the trees along the lake turned green, and by April the campus was full of the sound of birds and the smell of cut grass. The senior class was busy with finals and college decisions and the spring formal, and the airport incident had faded into a story that people told less and less often.
I went to the spring formal with Sophie and a few other friends. I wore a dress my mother had helped me pick out, and we took pictures on the quad and danced in the gym, and for a few hours I forgot about everything that had happened in the fall. It was a normal night, the kind of night I had missed the first time around, and it felt like a gift.
The graduation ceremony was in May, on the lawn in front of the chapel. The senior
