There were doodles—she was a good artist—always body parts that led off the page. Little hands and yo-yos, braids coming from nowhere, girls’ legs descending from the top of the paper, in saddle shoes and lacy socks, with bleeding knees.

What revealed more than the journals were old notes from school friends—folded into tiny rectangles, with pull tabs that popped the corners out. There was a stack of these inside an unused Chinese food box in a desk drawer. I imagined them falling from her high school locker when she pulled it open, the pleasure she would’ve felt. The same pleasure I felt now, discovering them. The same pleasure I had once felt when notes fell from my own locker years ago.

So, you remember the guy? Of course you do. He had the balls to IM me last night and tell me he wanted me to know it wasn’t planned. That he had been surprised. That I had started kissing him (!) and he had no intention of things going as far as they did. What a tool. He also didn’t know what Planned Parenthood was if you can believe it. I wanted to call you so bad but my mom would see your number on the phone bill and figure it out like she always does. You’re the only person who understands what I’m going through, and I love you so much. I have to cut this short because Mrs. K, the menopausal bitch, is staring at me like she knows I’m not doing the assignment.

I ran into Mr. Mullany at Mimi’s on Friday. He told me he thought we were kindred spirits or something. He also told me he thought we had been together in a past life. The thing is! I don’t not believe in past lives? I actually think the idea of them is pretty cool? But he’s an old skeeze with shit always stuck in his teeth so I just told him he’d have to find me in his next life. What is wrong with us that these guys like us?

Patterns emerged within the notes—which I told myself were clues as to why she might cheat on James. Multiple girls had been banned from talking to Lonnie by their parents, though they clearly found ways around this, by simply saying they were meeting different friends and passing notes or chatting online instead of talking on the phone.