This wasn’t always my plan for my educational project. I had another idea, an idea that I worked at for a long, long time. But like Cecilia, I ended up having a hard time getting people to take my idea seriously. The people I needed for that project weren’t quite ready to listen. At first I wanted to give up, to put my “PhD thesis” in a drawer, but if there’s one thing I learned from Cecilia, it’s to keep looking up, to figure out what you’re made of, and to keep working at your ideas, not wasting time or energy blaming other people. A new idea sparked, and this time I had the right people around me, and we were ready to go.

Does knowing these things about stars really matter in one person’s life? I say absolutely. It’s the perfect reminder that anything that seems too big or too bright to understand, or too far away to reach, is really just made up of ingredients you’ve been working with your whole life. Ingredients that make up you. When there’s the thing you know you’re meant to be, whether it’s a baker or a teacher or a neuropsychologist or a mother or a football player or a NASA technician or a rap artist, everything you need is already there.

I think if Cecilia were here today, she would say, I discovered what stars are made of. Are you ready to find out?

Libby Monroe

Camilla Junior High

Acknowledgments

First thanks go to my parents. Only one of you messed up when giving me my DNA, but I owe you both thanks anyway. Thank you for always believing in me and treating me as if I was just as capable as anyone else; for never once considering a missing chromosome as something that should, would, or could hold me back; for always having stacks of books all around the house and for not batting an eye when I told you I wanted to be a writer.

To my siblings, I blame all seven of you for making everything I write a “sibling story.” Thank you for being excited with me. I raise this Disneyland churro in your honor. And to my grandparents, my roots, my safety, and my forever support.

To Dr. Swineyard, the greatest pediatric endocrinologist in the world. The bit about liking doctors’ offices is your fault.

This book is only possible because of the small army of incredible writing teachers I have behind me. This army stretches back to my first middle school and high school English and creative writing teachers, Mr. Matt and Mr. K. There’s maybe no greater gift you could have given than genuine belief and interest in the first writings of a thirteen-year-old, so thank you. Thank you to John Bennion, Chris Crowe, Dawan Coombs, Bruce Young, Steve Tuttle, and all the incredible English department faculty at Brigham Young University. A special thank-you to Martine Leavitt, in whose class I wrote the first draft of this novel. That my return for an MFA and your semester as visiting professor happened to coincide was not, I will never believe, coincidence.