Life Lost and Found

A Very Moment-ary Prologue

There are Moments in everyone's life. Not the boring, everyday kind that come in an endless stream and which are effortlessly forgotten—but special Moments. Uppercase-M Moments. Moments that change things.

Sometimes these Moments bring epiphanies. Or groans, giggles, facepalms, headdesks, eye rolls, sighs, or statements ranging from "That was the best idea ever!" all the way to "That was the worst idea ever, and my soul will forever wallow in the depths eternal shame." Or all of the above.

In any case, the thing about these Moments is, we don't usually recognize them for what they are—until it's too late. Until the change they bring has already occurred, for better or worse, for win or fail—or in this particular case—for life lost and found.

But enough about that. What's important now is that one of these Moments was about to happen to Madeline Elizabeth Parker.

A senior in high school, Madeline sat in the school library with a classmate, trying to wiggle her way out of an invitation to a party that night. Well, not a party so much as the party. The Ackland High Epic Overhyped Graduation Party Of Legend, or AHEOGPOL for kind-of-short. Okay, it was actually called the Last Night Dance, but Madeline preferred her name for it. It was talked about from the first day of senior year all the way to the last. It was everything. It was Why You Went To High School. That, and something about a diploma and a future, but mostly the dance.

Madeline had never planned on attending. Not even a little-bit-kind-of-sort-of-maybe. At least, not until Sarah, her study hall partner, invited her.

"Come on, Madeline, you should come!" Sarah whispered for the nine-hundredth time. Or maybe just the fifth time, but that wasn't the point. The point was that if Sarah was anything, she was beautiful. And if she were two things, she was beautiful and persistent. And obnoxious. And well-connected. Okay, that was more than two things.

"Look, Sarah," Madeline whispered loudly from behind the curtain of her long, unkempt cinnamon hair. "Parties are not my thing." Madeline paused to think about what she had just said. "Not her thing" didn't seem quite accurate. Eating a bowl full of live spiders frankly seemed a great deal more fun. Finding herself buried in a throng of people she didn't know and couldn't relate to, left to her own deeply pathetic social skills to keep afloat? Now there was a disturbing thought.

"Oh, please!" Sarah rolled her eyes, steadfastly refusing to accept any of Madeline's excuses. "Parties are everyone's thing! You'll have fun! I promise."

Madeline frowned, frustrated and wary. Her life to this point had taught her to be suspicious of people's motives—especially when it came to things like this. Sarah didn't have a reason to want Madeline to come, other than it bugged and confused her that someone might not want to attend the Great Overhyped Ackland Dance. (Ooh! That made a better acronym: the GOAD. Perfect.)

Anyway. What had she been thinking about? Oh right, Sarah, and how to shut her up. Sarah, who was currently spouting some crap about high school being the best years of your blah blah blah—Madeline wasn't paying attention. She was watching dust motes. Specifically, how they floated through the wide, bright beams of afternoon sun coming through the library's high windows. It reminded her of her mother's bedroom the morning after her funeral. So bright. So beautiful.

So empty.

Lost in the memory, she idly watched another senior, Mark Alister, pass though the shafts of light on his way to the door, each beam making him glow.

And that was when it happened. The Moment. For just a second—a second that seemed to go on and on—everything slowed down, and the world felt somehow different.

And then Mark was gone and that was it. Moment over. See? Nothing earthshaking or dramatic about it. That's how these kinds of things usually work. At least, it's how this one worked. Yet, Madeline would later describe this as the Moment that changed everything. A sort of cosmic nudge, if you will. The universe trying, for just a second, to get her attention. The beginning of the end.

It was also when—for reasons that would never become clear—she accepted Sarah's invitation to the party. Yes, the party. It would be the best, worst, most glorious, most tragic decision in all of what time she had left.