In the instant it took me to realise that the creature before me was indeed the girl I remembered, she had flown nearly across the room, with a silent swiftness she could only have inherited from her mother, and wrapped her slender arms around me —almost twice.

"Marie!" She sighed delightedly. "What are you doing here? I missed you more than I ever imagined I could and —Oh, you're so thin— Are you all right?"

"Well, I am now." I couldn't help but smile. "Let's see," I held her out, looking her over with a comically critical eye. My height (at last), her chocolate eyes were framed in dark, mascaraless, lashes; long enough to make a snuffleupagus jealous. In the same way, her light brown hair was held just out of her face by a wide checkerboard ribbon that matched the laces on her shoes.
Her childish adorability had matured into adolescent cuteness, and she suddenly looked all of the seventeen "and a half!" years we had been given with her. "I love your hair," I smiled, stroking it a bit.

"Thanks." Her cheeks grew rosier.

Darrin abruptly stepped forward, bent down, and kissed me on the cheek. "It's good to see you alive." He grinned. It took a moment for me to recover, hopefully not long enough for any of them to think strange thoughts. But this was very out of character for Darrin, who rarely spoke in paragraphs; though not, perhaps, as strange as it would be for Noah— Much less Michael. But then again, he was likeliest to change, being the youngest of the three; and it is seldom unpleasant, to be kissed on the cheek...

"Just wait 'til Ellen hears about this, ey?" I laughed, perhaps in time, although I am quite certain there is no way to conceal it when one blushes.

"Yeah." He chuckled. And I'm pretty sure his cheeks took their turn for colour, then. Ellen Fehr was a friend of ours from high school; a pretty girl, not to mention smart and ambitious, she left precisely afterward to become a lawyer, and later a doctor... Darrin had written her every week since she'd gone.

"How is she anyway?" I asked, which drew an involuntary smile.

"She's good." He said. "Almost done with year four—"

"Oh... Andy..." I laughed sympathetically as he entered for the third time with eyes rubbed absolutely red. He looked like he'd been sobbing for hours. Darrin and Nikki turned as I spoke, but were met with a sullen:

"Shut up."