Chapter 57: Packing up the Past

The final weeks of lazy summer before the official move down to Austin were filled with packing cardboard boxes, sorting through old childhood notebooks, and saying bittersweet temporary goodbyes to the familiar street corners of Cortis. Lily spent her very last afternoon in her childhood bedroom carefully sliding the laminated sixth-grade map, the rusty pocketknife, and the precious tin box of wildflowers into the bottom of her suitcase right beside her brand-new college textbooks.