“Mum, I want to show you the novel I’m currently reading.”

I open S. at a random page and her eyes widen. The paper is artificially yellowed to make it look like it’s been sitting on a dusty library shelf for years, there are notes in different handwriting and ink colours scribbled all over the margins, and from between the sheets of paper a detailed map of a college campus drawn in sharpie on a coffee shop napkin falls out. My mother carefully takes it out of my hands and turns the page, revealing more handwritten notes and a letter written on a legal pad with a coffee stain.

“No way,” she breathes quietly.

“Yes way.”

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