I listened quietly as she went through each page in an almost expressionless voice. I say almost, because her voice caught as she went from Texas to Ohio. I wondered where Colorado was, it should have been between the two. It also worried me when I realized she wasn’t really smiling in the Ohio picture.And in all the pictures after that, I could tell her smile was fake. Finally we reached Florida, and then started on her overseas boyfriends. She’d managed to cheat on three French boys at the same time (when they found out she went with the ‘oh, but all Americans do it, I didn’t know you guys didn’t!’ excuse.They all forgave her… and let her continue dating all of them.) She ended with Austria and then turned to me slowly.
Her: There’s one picture left. It’s…(Her voice caught painfully and her eyes teared up. Instinctively, I put my arms around her) It’s Colorado.
She turned the page. A brown haired guy smirked up at me from the page.The Cynthia he was gripping triumphantly had a beaten look on her face.