My Name Is Memory

Ann Brashares
Fiction
Recommended for: Young Adults

  "Well. It’s a strange thing,” I explained. “With each birth your body starts out fresh and mostly blank, but then you print yourself on it over time. You hold onto old experiences: injuries, injustices, and great love affairs, too.” I glanced up at Sophia. “And you hold them in your joints and your organs and wear them on your skin.”
  “You do.” She was giving me that same look of indulgence, but it was less confident.
  “We all do.”
  “Because we live again and again?”
  “Most of us.”
  “Not all of us?” Her indulgence showed more signs of genuinely wanting to know.
  “Some live only once. Some a very few times. And some just go on and on and on.”
  “Why?”
I put my head back on my pillow. “That is hard to explain. I’m not sure I really know.”
  “And you?”
  “I’ve lived many times.”
  “And you remember them?”
  “Yes. That’s where I’m different than most people.”