"And you can't tell anybody."

"And you can't tell anybody." It's a common enough phrase. She'd heard in numerous times in her young life. Her little sister said it when she broke the mirror on the dresser, but all those shards of glass on the floor made it a promise impossible to keep. In years to come, she'd probably say it to her friends when discussing her latest crush, although at the moment kissing Ricky Jenkins was so far ahead in her future, it was unfathomable to her eight year old psyche.

They were five simple little words, only one of them more than one syllable, but words that would change her life irrevocably. From the moment she heard them, the world would be divided into two parts: the time before her mother said them to her and the time afterward. Each and every event in her life would be affected by them and the actions they set in motion.