I chose the cafe in Cornish because a review said it was a nice place to drink tea after playing Dungeons and Dragons. This was cheating, if I meant to be meeting people who weren’t like me, and I did. The cafe had gluten free everything and açai bowls. When you're abroad in a country this large, you latch onto something to trust.
In Cornish, ME, chockablock with historic buildings and antiques stores, I meet Emily, who may be the only fifteen-year-old alive to have successfully weaned herself off social media. Tiny mews introduced me to her: she had brought two kittens over in a basket, to socialize them with their future mom, the proprietress of the cafe.
Emily is working on writing a self-help book. It's about How To Be The Main Character. I asked her what that meant. It's about leaning into being fully who you actually are. Like you, she said to me, adjusting her stylishly large-framed glasses. You do digital security, and you just ran to close your laptop because you'd left it in another room, and you told me not to give you my phone number because it wasn't safe. That's who you are! (Leave it to a teenager to read a book you were pretty sure you were still writing, and pronounce it finished.)