Paper Things

Ari wakes up in her old bed at Janna’s house and forgets for a moment that she ever left with Gage. She remembers what happened and getting sick and falls back asleep. She wakes again a few more times in a delirious state. Eventually, she regains consciousness and finds Janna by her bedside. Janna feeds Ari some juice with a spoon and tells her she has the flu. The first thing Ari does is ask about Gage. This seems to upset Janna, who leaves Ari to take care of herself for the day while she goes off to work. Ari has never had Janna’s house to herself before and spends the time looking in her old room and in Janna’s—a place she was always forbidden to go. Ari sees all of Janna’s belongings neatly placed around the room and then takes out Janna’s scrapbooks, which Janna promised to show Ari one day but never did. Ari looks through one that seems to detail Janna’s life story and discovers that Janna went to prom with Ari’s dad. Ari continues looking and sees pictures of Janna and her mother together, looking happy, but also notices that many of the pictures seem to have been ripped at some point.