I've always been fascinated by maps. Even as a child, before I could read, I drew maps of a fantastic country called Lanai. I invented my own language -- Lanaian -- that I spoke with the invisible people who lived there.

When I got a little older, I was embarrassed that my promised land, my Shangri-La, was named after a Hawaiian veranda.

But the allure of maps remained.

I pored over my geography textbooks and the atlases my father bought. I decorated my bedroom with a huge map of North America, and dreamt of traveling somewhere, anywhere.

After watching a National Geographic special on the research and monitoring of wolves in Denali National Park, I saw that my paradise existed in the pristine, snow-covered tundra of Alaska.

I read everything I could get my hands on. I marked cities along the route I mapped out with pushpins -- Niagara Falls, west through the Canadian Rockies, and then north to Anchorage. I revealed my ambition to only a few, those I felt wouldn't laugh at the little girl from Mississippi who dreamt of glaciers and frost.

Of course, life has a funny way of giving you exactly what you want, in absolutely the worst way possible.

When I was on the road after what happened with David, I lived by that map -- not that exact one, but a Hagstrom road atlas I slipped out of my dad's desk before I left. That map took me all the way to Laughlin City, Alberta -- the place where I found my true home -- before bringing me back to Westchester.

I share a room with a bunch of other girls now, but not one of them protested -- not to my face, anyway -- the day I took down their boy band posters and covered one wall with a map of North America.

I marked the places I'd been with little green pins; the places I have yet to visit are picked out in blue. And most importantly, the places Logan writes from are marked in red.

Surprising everyone but me, the first letter arrived less than a week after he left. It didn't say much, just, "Hope those geeks are treating you right, kid. If not, I'll come back and kick their asses." It was signed simply, "Logan," and postmarked Minneapolis.

Some of the towns he writes from are so small they're not even on the map, which now has a string of red pins marking the progress of his search for his past.

I know that one day, the road will lead him back to me. I don't know yet where or when, but he is my true north, and as long as he's in my life, I will never be lost.

End