[ prologue ]

Impact.

At this moment in time, the dictionary definition of this specific word is 'the action of one object coming forcibly into contact with another.' A marked effect or lasting influence. Ordinarily, it is about objects but honestly, I have a feeling that it can have another meaning too.

People criticize the way others impact our lives.

Every so often those people can make a huge difference in our lives. Maybe we, fortunately, find someone who is ready to, by heart become our everything... our forever or we finally start seeing ourselves for who we undeniably are. Sometimes, a person reveals to us how broken we really are, and sometimes, humanity promptly breaks us. Then there are the small changes in our life— the ones that barely touch our breathing soul and then just vanish completely... as if they never indeed existed.

On the odd occasion, we forget about the little changes— like how someone now prefers coffee over milkshakes or how that girl doesn't dress as freely as she used to. These changes, they are there, influenced by people who never promised to stay. These necessary changes become carefully hidden over the bigger ones.

Charlotte has had a long life; one she would typically call filled with drama and tragedy and then those little moments that compelled her to breathe air as if it was only ever made for her. The people in her life have inevitably changed her—made the girl turn into a charred shell of a person that she in the past used to be. She still seemed to look the same and sounded the same to everyone's ears, but when you watch your world end... You don't look at the sun the same way again.

She wasn't struck dead all at once. She had changed in time as thousand paper cuts littered over her skin and judged her for whom she had now become.

She was not the same girl that he remembered, and there's no doubt that he wasn't the same man that he once used to be.

People change people.

To a great extent, at least that's what Disney taught all of us.