She folded maps the way other people folded letters.
Not because she was afraid of getting lost, but because memory, she believed, had a habit of editing the truth. It softened corners, erased wrong turns, and quietly moved people closer together than they'd ever really been.
Maps didn't do that.
Every crease marked a decision. Every route admitted where she'd wandered before finding where she meant to be.
She could forget the colour of a café, the song that was playing, even the conversation she had there. But she could still trace, with one finger, the exact street that led to it.
People thought she travelled to discover new places.
She travelled to make sure the old ones stayed where she left them.
— Observed behaviour: Carries folded maps. Distrusts nostalgia.