L—Thanks for proofing! she’d put at the top. You’re a rock star. ☺

It was the smiley face that made me totally unprepared for what she’d written.

At first, I thought it was a joke. Then I was confused. And then I was angry as all hell.

The essay was about me. About how we’d planned to go to college together, but after I’d become “terminally ill,” she knew that she needed to live for the both of us. She actually said that. “Live for the both of us,” like I was too corpsified to do any living for myself. Like TB was a guaranteed death sentence, and the bedsheet was already being pulled over my head.

It wasn’t a college essay. It was an obituary. My obituary.

My phone rang, startling me. I knew it was Hannah. And I knew that whatever I said to her right now would be unforgivable. But I also knew that I didn’t give a shit.

“Hi,” I said flatly.

“Did you read it?” Hannah asked.

“Yeah.”

“And?”

“Honestly? I’m in shock,” I said.

“Well, it’s a bit embellished for dramatic effect,” Hannah allowed.

“Wow, you think?” I said, my anger flaring. “Was the essay prompt to write an obituary for someone you know?”

“I thought you’d be flattered,” Hannah said.

“Flattered? That I, how did you put it, was grateful for the days you sat by my hospital bed, helping me through the pain?”

It was quiet on her end of the line, but I could still hear her there, pop music playing softly in the background.

“I wasn’t trying to exploit you,” she said.

“Your words, not mine.”

“Lane—”

“No,” I said. “I don’t care, and I don’t want to hear it. Because the thing is? I’m not dead. I’m not dying. And here’s another thing I’m not, while we’re at it. I’m not your boyfriend anymore.”

I slammed down the phone, which was oddly satisfying. Much more than stabbing angrily at the screen of my iPhone.

I kept repeating what I’d said to her over and over again in my head. That I wasn’t dead. And I wasn’t dying. No matter what Hannah had written in her essay.

The odds were 80 percent that I’d walk out of Latham before the end of the year with an arrested case of TB and a doctor’s note permanently excusing me from gym class. I’d thought Hannah knew that, or at least that she understood the difference between terminal and incurable. I’d thought she understood a lot of things. And I thought I had, too.

I’d been so stupid. It was never going to work out with Hannah and me. Staying together while I went off to Latham was a joke. We’d been humoring each other, but it wasn’t funny anymore. I didn’t know if she’d sent me that essay because it said what she was afraid to tell me—that she wanted to move on. Or if she’d genuinely wanted me to have it, like some fucked-up tribute.

At least I got some small satisfaction from knowing how awkward it would be for her when I returned to Harbor, and to her classes. And when she saw me around campus at Stanford—if she even got in. I hoped that sob story of an essay ruined her chances.

I’d done so much of her English homework. Come up with her essay topics, helped her put together the outlines, proofed every one of her papers, even the two-page weekly responses. I’d carried us through physics for the entire thermodynamics unit because she was too stressed over the SATs to prep for labs. And I hadn’t minded. I’d been happy to help, because it meant I had someone to spend time with, instead of studying alone in my room. Instead of being the guy everyone hesitated over before inviting me to things, because no one really wanted to hang out with their hard-ass history teacher’s kid.

I read her essay one more time, just in case I’d overreacted, just to make sure it really was as bad as all that.

It was worse.

I took the stairs down to the common room and let myself out of the dorm. It was cool outside, the whole world vibrating with the low hum of crickets, or maybe cicadas. I could never tell the difference. I stood there for a minute, not knowing what to do or where to go. Latham still felt so wrong, like I was living someone else’s life, because this couldn’t be mine.

I could see the gazebo in the distance, so I walked out there through the wet grass and sat on the steps, feeling totally out of sync with the universe. I stared up at the stars, which were dead things, and the trees, which were silent and ghostly, but alive, and I tried not to think about what Hannah had written in her essay.

I didn’t cry, because I was scared that if I started, I’d never stop. I could feel everything straining inside of me, like strings stretched so tightly that maybe it wasn’t the crickets that were humming at all. Maybe it was me.

After a while, there was a rustling in the woods. The sound of footsteps. I glanced up, wondering who else would be outside.

I could just make out the shadow of a girl. She crept across the grass with a heavy backpack, a knit cap on her head.

And then she stopped, staring at me.

“Lane?” asked Sadie.

CHAPTER EIGHT

SADIE

I HATED WHEN Nick didn’t come with me, and he hadn’t that night. He’d backed out at the last minute, claiming he was tired, so I’d gone to meet Michael myself.

It was always unnerving to be alone in the woods after dark. I wasn’t afraid of whatever animals lurked behind the trees. Mostly, I was scared I’d get lost. That I’d wander out the wrong side, into town, shivering and terrified, and everyone in Whitley would act like I was Frankenstein’s monster.

That didn’t happen, though. Michael was there in our meeting place just like he’d promised, a lit cigarette dangling from his lips.

“Those things will kill you,” I said, handing him the envelope.

He crushed the cigarette under his boot and shrugged.

“I didn’t realize you’d ridden here on your high horse,” he said.

“His name is Applesauce, and he’s a palomino.” I motioned toward the bags. “This everything?”

“Sure is,” Michael said, counting out the money. He put on a tough act, like he was some thug drug dealer, instead of a Starbucks barista. “What happened to your bodyguard?”

“He’s taking a sick day.”

God, I was going to kill Nick. The bags looked heavy, and I didn’t know how I was going to carry all of them back without him.

Michael’s cell phone vibrated, and he pulled it out, checking. He made a face. “Gotta head back, but it was a pleasure doing business with you, sweetheart.”

I hated when he called me that.

“The pleasure’s all yours,” I said, and somehow managed to cram everything into my backpack.

“What a shame.”

He smirked at me, and the leaves crunched under his feet as he walked away. I clicked my flashlight onto its highest setting, heading in the opposite direction.

I WAS HALFWAY across the grass when I saw Lane sitting in the gazebo, looking miserable. At first, I thought I was imagining it. That the shadows were up to some new trick, making me see boys in the dark. But when I got closer, I saw that it really was him, hunched and upset and sitting on the steps.

“Lane?” I called.

It was just the two of us outside. Everyone else was at the movie night, or in the cottages, or asleep. And I wondered why he wasn’t any of those places. Why he was leaning against the peeling paint of the gazebo, looking like the universe had just punched him in the gut.

“Hey,” he said.

“Bad night?”

“That would be an understatement.”

My backpack was heavy, and I’d had to walk pretty far through the woods wearing the thing. I was exhausted, and all I wanted was to get back to the dorm, take off my boots, and climb into the shower. But I couldn’t leave him there.

He’d been nothing but nice to me, and then I’d stomped all over him, trying to put out the embers of a fire that had never existed. Yesterday in the library, I wouldn’t have blamed him for sitting back and doing nothing when Mrs. Hogan nearly caught us stealing internet. But he’d run up and distracted her, making up a dumb story to save me.