I take a breath and let go of a sigh.

“Okay,” I say, “so Hannah didn’t give the pin to me. Someone else did, but I don’t know who it was. And it was a long time ago.”

He’s staring at me when I finish, and he seems pale and a little like he still doesn’t fully believe me.

I feel really stupid for lying to him in the first place. I feel even more stupid after having been caught in the stupid lie. But I feel bad too because I know I’ve skirted the truth yet again. There’s more to the story, even though I really don’t remember exactly how I got the pin. Like Hannah’s big mouth said, it was just there. But the thing is, I’ve only known Jorgen for a little more than a month now. I’m just not ready to tell him the whole story.

My stare catches on the empty counter before I meet his eyes again. They still look off somehow.

“Jorgen?”

“Yeah,” he says quietly, setting the pin back in its place on the shelf.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

He makes his way over to me without saying a word, then stops right in front of me.

“What?” I whisper.

He doesn’t seem mad or weirded out, but I feel as if he should — at least a little. I did lie to him.

In the next second, his arms are around me, and he’s squeezing me into his body. My mind races, and I try to figure out exactly what’s going on before I just give in and slowly wrap my arms around him too. I hold him tight, inhale the sweet smell of his cologne and press my hands flat against the muscles in his back. I feel as if I’m literally melting into his embrace when I hear him whisper into my hair.

“Will you come home with me?”

He pulls away from me and holds my shoulders in the palms of his hands.

“Across the hall?” I ask, timidly.

He laughs once and then slowly shakes his head.

“No, home,” he says. “The county fair’s next week. Will you come with me?”

I search his eyes until I feel genuine excitement coming to life on my face.

“Okay,” I agree.

He gives me this look then, as if he’s waiting for me to change my mind or something.

“Really?” he asks.

I nod my head and start to laugh. “Yeah,” I confirm.

A wide grin lights up his face, and then he pulls me into his arms again.

I’m not completely sure what I’ve just agreed to. It sounds awfully close to something you’d do if you were in a relationship. And though I’m not completely opposed to the idea, I’m pretty sure a real relationship with Jorgen Ryker or anyone new, for that matter, is next to impossible in my situation.

Jorgen leaves, and I find myself gravitating toward the pin on the shelf. I pick it up and caress its indented surface with my fingertips. I don’t keep anything from my old life where I can see it, but I do keep this out. Hannah was right. It was my hope; it is my hope. I didn’t think of it that way at all when I first had it in my hand. But now, looking back, it really was my hope — my tiny glimmer of hope — like something was telling me to keep going, to keep fighting, to fight back, to live. And now, I think, it’s kind of become like a testament to human survival for me — like it reminds me of just how strong we really can be when we have to be and that just when we think we can’t possibly go on, we do.

“Damn train,” I hear him mumble under his breath as he pulls to the side of the two-lane road.

I look up to see a train frozen and stretched across the part of the tracks where the truck is supposed to drive across.

“Okay, we’ll have to get out here.”

He smiles his crooked smile at me and then pushes open his door. I watch him climb out and shut the door behind him. And after a second, I follow his lead and do the same, even though I’m now one-part bewildered and one-part amused.

“I don’t know why the damn thing stops here like this all the time.”

He’s talking to me but not talking to me at the same time.

“I live on the other side of these tracks. Are you up for a little walk?”

I know my expression turns curious — fast. I’m not exactly sure what I’ve signed up for yet, but at least now I’m happy that I chose to wear my comfortable boat shoes earlier this morning instead of something less forgiving on my feet.

“When you say ‘walk,’ are we talking down the block or more like a day’s journey?”

I can see in between the railcars, and there’s a shed and a little, winding stretch of highway, but other than that, it’s all flat fields and nothing much else for miles.

“There’s an old truck in that shed over there,” he says, pointing at a spot behind the cars. “It’s there mostly for times like this.”

I watch lines form near the corners of his eyes as he holds out his hand. And I can’t help but smile too when I lay my fingers against his.

He swings his legs over the labyrinth of metal and chains that connects the two train cars next and then turns back toward me.

“I know this is pretty much after the fact, but this is safe, right?” I ask.

A playful expression dances to his face.

“It is until it starts movin’.”

I feel my eyes growing wide right before I scurry up onto the metal hitch, steady myself with the help of Jorgen’s hand and then quickly jump off. Immediately, I feel my feet hit the loose gravel on the other side of the tracks, and I let go of a thankful breath.

“You okay?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I say, securing a strand of my hair behind my ear with my free hand. “There’s really no other way in?”

He slowly shakes his head back and forth. “Not from this side.”

“How often does it just stop here like this?”

“Oh, about once a month or so,” he says casually, as if it’s just another fact of life.

The way he says it makes me laugh.

“Come on,” he says, setting out down the black asphalt with my hand still in his.

The asphalt is the only thing, once we cross the tracks, that reminds me that I’m still in the twenty-first century. I mean, I’m not exactly from the most bustling of metropolises either, but we do have grocery stores and hospitals…and lines on our roads. My eyes fixate on the black highway that carves a winding path through corn fields for several miles. There’s not a single white or yellow mark on it.

“So, this is home?”

He angles his face my way. He’s wearing a happy, boyish grin, and I can’t help but notice there’s a new spark in his eyes all of a sudden.

“This is home,” he confirms.

It’s about a quarter of a mile to the shed. We reach it about five minutes later and make our way to one side where there’s a big door made of wooden slats. We stop at it, and Jorgen reaches up and lifts a latch, then pulls the door open.

“Watch your step,” he says, holding out his hand.

I lay my hand in his again before I look down and step over the raised, wooden ledge and onto the dirt floor.

It’s dark inside the shed. There are no windows, but the sun pouring in from the open door lends me just enough light to see that there’s a thick, gray tarp covering something big in front of us.

I watch as Jorgen bends down at one of the corners of the tarp and starts pulling it up. He pulls it up and then over and then gathers it into his arms.

“Ol’ Red,” he announces, once he’s got the tarp squished into a big ball.

He gestures toward an old truck painted a bright cherry red.

“What year is it?”

I can’t believe something that looks this old still runs.

“It’s a ‘64.”

I walk around the front of it. There’s a clear bug shield running the width of the hood. The words Ol’ Red are written on it in black, cursive stenciling.

“It really is Ol’ Red,” I say, pointing to the letters.

“Sure is,” he says, smiling back at me.

I take another good look at the old truck. “I love it,” I say and mean it.