But better than 1.94 years.

And better than 2.84 years.

Heartened, Pete imagined what Ginette’s trip along the forty-seventh parallel north would be like. She’d start out on the Road to Nowhere and head into the North Maine Woods and into the Allagash Wilderness and into Canada and through Quebec City and maybe she could just pick up the Trans-Canada Highway when she got there and hitch rides from time to time.

No—probably not the safest thing.

She could just walk.

Along the Trans-Canada.

All the way across Canada.

And when she got to the Pacific Ocean, she could keep walking and go north along the coast of British Columbia and into Alaska—which she had to see, because Pete’s dad had worked on a fishing boat there once and said Alaska was like a supersize version of Maine.

And once she crossed Alaska, she could take a boat across the Bering Strait and then she’d be in Russia. On the continent of Asia.

Wow.

She’d be up by the Arctic Circle by then, so that would really shorten the journey, because that would be the sixty-sixth parallel north—and maybe she’d be there in the summer and it’d be light all the time and she could really rack up the miles—because she could walk all day.

And then, eventually, she’d get to Europe where she could visit all the great cities and cathedrals and monuments that Mr. Smith had taught them about in seventh grade, and then maybe she could hop a boat to Great Britain, and then hop another one to Ireland, and then hop another one to Iceland.

Oh! Iceland! Pete had read about—and seen pictures—of Iceland in his National Geographics and he’d want to hear all about the geysers and the hot springs and the glaciers.

And then, after Iceland, she could take a boat to Greenland, and then a boat down to Labrador, and into Quebec again. And then she’d need to catch a boat across the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Gaspé Peninsula, where his mom and dad had taken him and his sister, Gwen, camping once when they were little.

And then she’d go through New Brunswick, and before she knew it, she’d be back in Maine again.

And in Almost.

And at Skyview Park.

At the observatory.

On the bench.

And she’d be close to Pete again.

Hopefully.

But then he remembered it would take Ginette 1.38 years to make such a journey—at best.

And he didn’t want to be without Ginette for 1.38 years.

He didn’t want to be without her for even 1.38 days.

Or 1.38 hours.

Pete stared off to the west toward down-township Almost, Maine, and into the wilderness of northwestern Maine.

And he wondered if he had lost her.

And if he’d ever see her again.

And there Pete was, looking to the west for Ginette.

And there Ginette was, looking to the east for Pete.

And they didn’t know this—because they were over two and a half miles apart—but, at that moment, they were facing one other.