We sit together in brokenness for a while. The wind chimes are tugging at my vocal cords, asking me to speak, and like all those years ago when Jenna found me outside of Downtown Books, I say the first thing that comes to mind.

“Jenna wanted me to be an English professor,” I say. “She had it all planned. Like, on a poster board and everything. We would go to the same schools, take the same electives and basic classes together.… She labeled it ‘The Master Plan’ and kept it in her room, where anyone could see.”

Nolan leans forward, running a hand along Emily’s stone. “And you don’t want to be a professor?”

I bunch my knees to my chest and lightly bang my forehead against them. “I don’t know,” I mumble. “I have no idea.”

“So, don’t,” he says. “Be something else. Be whatever you want to be.”

“But how am I supposed to know what that is? Everyone else seems to know already. They’re premed or engineering majors or marine biologists or something with an actual title. I just want to read books or take pictures or find the world’s best ham sandwich.… How can any of those things be made into a career?”

Nolan is silent, his free hand now stroking Avery’s stone. “There are a hundred thousand ways to tell a story,” he begins. “Medical students help people live longer and continue their own stories. Engineering majors tell a story of technology that goes back to cavemen with rocks and sticks. Marine biologists piece together shreds of plot until they know where whales sleep at night and where fish live in coral reefs. Everything is a story, not just writing. You need to find the story that means something to you, a story you like telling.”

He falls silent again, the wind and chimes kicking up in a melancholy symphony that sounds like a heart breaking. I try to take my hand back to move windblown hair out of my eyes, but Nolan tightens his grip before quickly releasing it, like he doesn’t want to let go.

“Sorry,” he says. “Didn’t mean to do that.”

I leave my hand in his, using the other to rid my sight of hair.

I’m crying. I think I’ve cried more in the last month than I have the entire rest of my life. Maybe if Jenna were here, she would change her mind. Maybe if she knew I would be alone, she would tell me to forge my own path.

I am trying to hold it all in my head when Nolan says, “You’re the only person outside of Lochbrook who knows about the girls. We managed to keep it from the press, even after the books became popular and reporters came to poke around, but only because Val has everyone scared shitless.”