I want to take his hand and follow him to whatever magical place inspired my favorite books, but what if it wrecks me? What if it makes the manacles feel even tighter than they already are? I have what I came for, his memory about Jenna. Maybe that should be enough. I shouldn’t ask about Orman or the 101st copy. Maybe it was all just a means to get me here, Jenna pulling strings from … wherever she is. I should cut my losses before I grow even more attached to a person that I’m going to lose.

“I’m leaving soon,” I tell him, hating myself for every word. “I have to go back to Texas. In the fall, I’ll go to Montana. After that, graduate school. There’s no room for you in their plan, Nolan. That is how this”—I gesture between us—“ends. It doesn’t matter what movies we saw, what fake school we went to, what stupid pictures we drew. At the end of the week, I’m going away, and you’ll stay here, and we should stop this before we get hurt.”

Nolan watches me, his eyes falling to the erratic rise and fall of my chest, to my hands clenched at my sides. He crosses to me in three easy strides and waits for me to look up into his remarkably calm eyes before he speaks.

“We’ve already been hurt,” he murmurs, slowly reaching out to take my hand, to lead me from the lake. “What’s one more scar?”

I don’t realize until we’re halfway to town that his fear of water seemed to vanish when he was beside me.

chapter twelve

The high afternoon sun slows the town to a crawl. We walk past shop owners flipping BACK SOON signs and locking front doors, nap-ready children being tugged behind their parents, and other teens drifting into the quiet coffee shops with live musicians singing through scratchy speakers.

When I finally loop my arm through the crook of Nolan’s elbow, he brings his hand up to cover mine. Even with our arms linked, I have trouble keeping up with him as we head to the other side of town, past Val’s, farther than I’ve ever been in Lochbrook. When we come to a small hill covered with trees pressed tightly together, we are forced to drop arms to navigate them.

Eventually, we come to a low iron fence. It’s as if the dead and their memories might walk out if some sort of barrier weren’t erected to keep them in.

Orman is in a graveyard?

I used to like cemeteries. I liked the pristine grass, uniform and almost fake in its perfection. I liked the solemnness laced with serenity, perfect for reflection or brooding or simply remembering that life has its hard limits.