“There’s a photo,” he says suddenly, eyes shining. “There is a photo of a girl curled in a chair. She isn’t looking at the camera and she has headphones on. She’s—” His voice cracks and he pauses. “She’s the most beautiful girl in existence. She makes everything brighter around her because she is filled with stories, and even when she thinks she can’t take any more, she lets in another chapter and another. Because it’s who she is.”

I make myself open the hatchback and throw in my bag.

“She sees whales in the sky and has stories to tell, too. She’s not exactly sure how she wants to tell them, but she will.”

I slam the trunk closed.

“I love her,” Nolan whispers, and my heart stops. “I know it’s too soon, and unrealistic, and stupid, but I love Amelia Griffin, and if she will let me love her—in whatever way she wants to—we could tell each other stories forever. Of pictures and whales and … anything you want, Amelia.”

I ignore the wonder in his voice, the hope. If I were stronger I would kiss him good-bye, but I’m not strong. The sooner I go, the sooner we can forget. The sooner everything can go back to normal.

I leave Nolan Endsley standing thunderstruck and more broken than I found him, his face growing smaller and smaller in my rearview mirror. I wait to feel the thread between us sever and wonder if it will be like a rubber band snapping back to leave an angry welt on my arm, one final retaliation.

But it doesn’t.

I shouldn’t have come here.

There are no whales in the lake when I drive past. There is nothing hiding in the trees, promising adventure or peril. It’s just a lake. It’s just some trees.

chapter eighteen

Everything is back to normal. Well, the new, Jennaless normal.

It’s my new mantra, what I tell myself every morning when I wake up to the sticky Texas heat and the sound of my mom watching TV.

Everything is back to normal.

I go to the college seminar and take careful notes. It’s actually useful, full of experts in life coaching and nutrition, teaching us things like how to make a cheap salad taste good and how to have a part-time job and still be social while taking a full course load.

When it’s over and I’m packing up my stuff, one of the instructors thanks me for coming and asks where I’m going to school.

“Missoula,” I say.

“That’s such a great school.” She beams. Her smile is huge and genuine, as if I told her I won the lottery twice in a row and want to split the winnings with her. “You’re going to love it. Do you know what you want to study?”