I glanced at the TV.

The credits were rolling, the movie finished without either of us noticing. “You missed the end of the movie,” I said.

She waved a lazy hand. “Let’s watch it again tomorrow,” she mumbled, her words slurring a little. Her eyelids drooped as she blinked at me. “You’re not leaving, are you?” she asked.

I settled back against the pillows. “Not until you’re asleep.”

A small sigh escaped her lips as she nestled deeper into the blankets, pulling them up around her shoulders.

She smiled—soft, sleepy, and real.

The glow of the TV flickered across her face, making her look almost unreal, like a dream I wasn’t ready to wake up from.

I didn’t say anything else. I just reached for her hand under the blanket, giving it a gentle squeeze.

She squeezed back.

And just like that, we were us again.

8

BEVERLY, 1996

14 years old

It’s funny how time moves in waves. Some months drag on endlessly, stretching out like they never want to end, while others rush by so quickly you barely notice them.

That year, everything felt like it was in constant motion.

Blake was still distant sometimes, lost in his books or his thoughts, but I started to see the difference between him being lost in his own world and actually shutting me out.

It wasn’t the same as before, but it wasn’t worse, either.

If anything, it felt like he was holding me at arm’s length, as if silently saying, this is as close as I can let you be.

One thing I could always count on was Blake looking out for me, like the time he helped me out with the period disaster. He even helped me with math homework once—though, to be fair, he mostly just sighed dramatically every time I got something wrong until I threatened to throw my textbook at him.

Life was changing in little ways; shifts I didn’t notice until I looked back.

My own world had grown smaller in some ways, and larger in others. I spent more time in the dance studio, perfecting moves I had only dreamed of a year ago. But something had changed in me, too. My body was becoming something new—more aware, more capable. More powerful.

And somehow, the year just moved.

Winter lingered longer than usual, or maybe it just felt that way. The cold settled in, wrapping around the town in a way that made everything feel a little quieter, a little slower. I spent most of those weeks holed up inside, curled on the couch with Blake, watching movies we rented from the video store. Clueless started it, but soon it became a habit.

He always acted like he didn’t care about the movies, but I knew better. He’d sit there, arms crossed, pretending to be bored, then start dissecting the plot like he was some kind of film critic.