My dad and I stayed up talking for another hour or so before he left to go back to his hotel. When he was gone, I walked into my room and looked around. It was strange to see it all packed up into suitcases. Mind you, I’d never really settled here properly—it was as if the universe knew this somehow. Knew that this was only a temporary stop on the way to somewhere else. I climbed into bed and my thoughts immediately drifted to Jake. Was Jake temporary too? I didn’t want to think of him like that, so I distracted myself with running through the list of all the things I’d packed to make sure I hadn’t missed anything. And suddenly, I remembered I had missed something.

I jumped out of bed and rushed to the little tray of succulent leaves on my windowsill. I hadn’t spritzed them with water last night. I grabbed the bottle and was just about to spritz when I noticed something. I picked up one of the leaves and stared at the tip of it. There it was. So small, so tiny. The start of a bright-pink root shooting from the end. I looked down at the little leaf. Once discarded, thought to be dead, only it wasn’t. It was starting to grow again. Ready for its new adventure. Ready to start its new life. And that’s when it hit me, what I needed to do.

I walked out of my room toward my mother’s room. I could see she wasn’t asleep; light was spilling out from under her door. I tapped my knuckles on the door softly, and opened it when I heard a faint “Come in.”

“What’s wrong?” she asked when she saw me.

“Nothing. I’ve just been thinking.”

“About what?” she asked.

“Technically I’m no longer a student at BWH,” I said.

“And?”

“Well, technically that means Xander is no longer my guidance counselor.”

My mom looked down and shook her head.

“I’m just saying, Mom. That if you did want to . . .” I was trying to choose my words carefully now, “. . . pursue something there, it would be okay. I think you should start dating, actually. You deserve to find someone else. Someone who is going to love you and make you happy again, Mom.”

She looked up at me and smiled. “I appreciate that, Lori. But I’m not sure that Xander and I are . . . well, I don’t think I’ll be going on another date with him.”

I raised my eyebrows at her.

“He’s a nice guy, but my goodness, he’s very orange, isn’t he?”

I laughed at this and she laughed back.

“Xander or not, you should date, Mom. You should put yourself out there. But you know, be careful and—”