It’s from two days ago and I haven’t answered yet. I probably could go home. I have a year under my belt at National Geographic and have never taken time off. I’ve earned the break. And every year I say I’ll come home. But something inevitably comes up, and anyway, my older brother, Derek, is there. He and his college sweetheart, Michelle, were married two summers ago and have already started giving my parents grandkids. I doubt I’m missed. Me and my no girlfriend, no kids, not even a dog.

Add that to how the last time I was in Michigan, I was subjected to a thousand and one litanies of “the golden-boy prodigal returns,” as if I’d spent my growing-up years in a cult rather than on a kid’s show (not that my dad could discern a difference).

The second message is from Shelby Springfield, and it’s why I’m making offerings to the goddess of fucking airborne disasters to save me.

SHELBY: CAM, THIS IS SHELB. I NEED U. PLEASE COEM. LYLE LIED TO MEE. PLS COME NOW.

I’m only guessing, but I think she might have been intoxicated when she sent it.

It’s been years, but of course I still have her number in my phone. And apparently, she has mine in hers. When I called her, some stranger picked up. After confirming that I was, in fact, Cameron Riggs—“Yes, that Cameron Riggs. Yes, thank you for saying so. I’m glad you liked the show.”—the answerer put Shelby on and all I could make out was that Lyle had dumped her and she was a mess. I got her address and hopped on the first flight out of Alaska.

Six hours and a mercifully uneventful flight from Anchorage later, I touch land in California. It’s been five years since I left the West Coast behind for college, but it feels like five minutes. I don’t bother checking into a hotel yet, catching an Uber to the address Shelby gave me instead. The sun is already setting, and I grimace at the grittiness travel and Alaska have left on my skin. My fingers twitch, nervously scrubbing over my pathetic three-day beard before uselessly smoothing at the scruff like I can make it somehow look less pitiful.

I didn’t have facial hair when I was eighteen. I barely have it now.

Maybe I should have showered and cleaned up.

Too late. The door swings open before I can even reach for the bell and arms fling around my neck, smothering me in bleach blond hair and tequila fumes.

“Caaaaaam!”

Shelby chokes the breath out of me, but I relish the burn and immediately tuck her into my embrace. Her small shoulders tremble and I realize she’s silently sobbing.