I reached for the shoe box hidden underneath my bed. This was my liberation. Since the day I had decided that I wanted none of this soul-mate business, I had been saving up every penny I had. There was a faded photo buried underneath the crumpled money stuffed inside the box. It was of a pale girl with insufferable auburn frizz for hair and dark-brown eyes that were too big for her small oval face. Next to her was an olive-skinned guy with dark hair. They were both smiling, wind blowing the hair from their faces, sunlight shining on their foreheads. Me and Bryan. Tears prickled the corners of my eyes, and I took a deep breath.

He was supposed to be here with me. We were supposed to escape together.

I wiped my tears away with my sleeves. I wished I could go a day, or even an hour, without thinking about him or being reminded of him, but it was impossible when everything and everywhere evoked something about him—even this room. He used to sit on the floor with me, and we’d spend hours talking about our dreams and what we wanted to do in life.

The Davises had moved next door ten years ago; they were Regulars too. While my house was always quiet, practically a ghost house, Bryan’s had been the other way around. Every morning his mom turned on the radio and tuned into a country music channel while doing housework (I disliked country music because I’d heard more than my share of it). Despite going to the same school, Bryan and I never shared anything but awkward hellos for the first five years we lived next to each other.

But then his father kicked him out of the house. Six months ago, Bryan’s mother had a terrible accident while hiking. She lost her footing and slid down the edge of the hill, hitting her head against a rock on the way down. She ended up in a coma. Instead of being there for his wife, Bryan’s dad cozied up to a co-worker. Bryan found out about his dad’s secret affair one day after coming home early from visiting his mom at the hospital.