From that point on, nothing was the same. It was Year Zero for the Pines. There was before Charlotte, and after. Now Matt had a new Year Zero.

“So you haven’t seen him since…” Keller didn’t finish the sentence.

“My parents kept us away from the trial. We’ve talked on the phone, but yeah.”

The last time Matt had seen Danny free was the night Charlotte was killed. That night had otherwise been momentous for Matt. Jessica Wheeler had asked him to sneak out to meet her. It was before he’d had a phone, and she’d slipped him a note in ninth-grade science class, the culmination of weeks of flirting. Jessica had folded the note in a square and tied it with a red string, like a miniature package. Matt remembered pulling at the bow, his heart fluttering as he read the note.

MEET ME AT THE KNOLL AT 3 A.M. TONIGHT?

YES OR NO

CIRCLE ONE

The Knoll was a famous make-out spot at the top of a secluded hill near the creek. A place for stargazing and bad decisions. He of course circled yes. And he’d been shocked that she was actually there: holding a flashlight, wearing her pj’s and slippers. On their backs in the cold grass, they stared at the stars dotting the ink-black sky, the clouds blowing past the moon.

“This reminds me of the stargazing scene from A Walk to Remember,” Matt said. “You ever see that movie?”

She shook her head.

“It’s old and not very good. Not many Nicholas Sparks adaptations are. But the scene was solid.”

“Have you always loved movies so much? I mean, like, you always compare things to stuff in movies.”

Matt smiled. “Sorry. It drives my family crazy.”

“I think it’s cute.”

“I want to make movies one day. NYU has this amazing film school. My grandpa, before he got sick, he said that movies are the poetry of our time.”

She turned and faced him.

“Nicholas Sparks … You ever see The Notebook?”

“Of course. The critics hated it, but it’s a cult classic. The kissing in the rain scene is considered—”

Jessica put a finger over his lips. She removed it, and her mouth softly touched his. It put Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams to shame.

Matt touched his lips involuntarily, remembering the electricity slicing through every part of him, when the door jutted open.

“Matty?”

Matt stood, taken aback at the prisoner before him. The teenage football star was a grown man. He still had the good looks, the blond hair, the square jaw. But Matt saw a hardness in his brother’s once clear blue eyes. And by Danny’s steely gaze, he obviously wasn’t happy to see Matt.

“What are you doing here?” Danny said. “I told Dad that I didn’t want—” Danny stopped, eyed Keller. “Who are you?”

Matt said, “Why don’t you sit down.”