My heart sang with the certainty that Audrey needed me, and I grabbed at the bars that covered the window, testing their resilience. They didn’t budge. I raced for the front door. Anyone with an internet connection knew that Audrey had had problems with that lock since she moved in, and there was a chance it might be open. A small chance, but one worth pursuing before I was forced to consider a more drastic course of action. Scarcely daring to hope, I pushed on the iron gate in front of her door. I expected it to remain firmly in place, but it swung open with a light creak.

Fate. I was fated to be there that night, fated to be the one to save her. I grasped her doorknob, certain that it would turn easily in my hand.

It did.

My blood tingled as I entered her darkened apartment. I paused to inhale the distinct smell of her home: the lingering aroma of her coconut shampoo, a citrus-scented candle, a slight twinge of dust. I looked toward her open bedroom door and remembered my mission. My heart climbed my throat, threatening to choke me.

I turned toward her bedroom, fearful of what I might find in there. If, God forbid, something had happened in the time it took me to get inside, I knew I would never recover from discovering her corpse, from seeing her skin waxen and her summer-fruit lips blue. I reminded myself that fate had steered me to her window, that it wouldn’t let me get this far and then snatch her from me, and stepped into her bedroom.

Audrey sat straight up in bed, her eyes flying open like a doll’s.

I froze, too startled to move.

“Hi,” she said pleasantly.

Heart pounding so hard it rattled my rib cage, I stared at her. Something was wrong. Her eyes were unfocused and lacked their usual sparkle. She was looking at me, but she wasn’t seeing me. She was either asleep or seriously out of it from the pills.

So I said the only thing I could think to say: “You’re dreaming.”

“Oh,” she said agreeably, before lying back down and closing her eyes.

I exhaled, pressing a fist to my mouth. Holy shit.

I remained rooted to the floor, afraid to move, to do anything that might awaken her. And so I just stood there and watched her sleep, her pale chest rising and falling, her heart-shaped lips open. It took everything I had not to cross the room and kiss those lips, but I didn’t. I wouldn’t. I wasn’t some sort of weirdo.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX AUDREY

In my nearly thirty years, I’ve only ever thought I loved two men. The first was Charles Newton, whom I dated my senior year in high school. He was the captain of the soccer team, and had perfect chestnut waves and a sound system in his used Toyota that was loud enough to qualify as a public nuisance. We were making out on the couch in his basement, Fall Out Boy playing in the background, when he whispered wetly in my ear, “I love you.” Overcome by hormones and emo music, I said it back. Two weeks later, he broke up with me via text, and one week after that I was dating his best friend.