Rolling over, I shoved my face in the pillow. I was going to drive myself crazy, because I didn’t have answers for any of this. And there’d be no—

Tap.

I lifted up onto my elbows and frowned. Had I already gone crazy? Because I’d swear I thought I’d heard a—

Tap.

Pushing onto my knees, I twisted, scanning the room. I didn’t see anything that could have made that noise.

“Okay,” I whispered, sliding off the bed. I walked to the center of the room and stood completely still.

Tap.

I jumped.

Oh my God, what if my house was haunted now? Or what if I was about to pull some Black Swan shit? What if—

Tap.

I whipped toward the window. Aha! It was coming from my bedroom window…two floors off the ground. What in the world?

And then it hit me. The sound—oh, holy-baby-Jesus-in-a-manger—the sound was familiar. It wasn’t a ghost, but insanity was still an option, because it couldn’t be what I thought it was.

Years ago, Kyler used to throw rocks before he’d climbed the massive walnut tree outside my bedroom window. So cliché and ridiculous, but he did it up until middle school.

It couldn’t be.

My legs shook as I took a step forward, and then two. I reached the window, and hands trembling, I parted the filmy white curtains. A second later, a small rock smacked off the thick glass of the bottom part of the window.

I froze as my heart sped up, and then I lurched forward, unlocking the tiny latch and lifting the window up. I slid the screen up next and leaned out into the freezing December air.

And my heart skipped a beat.

Kyler stood below, next to the lit wire reindeer, a knit cap pulled low, one arm raised. He let go a second before he saw me. “Oh shit!”

I jumped back as a small pebble zoomed past my face. Holy crap. I put my hand over my racing heart and gingerly approached the window again. I leaned out.

Kyler waved his arm. “Sorry about that!”

“It’s okay.” This was really surreal. Maybe I was dreaming. “What are you doing, Kyler?”

“Talking to you.”

“I can see that. Why…why didn’t you call me?” Because that seemed like the easiest way to talk to me.

He shuffled from one foot to the other, huddled down in his jacket. “I needed to talk to you face-to-face.”

The porch light came on and I winced. A face-to-face conversation was so not possible with him standing outside and with obviously one, if not both, of my parents awake. “Kyler—”

“Hold on,” he called out. “I’m coming up.”