But they’ve lost this one.

The cat inches toward me. It’s wet, cold, hungry. It lets me gather its body into my arms. I wrap the sides of my flannel shirt around it, keeping it warm and close, and it begins to purr.

With Goblin in one arm, I climb back up the combine.

We walk back through the woods to the Crow’s Nest.

A few searchers have already given up and come back to the parking lot. They stand around their cars, talking, checking phones, kicking bits of gravel. I can hear others shouting and crunching in the trees. Most of them haven’t gone far. No one glances at me. It’s twilight now, dark enough that the air is thick and smoke colored. Lights flicker through the woods, here and there, brighter and larger than fireflies.

With my fingers kept inside my cuff, I pull the phone out of my pocket. I leave it just beyond the edge of the parking lot, near a jumble of lilacs that will bloom like wild in another month. Someone will spot it soon. They’ll hand it over to the police. The police will comb the area, search the ground, the lot, the grass. They won’t find anything else.

I climb onto my bike, Goblin still hunched against my rib cage.

I could take him to Anders now. I could leave him on the stoop, or even knock on the window. But I don’t want to let go just yet. I want to bring the cat home, feed it, dry it, comb the bits of broken leaves out of its fur. I want to feel it sleeping on my bed, curled up near my side, just like it does with Anders. I want to sense his touch when I run my fingers over the cat’s smoky fur, just for a few more hours.

This is where I fail, even when I win.

I’m not good at letting go.

Anders

I’m not sure how I get to school on Tuesday. I don’t know how I get to my first class. All morning it’s like someone with an invisible remote control is pushing a Pause button on my brain. Flash: Pulling a clean T-shirt out of my dresser. Flash: Sophomores chugging energy drinks in the commons, whispering Last Things . . . breakup . . . Frankie Lynde. Flash: I’m in the science room for physics class, in my usual desk. Everyone is pretending not to be staring at me.

Everyone except Sasha.

She sits two desks to my right. Her eyes are like razors.

I slide lower in my seat.

Now the invisible remote control hits Rewind. I’m passing Frankie in the high school hall, and she turns to give me a smile so long and bright anybody around us could see it, and I’m sure most of them do. I’m with her in my bedroom, late on Friday night. I’m above her on that smoky-smelling couch on Blake Skoglund’s porch, her body under me, pressed against me, even though it feels like I’m the one being completely enveloped by her. I’m telling her to fuck off in the dark Crow’s Nest parking lot.