He looks down at the word, then back up at me. “I don’t get it. It comes every year. Right after February.”

“Yes, but it’s, you know—every year, you’re all, ‘March! This is going to be great! Start of spring!’ But it’s definitely not, right? Because there will be a weird, freak snowstorm, and it’s like winter’s started all over. Unexpected things happen in March.”

He stares at me, and I think he might argue. He might say, for example, that if one feels this way every March, then it can’t be truly unexpected. Which would be a good point, but I’m telling you. My M-A-R-C-H is making the case.

Instead he says, “You match the lettering to the”—he turns his teacup—“the feeling.”

“Yes,” I say, relieved. I take a sip of my soil-flavored tea. The warmth I feel—it’s not from the drink. It’s from this evening, these games, this moment. This understanding, or at least the attempt at it.

But then Reid says something that makes everything turn cold again.

“Avery,” he says, his voice steady. “I can see why you picked those letters for her. The ones on our . . . on the wedding things.”

“Oh,” I say, stunned. Reid is so—direct, really. Being with him sometimes—it’s as if I’m learning a whole new language.

“The fairies, those suited her. She was—” He pauses, looks down at the notebook between us. I don’t remember doing it, but at some point in the last few seconds I’ve closed it. My right hand is resting on top, palm flat, bracing myself against everything about this that is uncomfortable.

“Unreal, in a way,” he finishes. “Beautiful, and powerful.”

The only thing I can seem to do is nod. She was those things. Even I thought so, and I barely knew her.

He looks up at me, that trace of sadness in his eyes until he seems to see something in mine. His gaze sharpens, and he straightens in his chair. “I apologize.”

“No!” I say, too hastily. “I’m the one who . . .”

I trail off, pressing that hand flatter against my notebook. I doubt I’ll open it again tonight. The a that Reid chose—right now it doesn’t feel all that unexpected. It doesn’t feel like he chose it because he was curious about what I’d do with it. It feels like he chose it because it’s a way into this—this constant, looming confrontation between us. What I did. What I put into those letters.

It’s so hard to have that confrontation looming there.

The tower we started building—it’s near collapse.

“It’s getting late,” he says, seeming to know.

Quite late, is all I can think. I nod, but don’t move to pack up.