Sunshine beats down on my face, fiery and free. The four of us ride along in Charvan this one last time, flowing toward home and into the unknown at the same time. “Bittersweet Symphony” plays on the stereo, and nothing could feel more fitting. In this moment, we are a hello that starts with a goodbye. We are sewn tightly together as we prepare to scatter our separate ways. We found the answers we were seeking, but we are filled with even bigger questions.

We are all two things at once, flipped coins and balanced scales.

So what else is there to do but sing along as we hurtle into the four-cornered valley below? I stick my arm out of the open window, letting the air scoop my palm in invisible waves. I think of the answers that burn bright in my brain, waiting to be fully unpacked. I think of Grandma and all she has left me, today and every day. And I think of what she would tell me to do, if she were here:

Enjoy the moment.

“Is anyone else’s stomach beeping with hunger like Toky’s?” Cleo asks, projecting over the music.

“I definitely wouldn’t put it that way,” Logan laughs. “But, yes, I am also starving.”

“I have two restaurants left on my CleoCraft list, if we want to hit one on the drive back?”

Hearing this question, my eyes shift to Chase. I can tell he has the same instinct to pull a tarot card, to divine one last universal sign as we end this trip.

“What if we just stop at the first place that looks good?” Chase responds first. “One final detour to add to the books?”

Everyone in Charvan reacts with a beat of surprised silence, because this might be the least Chase thing he has ever said.

“I’m in,” I say. “Something tells me we’ll know the right place when we see it.”

These gestures are little, I know. But I also now know how the littlest things can accumulate. Tiny beads of light gathered together, branches and trees, drops and oceans. Single steps that make up an entire journey—major detours, minor miracles and all.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

THANK YOU, FIRST and foremost, to Britny Brooks-Perilli, for this enormous labor of love. No one else possessed the vision for what this novel could be, nor the technical know-how and creative spirit to get it made. From concept to proposal to final draft, you’ve been my champion every step of the way (in a world where champions of interactive and queer fiction are hard to find). For better or worse, you are now forever immortalized as the enigmatic Carson Perilli.