Maybe they can tell Tom wants to make contact, of any sort?

She knows Tom brought the glasses from under his bed. She doesn’t know if they’ll work, but she definitely doesn’t think he should try.

Secrets. Tom doesn’t know she knows. And Malorie doesn’t know he has them.

But Olympia knows. Lots of things.

Sometimes this infuses her with a sense of great importance. Other times it makes her feel like she’s a liar. Like she hasn’t been truthful with Malorie and Tom over time.

She hasn’t.

It’s impossible to lie to herself, though she’s read of characters who benefit from doing it. Like how they understand the people they care about are complex, and so they ignore some of the bad stuff about each other. And why not? Does it matter that Tom resents Malorie? Does it matter that Malorie is growing distant from Tom? The old world is wholly different than the new, yes, but Olympia’s discovered that people mostly remain the same. The characters in her books aren’t so different from those in her life.

Today, they walked until the sun came up, and now it’s begun its long descent.

But they’re close.

They walk slow because they’re tired and they’re hot and at turns it all feels like a fool’s errand. There are no road signs telling them the train is close. No billboards like in the books.

But they walk. And they hope. And Olympia does all she can to make her mom feel at peace with her decision to do this.

She wants so badly for Malorie’s parents to be alive. They are, she supposes, her grandparents, whether by blood or not, and she’s read enough about grandparents to know the impact they can have on a teenager’s life.

Oh, how she wants them to be alive. In St. Ignace. Or closer. Waiting on the platform for their family. Like grandparents used to do.

“Only two miles to go,” Tom says.

They’re walking as fast as they safely can.

Olympia hears the pep in her brother’s voice. He’s been mostly quiet today. She wonders if he assumes they take his silence to mean he’s listening. But Olympia knows better. Tom goes quiet when he’s planning. Back in Camp Yadin that usually meant he was coming up with the materials he’d need for a new helmet, protective body armor, heavier gloves. But out here, she wonders.

Does it have to do with what he was reading outside the barn last night?