Chapters (51)
- Cover
- Dedication
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Acknowledgments
- P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . .*
- About the Author
- About the Book
- Also by Alison Gaylin
- About the Publisher
I don’t want to think about it. Instead, I will tell you what I said to Gabriel. The last thing I said to him, through all this driving and coloring our hair and finding and checking into the Bristol Arms. What I said was this: “I want to see Jenny.”
He said it was dangerous, driving back to where he’d left her. That if we did that and the police caught us, they’d separate me from Jenny forever. He promised, though, that he’d let me talk to her again.
And he kept his promise. Once we got checked in to this fleabag, we went to the pay phone outside. Gabriel dropped a bunch of coins in there and dialed a number that I secretly wrote down. I heard him talking to someone, telling them to put Jenny on. Just like before, she didn’t speak to me. But I heard her breathing again and I told her I love her and that I’m going to come for her soon and when I did, we’d be together forever. I would never let her out of my sight again.
That was enough. It had to be.
Oh, Aurora Grace, I don’t want to get into bed. I don’t want to go to sleep again, until life is normal and there’s nothing to be afraid of and nobody gets hurt for asking simple questions. Until no one gets hurt at all.
Love,
Future Mom
4:00 A.M.
Dear Aurora Grace,
It turns out the girl from down the hall isn’t a skank at all. She’s a hippie or something like that, I guess. But she’s super nice. Her name is Elizabeth.
Just after I finished that last letter to you, she knocked on our door and told me she noticed how swollen my jaw was. She’d brought an ice bag and a bottle of lime-flavored vodka, and we sat on the bed, drinking and talking while Gabriel snored on the floor. She asked me if Gabriel was my brother or my boyfriend, and I sat there saying nothing for quite a while. Thinking. Finally, I said, “He’s kind of both. And neither.”
Luckily, she didn’t ask me any more about my life than that, because I didn’t want to lie to her and at the same time, I didn’t want her to run away. We talked about so many things. Our hopes and dreams. Where we see ourselves in ten years. We talked about witchcraft too, because Elizabeth is into witchcraft. She says she thinks our meeting each other was an act of magick because we look so much alike—same size, same color hair. Same smile, even. It turns out that for years, she’s been wishing for a sister.