After all those months post-Amsterdam, walking onto the balcony to an icy hostility from the crowd below, I can still scarcely believe the reception. It’s an odd and wonderful thing, to barely dare to hope you might be tolerated as you are, only to find out the real you is beloved the way the false you never was.

I steal a look at Danni. She looks confident, and beautiful, and utterly self-assured. She catches my eye, gives me a radiant smile, and gestures for me to turn back to the crowd. “Look. They’re excited to see you,” she mouths.

I should, I absolutely should.

But I can’t tear my eyes away from her.

Nor do I want to.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

For the past several weeks, I have asked myself over and over: How can I possibly acknowledge all the people who are responsible for bringing this book to life, when it took eleven years? How can I properly thank everybody, how do I make sure I don’t forget the people who were important back in the beginning, and what order do I thank people in? I don’t know the answer to the first two questions, but I have decided that in regards to the third, I will attempt to acknowledge chronologically.

So, thank you to the people who believed in this book when I was a querying author just out of my teen years, who had no idea if I would ever see myself in a bookstore. To Alexa Donne, for reaching out and asking to read my manuscript after spotting it in a competition. To Claire Donnelly, for being one of the first people ever to fall in love with a full-length novel I wrote, and for giving me confidence. To Moe Ferrara, for taking a chance on this book back when the publishing industry was significantly, significantly straighter than it is now, and for taking it through countless edit rounds. Thank you to my early critique partners and beta readers, Alexa, Lee, Cale, and Ashley.

Thank you to Jacob and Anna, both of whom separately read this manuscript (or another version of it, anyway) several years ago, and both of whom gave it such a warm reception that it reignited my excitement for the story and motivated me to revisit it. It’s a vulnerable thing to share old, rejected work with people, and you both handled it with care. I doubt this book would exist outside of my hard drive if you hadn’t. Thank you as well to Tess Sharpe, for reviewing an excerpt of this on short notice as I queried it all over again a decade after my first attempt.

An enormous thank-you to my agent, Jess Mileo, for believing in my new vision for this story and for all your support and phone calls—especially for all the time difference considerations!