I turned the hot water up as I debated washing my hair. It would take forever to dry it, even with the shared and outdated hair dryer, but something told me it might be a while before I would be able to wash my hair again. The act of massaging shampoo into my scalp worked wonders to further reduce my anxiety. Afterward, I began the long process of drying my hair. The hair dryer groaned. Almost immediately, it became too hot to touch. The noise rivaled that of a jet engine, and my ears were ringing by the time I’d finished.

As I walked back to my room, something else haunted me about the Bound Book. What had been written underneath my name? Was I replacement? Was some other girl supposed to be here with James?

Impossible.

There was no way James could have faked how he felt about me, no more than I could fake how I felt about him. Whenever we were together, it seemed as if we were the only two people in the world. And if everything had gone the way it was supposed to, if I had come back with James, things would have ended up that way. We would be a part of tonight’s Joining. And then we would be the only two people in our world during our year-long seclusion to, as Calla had said, “Get to know each other better.”

This thought caused a fire to burn through me. It had been far too long since I’d felt his arms around me. I suddenly experienced an overwhelming need to be beside James.

Soon, I thought.

“What took you so long?” Calla asked when I returned. “They already brought us supper.” She motioned for me to sit down at a small cart that had been pushed into our room like one of those room service trays in a fancy hotel.

“Smells good,” I said, sitting across from Calla. “What is it?”

Calla lifted the lid off a large platter. “A little bit of everything. We’re supposed to snack on this for the rest of the day. We’re having a formal meal after our last dance.”

“Oh, kind of like a rehearsal dinner,” I said, placing my napkin on my lap.

“A what?” Calla asked.

What girl didn’t know about rehearsal dinners? Over the past couple of days, Calla had acted as if she’d forgotten everything about our world. Yesterday, she said she didn’t know what streaming was, couldn’t remember wasting a day binge watching an entire series. And last night, when I’d joked about missing the incessant chirps of social media notifications, Calla claimed she didn’t know anything about social media, or even what a cell phone was.

She’d asked the exact question. “A what?”