“Nothing at Whisper Cove is real,” he says. His hands are on my face. “It’s all illusion. Smoke and mirrors. I need you to understand that.” I can’t help myself. He’s so close. I kiss him again. But I still need more of him. I pull his body against mine and kiss him so deep that it’s like being turned inside out. The fog blurs the edges of us until I’m not sure where my body ends and Cole’s begins. “It’s all theatre,” he murmurs against my lips. His fingers on my neck make me shiver. “All of it. Except this. Except you and me. This is fucking real.” His voice breaks. “Every single time.”

“Is this why you brought me here?” I tease, and he smiles. Shakes his head.

“I brought you here to show you a magic trick.”

Cole pulls me to the edge of the cliff and takes a flashlight out of his pocket. He aims it into the nothingness, over the edge of the drop-off. Then he reaches into his other pocket and pulls out a handful of sea glass. All different colors. Frosted and beautiful and smooth. He shows them to me in his palm as the fog wraps us up like a blanket.

“Watch,” he whispers. And I’m mesmerized. By his words. His breath hanging in the thick air. By the sea sounds and the wind. The taste of salty kisses on my lips.

And the rest of it happens in slow motion. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Cole pulls back his arm and flings the sea glass into the dark. And I think it’s gone. Disappeared. Swallowed by the night. But then he hits it with that flashlight beam as it drops into the sea, and every single piece twinkles and shines, suspended for a moment before it streaks toward the water.

Like rain on fire.

Heavy and wet.

“Look, Avril.” I think the next words in my head even before Cole says them out loud. “Look at the stars.”

ACT II: SCENE 8

Plop.

Plop plop.

Plop.

The stars are falling out of the sky again.

They hit the water, and I’m five years old.

I’m looking for my mother. But she isn’t anywhere.

Then I see her. Just a glimpse. And she disappears.

Vanishes into thin air.

And I’m falling out of the sky.

Just like the stars.

“Avril?” I’m blinded. Cole clicks off the flashlight. Lays a hand on my arm. He’s warm and alive. But I’m frozen.

A ghost.

A girl made of fog.

“Hey,” he says. His voice is coming from somewhere far away, because I’m stuck twelve years in the past.

Look at the stars.