I don’t say anything.

“What part do you have?” he asks me. Not that he knows anything about the play. But it’s nice that he’s asking.

“Eden,” I tell him. “It’s the lead.”

“Eden,” he repeats. “That’s nice.” A few more moments of silence. “That was your mother’s favorite name.”

“Really?” That seems so weird.

“She wanted to call you that, but I didn’t want to.” He stops and sighs. “I don’t remember why now.”

I wonder if Willa knew that. If that’s why she chose that name. To honor my mom. Or if it was just a coincidence.

“Break a leg,” Dad tells me. “I’ll see you on Saturday.”

I start to tell him that I miss him, too, but he’s already hung up.

I hurry down to the barn. It’s our last night working inside before we move out to the amphitheater for three nights of tech rehearsals. And we’re working the last scene in the play. The final meeting between Eden and Orion.

Willa already has everyone gathered up in the front row when I slip into the theatre. She turns to smile at me. “This is it,” she tells us all. “One last scene. It’s short and sweet. No long, drawn-out goodbye for our two lovers. But there’s so much to think about.”

Jude sets it up for us. “Okay,” he says. “This the last moment of the play. Eden and Orion meet one last time at the bench by the river. And if I say anything else, I’m gonna cry.”

Cole goes to take his place on the bench, and I see him pick up the guitar. That song is almost more than I can stand tonight.

I walk onstage and stand right behind him—close enough that I know he can feel me breathing—until his fingers stop moving and the theatre goes silent.

It hits me how hollowed out and sunken in he looks. And I’m trying to remember exactly when he became Orion. But I can’t. I guess I was too focused on becoming Eden.

“I know you’re there,” he tells me. “I can feel you.”

“I almost didn’t come tonight,” I say.

“Then why did you?”

“Because I wanted to say goodbye.”

Cole turns to look back at me. Then he holds out one hand. “Come sit with me,” he says. And it’s such a simple request.

So I do.

“Don’t you love me anymore?” he asks, and it’s like a knife to my heart.

“I more than love you,” I tell him. “But things change. People change.”

“You’ve changed,” he says, and I nod.

“You’ll change, too,” I promise him.

“What if I play your song again?” he asks.

“I’ll always hear your music. It’s the song inside my heart.”

“But you won’t come back again.”