I don’t sleep much. The feel of Elijah’s lips on mine lingered when I finally left his room to go to bed. I ended up staring at the ceiling for hours, wondering about Coley. Wondering about Frankie. Wondering why he kept his secrets for so long.

I feel like I’ve barely fallen asleep when my alarm goes off in the morning. I slap around on my nightstand for my phone and eventually pull myself out of bed and get dressed.

“I’ve got another meeting with Pastor Ernie this morning,” Ms. Birdie says, dressed and frantically searching for her keys. “You boys want a ride to school today?”

“Another meeting on Main Street?”

Birdie looks at me with kind eyes and puts her hand on the side of my face. “Julian, I promise everything is going to be okay,” she says. “I’m sorry about the building, but I really do think this is best.”

“It was important to Dad,” I say, feeling a strength from somewhere outside of myself. I stand up taller.

“I know it was. It’s very important to me, too,” she says, stroking my cheek with her thumb before planting a kiss on the side of my head. “Trust your old Birdie, okay?”

“I do,” I tell her, even though I don’t fully feel it yet. I wish I had more control over what was going to happen to the old place. All I can do is hope Birdie keeps it. But is that selfish of me? It’s not like I’m going to be around here forever to help her take care of it. A creeping sense of guilt starts to build in my stomach, but I squash it down quickly. Birdie will do what’s best, I tell myself.

“I think we’ll walk,” I tell Birdie. I want a few extra minutes alone with Elijah before we walk to school with Camille.

She meets us at the end of the driveway as usual. The sun is already beating down, and all three of us are hot before we even make it up to Main Street. Elijah’s shoulder bumps into mine, and we share a secret smile. I bump him back gently.

“Hey, wait a minute.” Camille stops us as we turn the corner onto Main.

“What’s up?” Elijah asks.

“I should be asking the two of you that. Is there something going on here? I’ve got instincts about this kind of stuff,” she says, giving both of us serious side-eye.

I share a look with Elijah. The corner of his mouth turns up very slightly, and I can feel the tips of my ears start to burn.

“What’s going on with the two of you?”

I look over at him again, and we both stifle a laugh. I reach for his hand and loop his pinkie in mine. I look Camille in the eye and say, “Oh, nothing.”