I swallowed hard, not wanting to promise him that I wouldn’t die, because I’d never felt more distracted and out of touch with reality in my whole life than I did while staring out his windshield at that moment. It seemed not only possible but likely that I’d die before I’d ever arrive back in Tampa. Before I’d ever see Trey again. And the way Henry had been acting since we’d arrived at Violet’s house that day was making the reason why he’d been FaceTiming me every day for the last few weeks very clear: He cared more about me than I’d allowed myself to realize.

I was distractedly worried about Trey, what had happened to him at Northern to make him escape, and where he was at that very moment. But I could no longer deny that I felt a powerful attachment to Henry, too. His brimming tears made me feel like crying.

“You’ll… keep trying to figure this thing out… get the curse off Mischa.”

Henry squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. “What’s the point of figuring this out if you’re not here? What’s the point of”—he looked up and winced at what he saw through the windshield: gray sky and bare trees—“any of this if you’re not here?”

I couldn’t speak; the same thoughts had been occurring to me for the last few weeks about going through the motions of life in Florida without Trey. What was the point of anything if we couldn’t be together? Realizing that Henry felt that way about me made me acutely aware of how insensitive I’d been toward him. I had been flattered by his attention. I’d grown accustomed to receiving it. But while I’d been eager to end the game that Violet had started so that I could secure my future with Trey, Henry had remained involved in the effort more out of a desire to prove himself to me than to avenge Olivia.

Even though he knew I was in love with Trey.

Even though it was clear to me now that he’d left Wisconsin for France to try to get over not only Olivia’s death, but his feelings for me.

And instead, once he’d gotten there, we’d fallen into a daily habit I had to admit that—despite the conflict in my heart and my loyalty to Trey—I loved.

I wanted to assure Henry that I’d find a solution. There had to be a way to get the curse off Mischa, and with the guidance of Kirsten and Mrs. Robinson, we’d figure it out. But for the first time since my mom had gotten me up in the middle of the night to tell me that Olivia had been in an accident, I’d lost all hope that anything in our lives would ever be okay again. Maybe the only option was for all of us to save ourselves, to walk away, and to let the cursed person figure out terms for collecting souls that they could justify, in the same way that Violet’s grandmother had.