“Wait. Before you say anything, just… listen,” he said, staring into my eyes so fervently without blinking that I wondered exactly what had been going on at Northern to cause him to leave. “I can’t stay here, in Willow. I have to leave now. This morning. I only came back here hoping I’d have a chance to talk to you, like this. I really was on my way to Florida yesterday when I ran into you at the airport, and thank God I did, or else I don’t know how I would have gotten in touch with you again. Being here—in this town—is really dangerous for me.”

My heart ached. “Why now? You’ll be eighteen in July, and then you’ll be free to do whatever you want. They’ll probably erase your record,” I reminded him, although even as I spoke the words, I knew they’d stopped being true the moment he’d broken out of his school for the second time.

Trey squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. “I wouldn’t have survived until July if I’d stayed.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. Trey knew everything there was to know about surviving reform school. He’d told me before I arrived at the Sheridan School for Girls to keep my head down, avoid calling attention to myself, and keep myself out of situations in which I might rack up social debts to other people. Even though I knew Trey loved earning the ire of teachers at Willow High School, he’d made a point of keeping a low profile at Northern Reserve.

Trey led me farther into the library, to the bright red couches in the children’s area where story hour for kids was held. It was odd to find myself there—enveloped in its unique and peculiar smell of old paper—a place where I’d spent so much time in junior high scouring the stacks for books to check out. Dust, illuminated by morning rays of light, danced in the air around us as we sat down. The library, to me, had always been a haven, providing security and promising magic. It was ironic that this particular section of the library had been built by Trey and Violet’s grandfather, and now here we found ourselves, discussing our future, which had been wrecked by Violet and her deceased sisters, his descendants.

“Two weeks ago, at the end of March, I had a visitor, okay? And that’s weird because I never have visitors. My mom’s only driven up to visit me twice since November. So when I went into the cafeteria that day, I had no idea who or what to expect, but the person who’d come to see me was a lawyer. Lawrence Strohmann.”

My heart skipped a beat. That name was familiar, but in the same way as the verse of a song you can’t quite remember.

“Ekdahl, West & Strohmann?” Trey said, and realization flooded me. Of course. Mr. Simmons’s attorneys from Green Bay, the ones who had attempted to bribe Trey’s mother into terminating her pregnancy after her affair with Violet’s father. When I’d been home in January, I’d come across a letter from them sent to Trey’s mom to inform her that she was being sued for accepting payment from them but failing to comply with the terms on which they’d agreed.