“She said yes but not … enthusiastically?” Emily and I had been texting a bit for the past few weeks. She got back from a spring break writer’s retreat and said she’d had a lot of time to think about everything that happened and she was still really pissed but she wanted to maybe meet up again sometime before the end of her semester. A few days ago I texted her about trivia, thinking that would maybe be a good way to ease back into spending time with each other.

“I mean, a yes is still a yes, right?” Adam said, shrugging his shoulders, which were drowning in Caleb’s letterman jacket. It was so strange seeing them, so … normal. Just two high school sweethearts, wearing each other’s clothes, holding hands, and getting froyo with a friend like they were completely average people. Like one of them didn’t have a supernatural ability and the other wasn’t connected to a mysterious government organization meant to study them.

“Yeah.” I sighed. “A yes is still a yes.”

That was my hope. A second act, like Damien had said. I know that he wasn’t the most reliable expert on who was deserving of second chances, but GOD I hope Emily gives me one. I feel like I’m running out of them everywhere else.

As we walked around Cambridge, eating our frozen yogurt on a surprisingly warm day, talking about romance and how stressful it was to be us, I did start to feel a little normal. Just normal enough that I came home feeling confident, which is how I walked directly into a serious conversation with Aaron.

I was just sitting in my room, minding my own business (by which I mean, going through every single item of clothing in my closet to try and find something cute to wear to trivia), when I heard a knock on my doorframe.

“What?” I barked, without looking at who it was, still half-inside my closet.

“Got a sec?”

I turned around to see Aaron standing in my doorway, looking … nervous.

“Uh, yeah,” I said, stepping around the piles of clothes on my floor and flopping down to sit on my bed. “What’s up?”

“I want to plan a trip for all of us this summer,” he said, the words coming out in a rush like he was afraid if he didn’t say it quickly he wouldn’t say it at all.

“A trip?” I asked. Aaron took a few steps into my room to stand in front of me.

“It’s been a long time since we had a family vacation, you know?” he said, eyes big. “And I was thinking it could be really nice to do something all together this summer. Maybe go camping like we used to.”

“You think that’s a good idea? With Dad, I mean…” I trailed off, letting the subtext stand on its own.