“Where is it?” My voice is more intense than I mean for it to be.

“At the hotel. I picked it up. When you dropped it. And I, ah…” She looks away. “I read some of it. I’m sorry.”

She read it? My face goes hot, something exploding in my chest. My notebook is private; the thought of someone reading it is basically the equivalent of me walking into a packed train station completely naked. I’ve written about foster care changes, the times I ran away, nights I stayed up crying. She really picked up my notebook and read it? I study her guilty face for a moment.

“How much?” I manage.

“Not much,” she says quickly, but she looks away again in a way that lets me know she’s lying. Now her face is red. “I shouldn’t have. I’m so sorry. Some of it seemed… personal. Once I realized that…” She trails off, then takes a deep breath, meeting my eyes.

I have to keep it together.

I stare hard at the ground, trying to retain my gravity. “It’s called a star log. I keep track of what I see in the sky. But lately it’s also become my everything notebook. And it’s really, really important that I get it back.”

She takes a deep breath, and I can’t read her expression. “If it’s okay with you, I’ll bring it to you tomorrow. When we go on the tour.”

She still wants to go on the tour? After this? I take my own deep breath, attempting to steady myself. When I meet her gaze, her eyes are clear. I hate that she’s read my notebook, but she doesn’t seem like someone who would use any of it against me. She’s going to give it back.

She runs her toe along the cement, then looks back toward the house. “So there’s a painting that looks like me in there?”

Right. I take a deep breath, the tightness in my chest easing slightly. I even manage to look up a little. “Yeah. She has your hair color, eyes, everything.”

She clutches her book more tightly to her chest. “Would you mind showing me?”

The walk to the house is awkward, Willow quiet, and me so self-conscious over the fact that this girl has basically had an unauthorized peek at my soul that I can’t remember how to walk like a normal human (do I swing my arms with my legs or opposite my legs?). I spend a few seconds trying to figure out how one climbs up the side of a house without looking like King Kong when Willow produces a key, eliminating the problem. As soon as we step over the threshold, something shifts inside of me.

I think Willow feels it too, because we both pause, taking a breath of the house’s air, which smells amazingly of dried herbs and tea leaves, and even though we both feel awkward, being in the house makes everything easier.