Maybe it’s the fact that he doesn’t have any connection to the rest of my life, but suddenly it feels radically important that he knows me—really knows me—and a dam bursts inside me, my words flowing out faster than I can stop them. I tell him things I’ve never even told Bea, about the divorce, how I’d told everyone it came as a surprise but in the split second before they told me I’d known exactly what they were going to say. About my school, where I have friends to sit with and hang out on weekends, but not the kind you expect to keep forever. I tell him about my visits to Dad’s, where I stay on a pullout bed in the study across from my old bedroom, which now houses three rambunctious toddlers. I tell him about how my mom always seems to have her mind in two places.

And Mason is more than a good listener; he’s a landing space. He absorbs my words, creating a soft cushion for anything I want to tell him. Even better, he opens up to me too. He tells me more about his mom and how he keeps his hair long to remind him of her. He tells me about the first place he can remember living and about a cat that slept at the foot of his bed at one of his foster homes.

We talk so much that when he reaches out to take my hand, it doesn’t feel rushed or awkward the way you’d think it would with someone you’ve only known for a week. It feels like we’ve been on this trajectory all along, and it’s the obvious next step. If he hadn’t grabbed my hand I would have grabbed his.

And now we’re up on the rooftop sitting in the center of a magic chalk circle, the moon round and mysterious, and somehow giving off more light than it ever has, about to perform a spell that will supposedly help me find a letter that will explain to me how my family’s curse affected my mom and her sister.

What is my life?

“I think we’re ready,” Mason says. We’re sitting cross-legged, facing each other, with only a little space between us for the bowl and candle. “All you.”

His eyes are doing the smiley thing they do, and a tidal wave of embarrassment crashes over me. I’m having serious second thoughts. “You know, we could not do this. It isn’t too late to actually go to a movie.”

He leans forward, resting his hands lightly on my knees, and immediately I feel heat climb up my neck. But in a good way. I rest my hands lightly on top of his, allowing the sensation of his skin on mine to crowd out my worries. “Willow,” he says sternly.

“Mason.”