“Yes. I do,” she said. “This is what I need.”

“No,” I said, ready to argue with her. This was a bad idea and I only wanted to protect her. “You’re not yourself, you’re still—”

“Yes, I am.” She released a frustrated sigh, almost a growl. “I feel like myself. This is just who I am.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I meant there’s nothing wrong with taking some time to recover. We can talk about it when you feel like yourself again.” I thought that if I could delay things long enough, she might change her mind, or her father would be sent to prison after his court date.

“And that’s what I’m telling you,” she said. “I do feel like myself. You know what, this always happens. People like Elise when they meet her.”

I couldn’t understand then, why she was speaking in the third person.

“People think she’s fun and wild and they fall for this—this version of her. And then they see the real her, and well—” She lifted a hand in a half shrug. “Listen, this is who I am. I’m not always fun and wild. Sometimes I’m sad, I’m angry, I’m sick of everything. And maybe that’s who I am, deep down. So go ahead. Abandon me like everyone else has. I won’t fight it. I won’t blame you.” The rawness of her voice was agonizing to hear.

“That’s not true,” I cried. “I love you. I’ll always love you.” It broke my heart seeing her like this. She had once seemed so strong, like nothing could ever take her down, but now I could see she was only human. Vulnerable like the rest of us.

“You love the idea of me, like everyone else.” She started sobbing, burying her face in her hands.

“You know I’m not like everyone else!” It felt like the early days again, us against the world. Elise x Remy. When no one else knew us like we did. When no one was there for us like we were.

She continued to sob and I felt completely helpless, wanting desperately to make her feel better. But what I wanted most of all was to erase all the awful things that’d happened to her.

“I love you,” I said, starting to cry too. “I’ll always love you, and if this is the real you, then I’ll love her too.” Elise needed me, needed this of me. How could I refuse, after everything?

She reached for me and we leaned on each other, sobbing.

“I can’t do this without you. Please, Remy. Please.”

She was the patron saint of the wronged. She was hurting. She was my best friend.

I said yes.

52.

“I just want him to have one bad night.” That’s what Elise had said. “Just one bad night.”

It only takes two hours to drive to Chattanooga from Lyndens Creek, and in the late hours of the night, we were almost completely alone on the road. She had found another box of fireworks when she was clearing out the attic, one we’d missed, and her plan was simple—set off the last of the fireworks outside her old house, and startle him awake with explosions in the sky and the sound of firecrackers by his bedroom window. It had a poetic symmetry with the very first night we met. We began the pranks with a bang and we’d end them with one too, just the two of us.