“Come here,” Elise said, pulling me in and tucking my head against her shoulder. I played with the lighter she’d given me, flipping the heavy top open and closed.

“No one ever wants me,” I cried harder. “Not Cameron, not my mom, not even my dad.”

“Shh,” she said softly, letting me cry and cry, smoothing my hair away with a gentle hand. “Did I ever tell you about my mom?”

I looked up, lifting a wrist to wipe away my tears. It was really a rhetorical question—we both knew she’d never told me about her mom.

“I mean, there isn’t much to talk about. She left when I was six.” I remained quiet, focused on her voice. “She left one day, walked out the door without a single glance behind her.” Elise still sounded shocked after all these years. “It’s been just me and my dad ever since, not that he’s ever been father of the year.”

I waited for her to continue, and when she didn’t, I asked about him. “What do you mean?”

“Nothing,” she said quickly. “I’m just saying, I know what it’s like to have shitty parents who don’t care about you.”

I began crying again, feeling sorry for both of us.

“Come here,” she said, squeezing me closer. “They’re all assholes, forget about them. Look, let’s just leave everyone behind and start over, just the two of us.”

I looked up at her through wet eyes. “Just the two of us?”

She nodded. “You and me, we can be each other’s family, okay?”

“Okay,” I said, sniffing.

“We don’t need anyone else, not when we have each other.”

I’d never felt more loved than in that moment, Elise holding me as I cried.

MONDAY // NOVEMBER 28 // DAY 80

17.

My dad left that Saturday night and was still gone two days later when we went back to school. Time slowed to a drip and I found myself checking my phone between every period, unsure of what I was even hoping for. Dad wasn’t going to text me in the middle of the day, wasn’t going to call to say he was there to pick me up and take me with him to his new life. He wasn’t going to swoop in to save me.

He was gone, maybe for good this time. And of course Christian wasn’t fazed. Sitting with friends in the senior section at lunch, he was too busy laughing and joking to care. Our eyes met briefly across the lunchroom when he caught me staring and his smile faltered for a second before he turned away from me.

After school, he stopped by my locker, which he never did. “What’s your problem?” he asked, leaning against the wall, arms crossed.

“My problem?” I said.

“Yeah, at lunch.”

Before I could answer, someone down the hall spotted Christian and called out to him. “Hey, Chris, you coming to practice?” It was Cory from the basketball team.

“Yeah, be there in a minute, just talking to my sister.”