His eyes flashed open again, somehow brighter than before. He nodded to our linked fingers. “Is this okay?”

“Are you okay?” I countered. I recognized the look on his face—it was nearly identical to the grief he’d worn at the rest stop, talking about his own camp. “What are you thinking about?”

“I was thinking about how strange it is that we haven’t even known each other for two weeks, but it feels like I’ve known you for much longer than that,” he said. “And I’m thinking that it’s frustrating to feel like I know certain parts of you so well, but other parts of you…I don’t even know what your life was like before you went to camp.”

What could I tell him? What could I say about what I had done to my parents and to Sam that wouldn’t scare him into letting go?

“This is a place where we don’t have to lie,” he said, motioning between us. “Didn’t you tell me that?”

“You remember?”

“Of course I do,” he said. “Because I keep hoping that goes both ways. That if I ask you why you don’t want to go home to your parents, you’ll tell me the truth, or if I ask you what Thurmond was really like, you’ll stop lying. But then I realized that it’s not fair, because it’s not like I want to talk about my family. It’s like…those…”

I turned to look at him, waiting as he tried to piece together his thought. “I don’t know if I can explain it,” he said. “It’s hard to put into words. Those things—those memories—are mine, you know? They’re the things that the camp didn’t take away when I went in, and they’re the things I don’t have to share if I don’t want to. I guess that’s stupid.”

“It’s not stupid,” I said. “That’s not stupid at all.”

“And I want to talk about everything with you. Everything. But I don’t know what to tell you about Caledonia,” he said. “I don’t know what I can tell you that won’t make you hate me. I was stupid, and I’m embarrassed and ashamed, and I know—I know—that Charles and Zu blame me for what happened. And I know that Cole has told Mom about it by now, and she’s told Harry, and the thought just makes me sick.”

“You did what you thought was right,” I said. “I’m sure they understand that.”

He shook his head, swallowing hard. I reached over with my other hand to brush the hair out of his eyes. The way he turned his face toward me again, closing his eyes and tilting his chin, made me brave enough to do it again. My fingers followed the natural wave of his hair, tracing the strands down around his ear.

“What do you want to do?” I whispered.

“I’ve got to wake the others up,” he said. “We have to keep moving. On foot.”

My hand stilled, but it was clear that he had made his choice.