“Normal? I don’t know,” she said, and thought of years’ worth of nights spent sketching and drinking and clicking through the internet. Carly had been just as unreal to her, just as out of reach on the screen as her own family was. But Carly was here now, right in front of her. Carly was real. So was she. The sun warmed the space between her shoulder blades. “It’s there if I want it enough.”

Carly opened her mouth to ask more. She was about to go full geyser with questions, but Marcelline shook her head. “Not now.” They left it at a shared smile.

“Carly! Let’s go!” Ada called.

In the car, Marcelline typed fast into her phone, hitting send before she could talk herself out of it. S, I’m going to get it. This is going to work.

The car was too hot. Marcelline started the engine. Her phone finally lit up.

I don’t know what to wish for you. Maybe just that there was another way. But no matter what, just get back to one of your lives alive, please. And call me when you can.

A tear splashed the glass of Marcelline’s phone. She wiped it against the leg of her jeans. She put the car into drive and pulled out of the library parking lot.

•  •  •

She’d wanted a swim, to cool down to the temperature of the water and let it block her ears and turn everything a shimmering blue for a while. She wanted to exhaust herself with laps so there would be no fighting sleep afterward.

She checked the clock.

It wasn’t too late in the day to do something. Confront him. Or don’t. Blow up Carly’s life. Or don’t. She’d already made the vow to get on with it to Samantha. But S would only cheer if she broke it.

Tomorrow. She would swim, sleep, then do something tomorrow.

Her YMCA membership was good for a dozen guest passes to the facilities here. She’d walked over from her hotel on her first night in town and had been back every night since. The gym was nothing special, but the pool was brand-new and glorious.

Memory is a weird thing. Marcelline had been preoccupied with the nagging uncertainty that the picture of Jonathan in her mind wasn’t accurate. The placeholder for his face in her plans was fuzzy and generic.

The mechanisms of recall are mysterious, even to science.

In the parking lot of the Y, a skinny man with his hair rucked up at the back of his head, as if he’d slept on it wet, was crouching in front of a red sedan. It was a strange thing to do. He reached out, set something on the curb, then straightened up quickly. He swept the parking lot with an exaggerated swivel of his head and shoulders. Everything about him was begging not to be seen.