I find Lucy and tell her she can take my car to practice tonight and I’ll pick it up from her tomorrow. She’s all I can’t wait to tell Conor about this. For a second, talking to Lucy, I trick myself into thinking this is normal and cute—our own little circle of friends, one big happy family. But then, as Zach and I walk to his car to meet Gwen, he tells me about what happened to her last weekend, and how terrible that girl Emery was. And then I remember who I am and who the Tellers are and what I did to them, and I wonder if it’s not that different from what Emery did, and the feeling bursts and a familiar hollowness crawls back in.

Gwen rides in the back, silent. She’s so tiny and young, with curly blond hair, and she looks like she wants to cry. My heart breaks a little for her.

Zach pulls the car into the driveway, and the outside of the house is so familiar that it’s almost like arriving home. I swallow hard and plaster on a smile. I don’t want to leave the safety of this car.

“Nice house! It’s beautiful!” I sound way too enthusiastic, like a freaking talk-show host. Zach probably thinks I’m losing my mind. I have to pull it together.

Gwen jets out of the car, leaving Zach and me sitting in silence. He looks almost as nervous as I feel. I can’t believe I’m about to do this—I can’t believe I agreed. This is actual insanity, although I currently can’t decide whether it’s more or less insane than going home to an empty house and torturing myself by thinking about those letters. I study Zach’s face out of the corner of my eye—the way his eyelashes curl up at the end, the pink of his bottom lip, his deep-blue eyes—and decide that it’s less. Much, much less.

I’m about to open my car door when he speaks. “So…there are a couple things I need to tell you about my dad….”

I pause in my exit, surprised. I’ve never considered Zach’s dad; I kind of forgot he has one. Before meeting Zach, I didn’t think about the fact that Michelle Teller had a family at all. In my head, it was always just me and her.