Relief eased the tightness in my chest, but soon I felt anxious again, bursting with all the things I needed to say to Colleen but couldn’t over text. I dug through my desk drawer until I found a notebook. I started writing. I wrote apologies and confessions. Memories and messy thoughts. I wrote until my hand cramped.

I wrote until I’d filled up six college-ruled pages. One for each month I’d disappeared.

February

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

I PUT THE CAR IN PARK and stared at Colleen’s front door. One week ago, I’d driven here to give her the letter I’d written. No one was home, so I’d put it in the mailbox. I wanted to give her time to sit with it before she had to see me. Time to figure out what she did or didn’t want to say before she had to spend two hours in the car, going to the most important audition of her life with the best friend who’d abandoned her. I hadn’t heard from her since she’d texted Ok. But she hadn’t changed her mind, either, so here I was.

Colleen opened the door and walked down her front steps, carrying her dance bag in the crook of her elbow. I smiled. She looked the same as always. Hair pulled into a high bun, shoulders back, long legs floating her down the stairs like she was Cinderella entering the Prince’s ballroom instead of my parents’ Honda Civic.

“Hello, stranger,” she said after settling into the passenger seat and brushing some Ferdinand hair from her jeans.

“Hi,” I squeaked. I’d known this was going to be awkward. But there’s knowing and there’s experiencing, and one sucks infinitely more than the other. I took a deep breath and pushed through it. “Ready?” I asked.

She nodded, staring over the dashboard. At first, the only sounds in the car were the hum of the engine and classical music on the radio. I knew I had to speak first. And the first thing I wanted to know was if she was okay after the appendectomy, so I started there. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I’m missing an organ,” Colleen said, darting her eyes to me before turning them back to the road.

“Does it… hurt?” I’d looked up appendectomy recovery, and it said you could have stomach and shoulder pain for a while.

“Not anymore,” she said. “I still feel the scar tissue a little, but it’s been over three weeks, so I’m fine to dance.”

“Good.” I breathed out. “I would have texted back,” I said quietly. “I need you to know that if you’d told me about the appendectomy and missing the audition, I would have texted you back.”