“It’s here,” I call to my friends, waving at the others—and briefly catching Levi’s eyes. He’s wearing a soft blue sweater under a camel-colored coat. He squints in the sun, shielding his eyes with the flat of his palm. His hair is long again around the edges. Something about his stance makes me ache inside—for our bodies to touch again, head to toe, like they haven’t in ages.

It’s time to board. I yank my eyes from Levi and focus on the tasks in front of me: sliding my bag into an overhead compartment, finding a seat next to Maude. Before I can do anything about it, Levi takes the seat across the aisle from me. Which means we’ll be a mere foot apart for the entire nine-hour trip. That is a hell of a long time to avoid him. But I can’t change seats, because he’d know why, and I don’t want him to think I’m obsessing about our proximity. Even though I am.

We alternate between planning, strategizing about the rally, and gazing out the window at the budding New England landscape as we pass small towns and fields just starting to turn green. At some point, I doze off, and in my dream, Levi is right next to me, his fingers threaded through mine.

I wake up and feel an instant loss, knowing he’s across the aisle from me. It wasn’t real. And Ollie is still missing. I don’t know which ache is sharper—for Levi or for Oliver. When an automated voice announces we’ve officially arrived at our destination, we disembark at the Port Authority Bus Terminal and enter the frenetic streets of New York.

“It’s as crowded as everyone said it would be,” Pippa remarks.

I turn to stare at her, confused. “You’ve never been to New York City before?”

Pippa, Maude, and Levi shake their heads. “The Leroys live here,” Theodora reminds me. “Before I first came to Darkwood, I lived with them for two weeks. On Central Park West. That was my first time setting foot in New York.”

“The Choates are in Manhattan too,” Jago adds. “And Ansel’s visited Archer at NYU.”

“People live here?” Pippa asks, incredulous, as she gets jostled by a man in leather pants and a couple of boisterous tourists.

“Not exactly here, near Times Square,” I explain. “There are a lot of quieter neighborhoods. This one’s mostly for visitors,” I add as Pippa stares up at a couple of flashing billboards. “Hot dogs,” I say, switching gears and leading them toward a food truck with a sign boasting in vitro dogs. “Come on, we have to eat something.”