I miss you too.

Can you figure out what I’m not saying? Because what I’m not saying is really kind of everything.

Yours,

Emma

Return

I dream about Levi every night.

I’m still an insomniac. That won’t ever change. But when I do catch a few hours of fitful sleep, Levi is the first thing I see. His face. His hair, too long and scraggly around the edges. I hear his voice and the accent that used to sound so wrong in his mouth. I see his gray eyes and his solid arms. Those arms carried Pru to safety, and I long for them. For him.

I sent him a message five days ago.

Nothing.

Nothing to let me know that the boy who made me feel all the things last year is okay. Not that this radio silence on Levi’s part is anything new. I haven’t heard from him all summer. Which is why I’ve spent the last few months running every possible scenario through my head. Is Levi okay? IsGravelle torturing him? Has Levi thought about buzzing me? Has he even tried?

Yes, I’ve considered that Levi’s silence isn’t Gravelle’s doing at all. That maybe he just doesn’t want to talk to me. Because maybe what we had—maybe we didn’t have it, after all.

I anguished over every line of that email. Wrote fifty-seven versions before I finally sent it, then instantly second-guessed every word choice. What I said, and what I didn’t.

But I don’t regret sending it.

I miss Levi with an ache that takes my breath away. It’s why he inhabits my thoughts even when I’m sleeping. I don’t dream of Oliver. No need; I have Ollie back. He’s beside me now, napping on the cool leather of the Lexus Earth that’s delivering us to our senior year at Darkwood. I look over at him—at his head propped up on his hand, on the armrest—and my heart does a familiar flip. Ollie is home. Ollie is back.

We spent the summer together, but it wasn’t the carefree reunion I’d imagined. Ollie’s been different since he returned. I don’t think he’s changed fundamentally, but I’m still struggling to work out what’s off about him on a cellular level. What’s the pharmas, and what’s him.