I shove my phone back in my pocket, hating how completely and totally true those words feel. As I make my way up Crescent Hill Road—one block down and over from the station—the sun is warm on my face and the air smells of cut grass. I’m almost hot in my jeans and T-shirt. It’s the first day it seems like summer. And I want so much for that to feel good, but the vodka bottle is lodged too deep in my stomach, right next to all my unreturned calls to Jasper.

When I round the corner onto Main Street, I close my eyes so that I don’t have to see Holy Cow, the ice cream shop where Cassie used to work. The one where she met Quentin for the first time. There are some things I will never again be able to bear, like the sight of Holy Cow, or the smell of strawberries, which reminds me too much of the lip gloss Cassie always used to wear.

I set my eyes instead on Gallagher’s Deli up ahead. It’s one of the few not-so-nice places in town—dusty with cramped aisles that smell faintly of cat pee. I’ve only been in there once to buy cigarettes with Cassie during the week and a half she smoked. I can still remember how the smell seemed to cling to me for hours afterward. Gallagher’s means that I am almost there.

To ease the pain in my feet, I slide them back a little in my vicious, toe-gouging yellow flip-flops. I never would have put them on if I had known that I was going to have to walk so far. I dial Jasper’s number one more time, but this time the call goes straight to voice mail. Like he’s turned it off, or his phone has died between this and my last call.

I can’t wait anymore to speak to him before going to his house. No matter what I promised.

I HAVEN’T SEEN Jasper’s house much in the light of day. His mother is always on night shifts, so that’s when Jasper has me over. This is not a coincidence. Jasper’s mother blames me for everything that happened in Maine. He hasn’t said that outright, but there have been clues.

“It doesn’t have a face,” Jasper had said once about his house, sounding sad. “Most houses have the windows on either side and the door in the middle. Like it’s a person looking at you or something. The way mine is, it’s like the front is just . . . empty.”