He doesn’t finish the thought and I stay quiet, staring down at the folded note. Jasper’s doubt is fair. Completely. But that doesn’t make him right. I have to trust my instincts. It’s all I have. I want to let him off the hook, though, especially when he’s already done so much for me. “It’s not your problem. I mean, I am not your problem.”

Now that he’s okay, all that intensity I felt for Jasper in the past hours feels like a fever dream, exaggerated and outsized because of my fear. Jasper and I are friends. I care about him. But that’s all. Anything else is just me being confused.

“You are not my problem, huh? Wow, thanks so much. That makes everything so much better,” Jasper says, obviously hurt. But he shakes it off. “Listen, Kendall’s right that you should get out of here. When I first went to the main part of the hospital looking for you, they totally denied that anyone was even in this part. Even after I told them I saw you brought in here. I think they actually believed it. Whatever this is, it’s messed up enough for them to be hiding it really well.”

“How did you even know I was here?”

“I followed the ambulance from the bridge.”

“So you were on the bridge?” I ask, feeling this weird mix of dread and relief. It brings all those other feelings for Jasper right to the surface again, the wrong, confusing ones. I jam them back down harder this time.

“Yeah. I was on the bridge.” Jasper frowns and nods, looking down.

“Why?” I ask.

“I was thinking about, you know, taking a time-out.”

The fact that he can be so nonchalant seriously pisses me off.

“What the hell does that mean?” I snap. “Actually, no. Don’t—don’t even say it.” I cover my face with my hands and try to swallow back the burn in my throat. This conversation is not making it easy to keep those wrong feelings in their rightful place. “Jasper, how could you even—”

“I don’t want you to feel bad or anything. Trust me, it was—you are, like, the only good thing in my life.” He pauses and it gets awkward fast.

“Was it the pages from Cassie’s journal that . . . ?” I ask, but I don’t even want to specifically say what I mean. It will just make it more real. “I saw them in your room. That must have been awful to read that after— Who do you think is sending them?”

“I don’t know. Maia, maybe,” he says. “She said something about cleaning up Cassie’s room with Karen. And then she kept coming by and wanting to talk about how upset I was. Like maybe she was hoping I’d need her.”