The wind rustles through his hair, mine too. It blows across my face, but I don’t brush it away. We’re standing too far to touch, but we don’t need to. There are already so many ways we are entangled. His fingerprints are all over my soul. I’ve been so thoroughly marked up.

There is fog on the false horizon. It rolls in, slow and gray, like it knows it has all the time in the world.

I wake, leaving him alone.

Oliver is next to me. The ring is on my finger.

But I know I’ll be back to break my own heart, again and again.

This is how it goes, he’s always in the dark. That is how I have him, now.

And in daylight, Oliver glows golden and I tilt my face toward the sun and I build something worth having. I take full breaths, filling my lungs to the very top.

But Finn is waiting in the shadows, just like the very first time I saw him in the woods.

I keep my promise to William, I live my life enough for the both of us. I live for Oliver and Maxine and Lena, too.

But my dreams, I keep to myself, knowing Finn will be trapped under the floorboards of my heart, listening to Oliver and me slow dance over his body forever.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I was warned that second books are harder than first books, and this book was no exception. At times, writing this story felt more like a great excavation attempt than anything else. I spent many nights digging through this story, through myself, for what felt true. But stronger than the anxiety and the exhaustion was the immense gratitude I felt. I’m so lucky to have gotten to write this book. I don’t think that sense of awe will ever really go away. Writing is a solitary act, but I’ve never once felt as if I was in this alone.

My first and biggest thank-you goes to you, the readers of this story. To pick up a sequel is no small thing; to care enough about a group of characters to commit to an entirely new novel about them is an act of real love. It is because of you that I get to keep writing, and I’ll never have the right words for what a profound gift that is. Thank you for saying hi in bookstores, emails, letters, and DMs. Your enthusiasm and love for this story and these characters have made writing this book the most fulfilling, terrifying, and joyous thing I’ve ever done.

Thank you to Hillary Jacobson, the agent of my dreams. Cheers to more stories, more lunches, more midnight “I think the planets are being weird this week?” texts. I’ll forever be so grateful you saw the potential I didn’t see in myself all those years ago.