Standing back, he scanned our faces. “What do you guys think? Is it really fate if you chose the things on your list?”

As always people raised their hands and offered their thoughts. And I thought about what Shay had said about fate bringing him to Kismet. About taking me to Golden. I’d been so caught up in something I’d thought we had together, I still didn’t know why Kori had needed to meet him there. Or why I would want to.

What was so important about the Sleep Inn if it wasn’t about secret babies, drugs, or sex?

After the bell rang, I gathered up my bag and headed out the door with Cole. She caught the hell-freezing look Anthony shot me as he walked past Doc’s doorway. “I thought you guys were dating,” she said with a smirk. “You didn’t have to lie, Serena.”

She moved past me, heading quickly out of the classroom. The chill coming off of her was more biting than Anthony’s.

“Serena?” Doc said from behind me. “Everything all right?” He looked at me with that soft gaze of his. The type of look a father might give a daughter. And I wanted to wrap it around me like a blanket.

I returned to my seat. “I think I really screwed up.”

“What happened?”

I shook my head. “I can’t even begin to try and explain.”

“Have you ever?” he asked softly. “Tried to explain?”

Under my breath, I muttered, “Who would hear it?”

Doc sat in the seat next to me. “You know that saying?” He waited until my eyes met his to continue. “If a tree falls in the forest and there’s no one there to hear it, then it doesn’t make a sound?”

“Yeah?”

He grinned. “It’s bullshit.”

“Huh?”

“Just because no one hears it doesn’t mean it doesn’t make a sound, it just means nothing was around to process the noise it did make. Which, if you think about it, is also bullshit, because of all the living organisms in a forest. I mean, unless they’re talking about some testing ground in a bubble completely void of life, but they aren’t. They’re talking about a forest. But my point is this: you aren’t alone, Serena, you are very much in a forest.”

I smirked. “The forest must be in Nutsville.”

Doc gave a slight chuckle. “Well, that’s entirely possible.”

…

When I got home, I started digging through Kori’s boxes, looking for anything at all that might point to the Sleep Inn. As I flipped through her notebook again, I stopped on a verse she’d written. The more I pretend to be shiny and bright, the darker I feel inside.