Whatever she is, she’s human and has lived a human life. She could be running from other problems. I haven’t seen a man at her house throughout our week of surveillance, which tells me her dad probably isn’t in the picture, and if she and her mother are running from him, I doubt she wants him to find her easily.

* * *

Back at school, I have every intention of keeping my distance from Anora for the week, especially since Natalie has become increasingly clingy. I can’t turn a corner without her appearing out of thin air. I don’t expect to think about or regret my decision, and yet I discover the longer I go without talking to Anora, the more pressure builds, like someone’s stacking stones on my chest. At first, a glance or a smile relieves the tension over my heart, and sitting next to her in class keeps it at bay until patrol, but after one day of avoidance, I’m ready to worship the ground she walks on if it’ll make this feeling go away.

So I find reasons to talk to her. I ask her for notes from the day I missed art and arrange to meet her in the library to pick them up. When I find her, she’s sitting in one of the large bay windows in Covington. She has a book in her hands, but she’s not reading it. She’s looking out the window. I stare at her like a creep, but I can’t help it. I feel like I’ve been here before, admiring her from a distance. I like the way her long hair spills down her back, the way her graceful fingers curl around the edges of her book. I wonder how soft her hands are, how it would feel to hold them—to have them on me.

I shake those thoughts from my head, and I approach.

“Hey,” I say.

She looks up at me and smiles, offering a breathless, “Hey.”

It makes my chest feel lighter, and I think I could spend my whole life making her smile.

“What are you reading?” I ask, nodding to the book in her hands.

“Oh, nothing,” she says, closing it and moving her hands over the title.

I reach for the book anyway, brushing my fingers over her skin. She is soft, and a surge of electricity sparks between us. She draws her hands away. I try not to let that disappoint me and instead focus on the book.

I hold it up, reading the title aloud. “A Simple Guide to Astrophysics?” The last word comes out as a question because I’m surprised. I look at Anora, then at the book, then at the pile by her feet. They are all books about space. “First the telescope, and now this. Are you into space?”

She blushes. “Yeah, actually. I want to be an astronomer.”

“That’s so cool.”