When he let himself, there was a way Nick Cline smiled at casual acquaintances. He did it like they were family. He smiled at family like they were the world. That night, he smiled at me like the world wasn’t big enough.

All I could do was say his name.

Why was it that my sister thought I shouldn’t have him around?

Yes, this was the Nick that left me. This was the Nick that pointed a gun at Marley and fired. I knew these things. I lived them.

I also knew forgiveness. And I knew change. He had hurt me. I had hurt him. We were hurt. We were fractures and splinters and gaps of time so long they rotted and replanted, over and over. And still, I hoped we had a chance. Hope worked like that. If it was odds I needed to beat, then I would beat them, betting my hope against the house, always.

He kissed me. “You can tell them what you told me,” he said. “And everything you haven’t. No matter what they say, I’ll still be here. You and I can figure out the rest on our own, if we have to. Or we can have five other people along for the ride. It doesn’t matter. This has always been about you and me and Marley, and it always will be.”

17

The haunted house grabbed on to us as we reentered. Each croak up the stairs became another story piece, wrought with suspense. We’d given the lonely space secrets to whisper and regrets to yawn out.

We’d given it an afterlife.

The tent had been taken down in our absence. Its colorful sheets sat crumpled in a sad pile in the corner. Our sleeping bags were whirlpools of fabric strewn across the floor. Our stars hung on by a single tack, the string of bulbs forming a triangle in the center of the room. Even though the atmosphere was deconstructed, drink cups had been refilled. Bodies swayed—in anticipation, frustration, fear, general disorientation—not at all synced to the music softly playing from someone’s phone, but swaying nonetheless. Against all odds, it was a party indeed.

“Finally,” Teeny said when I walked in. “Always disappearing when we need you most.”

It should’ve hurt me, but I warmed instead. Teeny needed me. Not only that, but she needed me most. “I’m sorry,” I said. And then, “No.” I wanted to do my proper part for once, not just stamp my signature on the dotted line. Swimming against the current of myself, I searched for a how. How to be brave when I wanted to fall. How to get up again.