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Back When the Light Went Out Save as PDF
Chapters (46)
  1. Front Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Contents
  5. Part One
  6. 1
  7. July 11
  8. 2
  9. July 11
  10. 3
  11. July 11
  12. 4
  13. July 11
  14. 5
  15. July 11
  16. 6
  17. July 11
  18. 7
  19. Part Two
  20. 8
  21. July 11
  22. 9
  23. July 11
  24. 10
  25. July 11
  26. 11
  27. July 11
  28. 12
  29. July 11
  30. 13
  31. July 11
  32. 14
  33. July 11
  34. 15
  35. Part Three
  36. 16
  37. 17
  38. 18
  39. 19
  40. 20
  41. 21
  42. Acknowledgments
  43. Excerpt from What You Left Me
  44. About the Author
  46. Back Cover

I know one day it’ll happen with you two. You guys are practically babies, and it’s so obvious even my mom’s noticed, and she’s never paying attention to anyone but me and my magnificent shortcomings. But I mean it when I say you shouldn’t be the one to break Ollie. Let me handle it. I’ll figure out a way to do it better. Everyone has their eyes on you when she’s the one to watch.

So watch. Do your job. But don’t forget to search.

See what I mean? It’s a complicated thing.

Promise me you’ll consider your choices before you make them. One second could create the moment that breaks you forever. I’m trying to stop it, and I already know I’ll fail. So when it happens, I hope someone can find a way to mend you. I’d like to believe we can’t be broken beyond repair.

And since this is the end, I’ll tell you the truth about the Adventure. It isn’t actually supposed to have an end. If I gave you guys a prize and said it was over, we wouldn’t have anything to chase. So I make sure you guys never reach it.

Right now you’re thinking: Marley, what are you talking about? You just told me this was the end.

Well, Nick, I’m a woman of my word. Every year I promise that there’s a prize, so I created one, but I’ve hidden it so well you won’t ever find it. Muahaha.

May you search for years and years.

Our whole lives, I hope. We, the kids of Albany Lane, will always search. And we will always have each other. That’s way more than most people can say.

Nothing is ever gonna happen to change that.

Love always,

Marley Bricket

21

Using the long, looped cursive I could never successfully replicate, Marley Bricket left a letter for the one person I hadn’t. The girl who wished to stop wishing put one wish into the world. Her words did in fact seep into the ground. They spread to the house next door, where a little girl with big ideas waited with her ear pressed to the soil.

I took the wish and made it my own.

“I found it,” Harrison told me as soon as I finished reading Nick’s letter. “I didn’t even mean to. I was doing exactly what I’m doing right now”—he was kicking—“and a floorboard wiggled.” He stopped moving. “I get it,” he said to me. “Why you did everything you did.”

Aidy cranked her neck so fast, her ponytail lashed her own face.