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I giggle, and Jillian gives me a warm look. “There she is,” she says with approval. “I was starting to worry my bubbly best friend had been body-snatched.”

“I’m just tired,” I promise. “Late night at work.”

“Did he do something new?” she asks.

“No, no, no. I was just stuck on a… a hard project.”

Euphemism of the year alert.

I swallow and look away so she doesn’t see my burning face. “Nothing untoward.”

“Mhmm.” She doesn’t push, which I appreciate. Jillian has a sixth sense for when I need space and when I need interrogation. Right now, she’s giving me the former.

I flip the subject before she can dig any deeper. “Speaking of distant and distracted,” I say, glancing over at her, “you’ve been kind of out of it lately.”

Jillian’s fingers tighten around her iced coffee. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that you, MissI Never Set My Phone Down For Longer Than I Can Help It,have been taking for-freaking-ever to respond to my texts this week. And now, this morning, you keep looking at your phone like you think you’re gonna get news you won the lottery.”

She sighs, long and heavy, and slumps back against the passenger seat. “Work stuff,” she says simply and evasively.

“Still can’t talk about it, I’m guessing?”

“No.” She shakes her head. “I still can’t talk about it. Soon, but not yet. It’s sensitive. And honestly, the less you know right now, the better.”

I have approximately ten thousand nosy follow-up questions I’d like to ask. But before I can get started, the treatment center makes its appearance through a break in the bare trees.

Westgate in winter is just as beautiful as it was before all the leaves fell. There’s a calming simplicity to it. Snow on the pond, ice on the tree boughs, a big, gray sky swaddling everything. I park in the visitor lot and kill the engine.

Gideon is overjoyed to see us when we go inside. As soon as he sees us, he darts over and wraps me up in a bear hug that lifts me clean off the ground.

“Okay, okay! Put me down before you break something,” I wheeze.

He sets me back on my feet but doesn’t let go right away. When he finally steps back, I get my first good look at him in two weeks.

He’s gained even more weight. His cheekbones don’t look like they’re trying to escape his face anymore. His eyes are clear. There’s color in his cheeks.

He lookshealthy.

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t the family Jewels!” Gideon engulfs Jillian in a hug next. She pretends to grumble about how much she hates that nickname, even as she hugs him. “You finally dragged yourself away from whatever thrilling exposé you’re working on?”

“For you, yes,” Jillian says as she ruffles his hair like he’s still a little kid. “Couldn’t miss seeing my favorite Everett sibling.”

“Hey!” I protest.

Gideon grins. I love seeing that on him—it makes him look like the kid brother I remember from before the accident, the one who used to steal my Halloween candy and blame it on the dog we didn’t have.

We settle into the visiting room, which has been decorated for the approaching holidays with paper snowflakes, a happily decorated tree in the corner, and a slightly crooked menorah on the mantel. Gideon tells us about his week. We get lost in happy chit-chat for a while.

Until he suddenly pauses and gets serious. “I’ve been thinking,” he mumbles, fidgeting and looking everywhere but at me, “about what comes next. After I get out of here, I mean.”

My heart stutters. In six years, he’s never talked aboutafter. It’s always been about getting throughtoday, survivingthishour, making it to the next therapy session or whatever. The future was this abstract, daunting thing that neither of us dared to name.

“Yeah?” I manage.

“There’s this community college near Albany. They have a culinary program.” He shrugs, trying to look casual, but I can see that resilient hope of his burning underneath. “I was always pretty good at cooking, before… you know. Before everything. And I liked it. I thought maybe I could look into that.”

Jillian reaches over and squeezes his hand. “Gid, that’s amazing!”