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Her face lights up, the lingering shadows I’ve noticed from afar for the past few months thrown aside as she smiles, her expression the only answer I need. And somehow that was the most important part. Now that it’s been said, I feel like everything else, no matter how horrible, is manageable.

“You’re sure?” she says, her eyes searching my face.

“I need to ask you some things first,” I say. “Are you coming to the lodge after?”

“Claire and Park are, but I don’t think I’m invited.”

“I’m inviting you.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Is that okay?”

“There’ll be so many people there no one will know either way. We can’t talk here. Branley will be on me any second and she might throw her drink in your face.”

Alex shrugs. “Then I’ll kill her.”

I almost laugh, but the sound gets stuck in my throat. Alex watches me for a second in silence. “Kidding,” she adds. “I have criteria.”

And then I do laugh, an expulsion of all the darkness that’s been inside me since I was with her last, confusion pouring out of me into this bright moment of clarity. She slips away from me, back into the swirl of chaotic color that we just escaped, and I rest my head in my hands.

I know there’s a wrongness encapsulating everything, that Alex has done something terrible—maybe more than I know. But buried underneath all the questions and answers I might not want to hear is a very hard kernel of truth.

I’m in love with this girl.

And that’s what I’m holding on to right now, in this moment.

I carry that peace with me to the lodge. Nothing penetrates the buoyancy that’s filled me since I locked eyes with Alex, said the words that have built up for so long.

Branley separates from me at the door, trailing a finger down the front of my chest and telling me it’s time for her to move to phase three of getting ready. I nod, well aware that I’m about to disappoint her. She disappears into a bathroom and I take a beer from the fridge, wind my way through groups of people.

There’s a decent pool game going. Some of the guys already managed to alienate their dates by paying more attention to the Xbox than them. Peekay and Park are curled up on the couch together, involved in each other and not their beers. Everyone says hi to me. A couple of girls ask where Branley is, but I fend them off, eyes roaming the crowd for the one person who matters.

I spot her on the deck, back turned to the house. She switched out the dress for a dark green hoodie and jeans, but her hair is still up in a knot. I slip out the back door and she turns with a half smile, hand out to me.

“Ready?” she asks.

My phone goes off and I’ve got a pic from Branley. She’s sprawled on a bed, wearing a little red nothing, rose petals strewn on the sheets around her. She’s seductive, gorgeous, amazing. The wet dream of 99 percent of the male population.

I’m ready. Are you coming?

I text back a simple answer—no—aware it’s going to land me in a shitstorm later. Then I turn off my phone.

“Ready,” I say, and I take Alex’s hand.

I walk away from the lodge, the heat, the people, the light.

I walk into the dark with Alex.

53. ALEX

My spine is vibrating as if it would erupt from my back, singing in the night air as we find a downed log to sit on, the moon lighting our path.

“Tell me,” he says. “Tell me everything.”

So I talk.

“After Anna, I was numb. It started in my heart, like a defense mechanism so that I wouldn’t feel all the pain. But it pumped through my veins, flowing into my head. I couldn’t feel anything, ever. I wasn’t even sad. My entire body, my mind, everything was like scar tissue. Insensitive. Dead. Protective.”

He nods. I’ve seen his body, know it well. Scar tissue is something he understands.