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 Copyright © 2021 by Andrea Contos

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available
ISBN 978-1-338-72616-9
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 21 22 23 24 25
Printed in the U.S.A.    23
First edition, October 2021
Book design by Maeve Norton
 TO MY ­D AUGHTERS, EVANGELINE AND JOSEPHINE.
FOREVER AND ALWAYS.
 CHAPTER ONE
We w
­ ere like fire, the four of us. Catching each other’s sparks u
­ ntil the
flames grew, spread, raged beyond our control.
They told us this would happen. They said it like a warning rather
than a promise.
But we promised. We promised each other.
We made the flame and gave it life. Stoked it. Let it breathe u
­ ntil it
became a ­thing outside ourselves.
And now we watch as the wind lifts it higher, stretching the fire’s
orange tongues t­ oward the gray-­black sky. The flames destroy every­thing
they touch, snaps and groans piercing the night air, as the walls of the
home below grow black and blistered.
The wind shifts and heat caresses my face, tears prickling in my eyes,
and the muted wail of sirens grows sharper.
Margot squeezes my hand, and on my other side, Ori shudders.
Nomi is still, quiet. Her hand links to Ori’s, but it may as well be
mine.
­We’re all waiting for her, to tell us when she’s seen enough. W
­ e’ll stay
all night, perched on the overlook that frames her former stepfather’s
­house below. Mosquitos swarming our ankles and creatures rustling in
the trees at our backs.
­We’ll stay ­until Nomi’s ready to go. That’s the deal. The promise. The
vow we made that night, deep in the woods where crickets chirped and
wolves howled.
“Cass.” It’s the first word anyone’s spoken in fifteen minutes, but
none of us are surprised to hear Nomi’s voice. “I’m ready.”
Our hands unchain, separate now but no less connected, and the flash

1
of lights paints our ­faces in blues and reds as we fall back from the fire we
made.
To­night is for Nomi. But t­ here are more nights to come.
They warned us bad t­ hings would happen.
They ­d idn’t know we w
­ ere just getting started.

2
 CHAPTER TWO
FIVE DAYS ­E ARLIER

Monday, October 4
11 Days Before the End
­There was a time I ­d idn’t live by the countdown of days. When each
month was just another marker of time—­not a terrifying reminder of the
night that changed every­thing.
But this is my “new normal,” according to my therapist.
­There’s nothing normal about the pink envelope that’ll be waiting for
me ­later t­ oday. Envelopes ­don’t appear in any of the self-­help books I’ve
been given to read, the online support chats I’ve searched through, or all
the methods I’ve been given to cope.
That d
­ oesn’t make the letters any less real. I w
­ on’t be imagining it
when one appears l­ ater. Maybe in my car, my locker, my bedroom.
Of course, my therapist ­doesn’t know about the envelopes.
No one does.
No one but me, and the man who sends them.
“Adams!”
Coach Pheran screams my name as the volleyball I’m supposed to be
spiking sails over my head.
­There was a time when I’d have slammed that ball so hard the poor girl
on the other side of the net would be afraid to block.
That was before the sound of a ball hitting parquet flooring started to
sound like a trunk slamming shut above my prone body.
That means Coach Pheran is just Ms. Pheran to me now—­from school-­
related volleyball and rec-­league coach to plain old gym teacher—­but
some part of me ­can’t make the transition.

3
 “Cass!” Coach yells again, ­because I still ­haven’t responded to the last
time. “Do you need to sit out?”
“Yes.” It’s the truth, but she’s not happy to hear it.
She ­hasn’t been happy with me at all since I quit the team last year,
right before the ju­nior national championship game.
Our team was already registered, the entry fee paid a­ fter a full year of
fund­rais­ing. All our travel booked and airfare purchased.
Every­one but me got on the plane.
We lost.
Coach sighs. She’s almost given up on me. “Take five.”
I’m out the door before she changes her mind, breathing in the scent of
Pine-­Sol that clings to the quiet hallway.
I shudder, ­because as much as I crave the stillness surrounding me, I
need the security of p
­ eople more. Not ­people themselves—­witnesses. ­Today
is one month since the last envelope. And he’s never late.
Lockers swirl by as I rush ­toward the exit, the harshness of my breath-
ing the only disruption to the steady hum of the school’s furnace and low
murmurs of teachers that drift from half-­open doorways.
Cold shocks my lungs and sunlight rails against my eyes the moment
I shove through the exit, goose bumps jumping from my skin.
The boys have gym outside ­today even though it’s October in Michigan.
It’s too cold, but none of them seem to notice, prob­ably b
­ ecause t­ hey’re
all covered in sweat, their footsteps forming a chaotic rhythm as they fol-
low the curve of the track.
I let them pass before I enter the field—­I may want witnesses, but I do
not want conversation.
The frigid cold of the bleachers soaks into me the second I sit, and I
press my elbows into my knees, let my vision go blurry ­until the boys are
a muddled watercolor in motion.
“Care for—”

4
 I scream and jump from the bleacher, except I’m too close to the edge
and my back foot hits air instead of metal.
My body tenses for impact, but warm hands wrap around my arms,
dragging me back to standing with a surprising amount of strength.
“I’m so sorry,” Tyler says for the third time. “I d
­ idn’t mean to scare
you.”
Tyler Thorne belongs on a California coast somewhere instead of this
Midwest tundra. He’s all blond hair, blue eyes, tan skin, lean build that
belongs in a wet suit and carry­ing a surfboard.
He seems as out of place as I feel, and ­there’s something in the way he
looks at me that says he knows it too.
He peels his fin­gers from my arms but hovers inches from my skin,
like he’s afraid I might fall again.
I mean, he’s not wrong.
“It’s okay,” I lie. I rub my arms to cover how badly I’m shaking. “Just a
­little jumpy ­today.”
“Sorry. I thought—”
“­Shouldn’t you be r­ unning?”
He breaks into a crooked smile and shoves his swoopy dirty-­blond hair
from his forehead. “Doctor’s note. On account of my asthma.”
“Do you even have asthma?”
“I did when I was seven.”
The boys run past us, and Noah Rhoades slows his pace to stare at
me—­a nd Tyler. I d
­ on’t know which of us he’s glaring at, but honestly it
could be e­ ither.
Tyler is a bit of a social outcast—­the leader of his misfit group of friends
but an ­enemy to the socially acceptable contingent of the school. And
I’d bet a lot of someone e­ lse’s money he was vaping beneath the bleachers
a minute ago.
According to rumor, Tyler’s ­family has plenty of money, but ­there’s

5
absolutely nothing about him that shows it, which should be a point in
his ­favor.
And me, well, I’m the girl who kissed Noah Rhoades in the school hall-
way one early eve­ning, promised to call that night, and four hours l­ater
retreated from every­thing.
No one wants to be the guy whose kiss turned a normal girl into
a hermit.
Of course, my hermit-­dom has nothing to do with Noah, but it’s not
like I’ve ever told him the truth.
I’m supposed to be working on that. The hermit-­dom. My therapist
tells me very logical ­things like “you ­can’t go to college if ­you’re too afraid
to go anywhere besides home and school.”
Of course, she ­doesn’t know that it’s not fear that’s the prob­lem. Not
­really. I ­don’t think every­one around me is a threat or that some dif­fer­ent
stranger might toss me in their trunk.
The prob­lem is this: I ­don’t like to go anywhere, b
­ ecause I know I’m
never alone.
Noah stutters to a stop, standing his ground even as classmates bump
into his shoulders. I doubt any of them could knock him over even if
they tried.
He’s very . . . ​sturdy. I remember that, from the way he held me upright
while I tried to melt my entire person into him.
The wind tousles his dark hair, and he opens his mouth in this way
that tells me my name is perched ­there.
­There’s a part of me that wants to hear him say it, exactly the way he
did the last time we spoke, when he stood only inches away, the height
and breadth of him blocking out ­every part of the world that ­wasn’t the
warm brown of his eyes, the feel of his hand dwarfing mine. But then
Coach Bulger yells at him to get his ass moving and he jogs off. But not
before shooting one last glare over his shoulder.

6
 “What’s his prob­lem?” The sun catches Tyler’s eyes, and they shade an
inhuman sort of blue, the kind that reminds me of glaciers and the sky
at the height of after­noon.
“We used to be friends.” My fin­gers are numb, my body shaking with
the cold that’s buried into my bones, but I’m not g­ oing back to gym,
where every­one’s waiting with their worried glances and the questions
I ­haven’t given them the chance to ask.
Much safer to stay out ­here. “Safe” being a relative term.
I’m not sure anyone has ever described Tyler as a safe option.
Except me.
Tyler may be the kind of guy my dad’s warned me about since I was
eight, but he’s also the guy that sat at my lunch t­ able—­opposite sides and
a few spaces down—­when I quit the team and ­stopped returning every­one’s
calls last year.
He cut off what­ever excuse I was about to give and said, “I ­won’t talk,
but you looked like maybe you needed to not be alone.”
Now we do this. Partake in short conversations whenever our paths
cross, which seems to be at increasing frequency.
“Not that it’s any of my business, but it seems to me a real friend
­would’ve maybe said hello. Or waved.”
“Used to be friends. My fault w
­ e’re not anymore. I ­stopped talking
to him.”
He leans back, arms spread wide over the bleachers as the boys stam-
pede by again. “Sounds like he deserved it then.”
Except he d
­ idn’t. Neither did Margot. None of them did.
I stare into the sun ­until my eyes burn from the light instead of tears.
“Not ­really.”
“Okay.” He pauses, like he’s weighing his words. Like he knows this is
more than I’ve told anyone ­else. “Then it seems to me that a real friend
­would’ve tried to find out what happened.”

7
 My voice snaps through the air, even though I know he’s trying to help.
I’m just so tired of lying, to every­one. I’m tired of being afraid. “What
happened is none of their business. And none of yours ­either.”
I jump from the bleachers, my body hot and my breaths uneven, and
I ignore ­every one of the apologies that tumble over my back.
Apologies. Like I d
­ idn’t just exhibit an extreme overreaction and
attack him, completely unprovoked.
“Adams!” It’s not Tyler’s voice calling me, not Noah’s e­ ither. T
­ hose I
could ignore.
I stop and turn slowly, in time to see Coach Bulger lope into view.
His breaths form tiny clouds that match the sprinkle of gray in his
dark hair. “Hey, Cass.”
“Hey, Coach.”
He’s not technically my coach. He’s the school’s conditioning guru
though, and Coach Pheran used to use him to kick all our asses in pre-
season prep.
His favorite saying is that h
­ e’ll never push anyone harder than he
pushes himself, which is a bullshit form of comfort ­because he’s in better
shape than nearly ­every student ­here.
He crosses his arms over the whistle that dangles at his chest. “Coach
Pheran know ­you’re out h
­ ere?”
“Yes.”
He stares and I stare back and we both know I’m lying.
I wait for him to send me to the office, or give me detention, or worse—­
send me back to Coach Pheran—­but instead he says, “We missed you this
summer.”
I blink, too fast, trying to hold back the tears.
This was all much easier over the summer, when I could avoid every­
thing and every­one. School started a month ago and I’m already cracking,
already saying ­things I s­ houldn’t.

8
 I ­should’ve known better. I s­ hould’ve learned by now that conversa-
tions only lead to places I’d rather not visit.
Places I ­can’t visit, not when the countdown in my head has reached zero.
I ­don’t look at him when I say, “Yeah, I missed every­one too.”
“Not too late to come back. I’d even throw in a few extra conditioning
days for you.”
Despite myself, I laugh. The first day Bulger trained with us, I was so
desperate to make a good impression and secure my spot on the team, I
sought him out ­a fter to tell him I loved it. Then I puked all over my shoes.
He’s never let me forget it.
­ umble, “It’s too late for me,” b
I hug myself tight and m ­ ecause that’s
exactly how it feels—­like every­thing has passed me by.
The bell rings, saving me, and I barely say goodbye as I rush past him,
the trill of his whistle screaming to round up all the boys as I reach the
doors.
I storm through the halls, not even feeling my legs, and head straight
into the locker room.
I’m still cursing Noah, Tyler, Coach Bulger, and mostly myself when I
fling open my locker.
That’s where I find the pink envelope, waiting for me.

9
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