Also—five-star dining? With MREs? That’s a war crime.
Dalton fell asleep in Psych again and snored so loud the professor threw an eraser at him. He called it a “tactical nap.” Don’t believe him. And it’s too bad you’re not here to tell your guard dog to “sit” and “stay”—he nearly mangled a guy on the field last weekend. Dalton swears it had nothing to do with the way the guy flirted with me before the game, but we both know better. Overprotective men, I swear.
Classes are the same. I should be paying attention, but mostly I end up doodling Willow’s Harbor logos instead of taking notes. Don’t tell Hannah. She’ll ground me.
Maria says hi, and Jewel waved at me the other day like she knew something I didn’t. She’s going to grow up faster than either of us are ready for.
I’ll send another picture soon. Don’t expect me to top Sally, though—that was lightning in a bottle.
Stay safe, Jackson. Write me soon.
Holly
I laughed. Out loud, obnoxiously. Couldn’t help it. A couple of guys cursed me for waking them, one threw a boot, but I was still grinning like an idiot.
Of course she’d latch onto the hump line. Leave it to my Malibu to make my legs-buckling misery sound like a damn sex joke. And she wasn’t wrong—I’d never live that one down if Maria heard it.
I read it again, slower this time, letting every word sink in. The sass, the updates, the way she made me feel like we were still just two people lying under the summer stars together.
I folded the letter carefully and slid it under my pillow. Kept it close. Kept on letting it drive me forward, one step closer to going home.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
? Holly ?
Spring slid over Athens like warm water—magnolia gloss on the air, students sprawled on the quad pretending finals didn’t exist, red and black everywhere you looked. People talked about summer internships and lake weekends and road trips like the future was a line they could just step across. I went to class, I highlighted things that were apparently important, I ate french fries out of paper boats and told myself I was keeping it together.
Mostly, I was. Until Friday.
I was home for the weekend—one bag, a plan to raid the fridge and pass out face-first on the couch. But the house was empty so I got back into Sally and headed to my home away from home. I barely made it through the door before my mother clocked me like a heat-seeking missile. I froze, blinking at the unfamiliar sight of her and my father at the kitchen counter. I had expected them to be home, nothere.
“There you are,” she said, relief and steel she had learned from Hannah braided into one voice. “Good. She’s waiting.”
“Who’s waiting? And waiting for what?” I asked, eyeing the casserole she or Hannah had set out like bait.
“For you,” Hannah answered from the hallway, arms crossed, mouth set. “Come on.”
“I—can it be after I eat?” I tried. “Or after a nap? Or after graduation?”
“Now,” Mom said. Same tone. Same steel. Traitor. Hannah was waiting in the hall and smiled broadly when she saw me.
They flanked me—two small, immovable women—and steered me down the back corridor, past the rooms I used to ignore, past the one with the lamp I’d helped pick out, to a door I hadn’t seen open. My stomach cinched upon seeing the light spill out from the open door.
“I’m not ready,” I said, because fear had a way of making you a kid again, hands shaking in a crowded room and trying to make yourself small enough to survive. “Hannah, I’m not—”
“You are,” she said, and laid a hand between my shoulder blades. It felt like a blessing and a shove. “Breathe. Then go in.”
Mom squeezed my wrist. “You don’t have to fix anything,” she said, eyes fierce. “You just have to show up.”
My hand found the doorknob. Cold metal. One breath, then another. I stepped inside.
She was younger than I’d expected. Early twenties, maybe. Hollowed-out eyes, lip split and eye blooming purple, an oversized hoodie swallowing her frame. A little girl pressed into her side so tight it looked like she was trying to climb back into her mother’s body. The child’s hair was damp with sweat; a cheap plastic bracelet dug into her wrist.
“Hi,” I said, and my voice came out steady, which felt like a miracle.
Neither answered. The room hummed with their fear. Lamp light, fresh sheets, a clean towel folded on the dresser—little things that said safe without promising the impossible.
I sank to the floor so I wasn’t towering over them. I set my elbows on my knees and kept my hands where they could see them. “Hello, my name is Holly. Welcome to Willow’s Harbor.”
