oh my gosh.
oh my gosh I think I wished Yolo back.
26.
now
Wait.
What.
Is that what this is?
Isthishow I get them back?
Yolo ismehing at me, walking away, and I jump up to follow—I am not letting him out of my sight, I will stalk him as tenaciously as he used to stalk the neighbor’s Chihuahua. Yolo pauses at the back door, waiting for me to let him in, and when I do, he goes straight to the pantry where we keep the cat food and waits for me to pour him out a bowl.“Meh,”he says again when I’ve finished, and it makes me laugh again.
Could it be this easy?
Do I just have to wish?
Wishes aren’t science. They make zero sense. But neither does a whole town vanishing around you.
I open my mouth to say every name I can as fast as I can, but amehfrom Yolo stops me. He’s watching me.
“You’re right,” I tell him. “I should think this through.”
What if I’ve only got three? Like a fairy tale?
But even though I’m a girl talking to her cat like a princessin a castle, this is no fairy tale. I’m trapped and I can’t get out, but I’m not asleep, and no prince is at the gates thinking he can save me.
I have to be careful.
27.
once
Sam textedI’m stuck at work all night come see me
and I texted back
I can’t
I’m babysitting the Miller kids overnight for the first time
and Sam wrote back
Bring them
Kids like ice cream
I looked at the kids, who were sitting in a circle in the family room, three towheads waiting for me to keep playing duck, duck, goose with them.
“Let’s take a break,” I said. “How about we go get ice cream?”
“But it’s almost bedtime,” Annie said, looking thrilled. She was the youngest, five years old.
“We’ll be fast,” I promised.
