Natalie was gone.
All that remained was a pile of clothes and two sandals. One sandal was hers, and one was mine, like two halves of a surreal island BFF charm. She was the best friend I’d had on the island, and I’d miss her. But I still had Thad.
Thad.
His hair rustled against his shoulders; the wind was back. Not whipping but gentle, barely noticeable unless you were looking for it, which I desperately was. Because I’d just realized that if another gate flashed right now, it would be Thad’s, and as much as I wanted him to catch a gate, to lose both Thad and Natalie in one day would be both awesome and terrible. I’d never considered we might have minutes instead of months, and the reality that I might lose him right now was shocking.
The wind stayed steady.
I couldn’t breathe.
Jason’s voice broke the awful moment. “That’s it. It was so slow, I thought it was a triple, but no dice.”
I shook. With relief, with guilt, with happiness, with sadness,with too many emotions at once. I stood there, eyes closed, fists clenched, hating that I wasn’t prepared for this moment. I couldn’t stop shaking.
“You did good, man,” I heard Thad tell Jason.
Then Thad’s arms wrapped around me. “Hey,” he whispered in my ear. “It’s okay. Natalie made it because of you.”
“No,” I said. “It wasn’t because of me. It was luck. But”—I bit my lip, furious with myself for not being ready to say good-bye to Thad—“never mind.” Taking a deep breath, I hugged him fiercely, then pulled away.
Thad looked at me, frowning. “You’re wrong,” he said. “Your charts are good. Your theory works.”
I was too shaken to argue.
Thad reached for my hand. “Let’s get Nat’s stuff and go.”
“I’ll get it,” I said. Without waiting, I followed in Natalie’s invisible footprints, leading to her clothes. As I lifted my sandal, an object fell and struck the rock with a brittlecrack. It was Natalie’s white shell bracelet, the one she wore 24/7.
I picked up the bracelet, picturing Natalie twisting it as she asked,You didn’t find anything else with the clothes, did you?
Now I understood exactly what she’d hoped I’d found. When I’d snatched up Kevin’s shorts, something white had gone flying. Something as white and fragile as the bracelet in my hand.
“Kevin made that for her,” Thad said. He’d come up beside me.
“And he had one, too,” I said, knowing it was true. “Like you made our necklaces.” I swallowed, knowing one day I would pick Thad’s necklace off the ground, keeping him close until I could meet him on the other side.
And it could have been today.
Willing my hands not to shake, I slipped Natalie’s bracelet into my satchel. Then I gathered her clothes, packed them next to mymaps, and turned to Thad, knowing there was something I had to do. One last thing to keep my promise to Talla, because it’s what Natalie would have wanted.
“I’m ready,” I said. “Can I pick the route?”
“Lead on.” Thad gestured for me to go first.
Turning around, I retraced the route I’d first walked thirty-three days ago.
Thirty-three days.
Thirty-three days was nothing, and yet it felt like a lifetime. Thad had sixty-six days, and it seemed like nothing. We’d be lucky to have sixty-six days.
For all I knew, all we had left together was twenty-four hours.
CHAPTER
42
THAD
