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I sighed, covering his hands with mine. “Yes and no. Never in my life would I have believed that I’d discover something as amazing as that statue. But I can’t make sense of it all. Why would Professor Harris gaslight me like this? I feel so stupid.”

“You’re not stupid, Indy. You just have incredible faith in people.”

“Faith?” I laughed bitterly. “No, I idealize them. It’s ridiculous to see something that isn’t really there. You’d think I’d have learned my lesson by now.”

Levi stilled behind me. “Because you idealized me?”

He sounded like a lost little boy in that instant, and when I turned around to face him, the line between his brows was a deep valley of worry. “What? No, Levi! That’s not what I meant.”

He wasn’t entirely wrong though. I had, after all, made up an idealized version of him, strung together like a marionette from all the perfect memories I had. “Or maybe it was.”

He dropped his hands and stared at me like I’d just driven a stake through his heart. I took both of his hands in mine to soften the blow. “I did idealize you when we were younger. But the real you is so much better.”

“Are you sure about that?” He raised an eyebrow at me.

“Yeah, fiancé Levi was so irritatingly perfect and two-dimensional.”

“And weirdly fragile,” he reminded me.

“True. Plus, he never gave me an orgasm. And you’ve given me too many to count.” I stood on my toes and pressed a kiss to his chin. “He was cold and untouchable. Whereas you are very warm and sturdy.”

He wrapped his arms around me, and I buried my face against his chest as I continued. “Fake fiancé Levi left me hanging all the time. Whereas you have been there for me whether I wanted you to be there or not.”

“I wasn’t always there for you, Indy,” he said sadly. “And I’m far from perfect.”

“That’s the point I’m trying to make. You’ve made mistakes and so have I. You ran away and I let you. I could have reached out to you, but I didn’t.” I took his hand. “We can’t keep running away from each other. No more secrets.”

“No more secrets, huh?” He sank down on the edge of the bed, head between his hands.

“Yeah, like this whole NASA application.” I sat down next to him, placing a comforting hand on his back. “Why didn’t you tell me? I want to be there for you, to support you, but if you don’t tell me about things, I can’t.”

“I’m not applying to the space program, Indy. I can’t.”

“Because of your suspension? You can’t let that stop you!”

“That’s not it.” He closed his eyes and let out a trembling breath. “How can I go after that dream when it was the one I shared with Josh? He wanted it more than I did.”

“Well, then do it for him!” It was so obvious to me that Josh would have wanted Levi to realize this dream for them both. How could he not see that?

“You don’t understand, Indy.” He pressed the heels of his hands against his closed eyes and whispered, “It’s my fault he’s not he’s not here.”

I kneeled in front of him and pulled his hands from his eyes, unable to comprehend how he could in any way blame himself for what happened to his best friend. “It’s not your fault. It was an accident.”

“Indy.” His eyes were full of sadness. “I was supposed to be on that mission.”

“I know.” I’d heard the story before. Josh had been scheduled for a later flight and at the last minute had changed spots with Levi.

“No, what you don’t know is that I couldn’t go because I’d gotten shit-faced the night before.” He took a deep breath, like he was suffocating. “I was hungover, feeling sorry for myself.”

“Because of your breakup?” I remembered all too well the state he’d been in back then after Ashleigh had refused his proposal and he’d learned that she’d been cheating on him with Carlton.

“Yeah, but also. The date. Well, I didn’t realize it back then . . .” He trailed off, staring into the distance.

“What?”

“That the curse—the date.” He wasn’t making any sense.

“What curse?” I gripped his hands.