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“So you already assumed…”

“You called me for the first time in over a year. Calling me alone was a big deal. I knew this was going to be a… delicate situation. But I’m here for it, so let’s get going.”

We don’t talk while we scrub everything down, including the bathroom and Emma’s room. I tried putting it back to the way it was, but figured it didn’t matter too much since she'll be packing everything up soon enough.

Collin examines her pictures without commenting. I briefly inspect Rachel’s room. He may have been in here, but it’s too messy to be certain. Nothing’s destroyed, so I close the door before Collin can enter.

By the time we’re done, all I can smell is bleach. When Collin returns from the backyard, he smells like a campfire. “All evidence burned. No one will ever know something happened here.”

Which is good and bad. There’s nothing to prove self-defense or otherwise. He'd better still be alive.

“Want to get a beer?” Collin asks after I lock the door and stash the spare key under the front steps.

“Sure,” I answer, surprising us both. “Need showers first. You can borrow something of mine.”

“Sounds good,” he replies, trying not to sound shocked.

“I know of a place,” I tell him. “Nowhere near here. And uh, Collin?” He stops before getting into his grandfather’s rundown Chevy pickup. “I don’t want to talk about anything personal. Okay?”

“Yeah, sure,” he replies. “We’ll just sit at a bar in silence, drinking beers like a couple of weirdos. I can do that.”

I smirk. At least one of us hasn’t changed.

I peel off the memories. The pictures, ticket stubs, school pennant from the wall we created together. Hung to commemorate everything we experienced over the past four years. I wanted Jonathan to have more than his goals and accomplishments on display, unlike in his closet of a room in Hollis.

This was meant to remind him of all the reasons I love him. It’s our life together. And now… they’re memories. Period. Nothing to add. To hold on to. They’re pieces of us that we can’t put back together.

Today, I graduated college. I didn’t go to the ceremony. It’s the second graduation ceremony I’ve missed. This one intentionally. The last one was because the boy I love was stabbed by his father and nearly died. This one, he left me without warning. No answers. No goodbyes.

Who the hell does that?

I asked him—so many times—in texts, voicemails, even letters, although I didn’t know where to send them.

Today, I found out where he’s living, and I laughed. “Are you kidding me? He’s in Connecticut? Back at the apartment he rented for the internship?”

“The firm hired him,” my mother tells me as she stacks towels into a box. “I wanted you to know so you don’t have to worry about him anymore.”

“You think that just because I know where he’s living, I won’t worry about him?” I’m yelling. Not at my mom. But at the entire circumstance. I’m fed up. Exhausted. Broken.

Screw this.

I pick my keys off the counter along with my purse and storm out of the studio.

“Sadie!” Mom calls after me.

“Whoa,” Dad says, moving out of the way as I barrel past him in the hallway. “Where are you off to?”

“To reclaim my dignity,” I shout back, racing down the stairs.

I’m nearly calm by the time I pull up outside his apartment building. Nearly.

I ring his buzzer. He doesn’t answer. I ring it again. Nothing.

It never occurred to me on the four-and-a-half-hour drive here that he might not be home. I lean against the building and wait. But I have too many emotions coursing through me, so I start pacing. Then I fear I look like a lunatic. Hell, I feel like a lunatic.

And that’s when he appears, dressed in casual business attire—pants and a nice shirt with a computer bag over his shoulder. He looks so incredible it makes me want to cry. And push him to the ground so he won’t look so incredible anymore.

“Sadie?” He stops walking when he sees me. “What are you doing here?”