I try to keep up. I try to offer some of my firsts, some of my surprises. But they don’t seem as first or as surprising.

We talk about family. She asks me if I hate my mother.

“No,” I tell her. “That’s not it. I love her, but I also want her to be better. I want her to stop giving up.”

“I can’t even imagine what that’s like. To come home to the same parents every day.”

“There’s no one who can make you angrier, but you also can’t really love anyone more. I know that doesn’t make sense, but it’s true. She disappoints me every day she just sits there. But I know she would do anything for me, if she had to.”

It’s strange to say this out loud. It’s not something I’d ever say to my mother, or even think in her presence. But maybe I should. I don’t know.

Even though I’m afraid of the answer, I ask A if she’s always been around here, or if she jumps to bodies in much farther places. In other words, I want to know if one day she’ll be too far away to see, if she could wake up on the other side of the world.

“It doesn’t work like that,” she tells me. “I honestly don’t know why it works the way it does, but I know that I never wake up that far from where I was yesterday. It’s like there’s a method to it—but I couldn’t tell you what it is. Once I tried to chart it out—the distances between bodies. I tried to see if it made mathematical sense. But it was mathematical gibberish. Random, but in a limited way.”

“So you won’t leave?” I ask.

“Not by waking up. But if the body I’m in goes somewhere else—I go with it. That becomes my new starting point. That’s how I got here, to Maryland. This one girl had a field trip to DC, and the group she was in was cheap, so they stayed outside the city. The next morning, I didn’t wake up back in Minnesota. I was still in Bethesda.”

“Well, don’t take any field trips soon, okay?” I make it sound like a joke, but I mean it.

“No field trips,” she agrees. Then she asks me about my own travels, and I tell her all about how I haven’t really been anywhere since we settled down in Maryland. Even DC is a stretch. My parents like to stay put.

She asks me where I want to go. I tell her Paris. Which is such a silly answer, because I feel like it would be any girl’s answer.

“I’ve always wanted to go there, too,” A says. “And London.”

“And Greece!”

“And Amsterdam.”

“Yes, Amsterdam.”

We walk round and round the forest, planning to travel the world. We walk past tree after tree and all the years we’ve lived seem to be there to be reached for. We return to the car and take more chips, more olives. Then we walk a little farther, talk a little further. I can’t believe how many stories there are—but they keep appearing because our stories are talking to each other; one of mine leading to one of A’s, then one of A’s leading to one of mine.

I never talk like this, I think. And then I realize this is very close to what A was saying before. You’re the first person I’ve ever told.

Yes, A is the first person I’ve ever told most of these stories to. Because A is the first person who has listened and heard and wanted to know.

Which might not be fair to Justin. Because how much have I actually tried to tell these things to Justin?

Only on the beach. Only that day.

Thinking of Justin makes me think of the stupid dinner plans we’ve made. I look at my phone and find that hours have passed. It’s five-fifteen.

There isn’t even time to cancel.

“We better get going,” I tell A. “Justin will be waiting for us.”

Neither of us wants to do this now. We want to stay here, keep this.

I feel like I’ve made a mistake.

I feel like what we’re about to do is a big mistake.

Chapter Thirteen

She tries to talk to me on the car ride over, and I try to talk to her, but I think we’re both lost in what we’re about to do. It’s awful that we’re going to trick him like this. And it’s even more awful that I’m dying to know what he’ll do.

I’ve gotten used to how Ashley looks, so it throws me to see the reaction when we hit the Clam Casino. The greeter is Chrissy B, this guy I went to high school with. He graduated last year, wanting to do musical theater. The closest he’s come so far is when someone orders the Happy Clamday to You special, and he and the other staff members have to sing the “Happy Clamday” song while someone blows out a candle that’s sitting on a half shell. It’s a pretty scary place, but the food is good.

Chrissy B takes one look at Ashley and it’s like he’s projecting all of his runways onto her. I’ve never seen him snap to attention so fast, or handle the menus so self-consciously. It’s like I’m not even there, not until I say hi and ask him if Justin’s already around. Chrissy B seems annoyed to have to answer me. But he tells me no, and I say we’ll wait. Justin doesn’t like it when I sit down before he does—I think because then we’re committing to staying, and sometimes he changes his mind.

As we wait for him, I can sense other people looking at Ashley. If A notices, she keeps her cool. I don’t like it. Some of the guys are looking so openly, so hungrily—what right do they have to do that? Some of the women are admiring, and others are resentful. Whatever their feelings, they have a reaction. If I were Ashley, I would feel like a bug trapped in a jar.

Justin walks in about ten minutes after we do, which is only five minutes late.

He sees me first, and starts to head over. Then he sees Ashley and stops for a second. He’s not immediately predatory, like the other guys. He’s floored. Completely floored.

“Hi,” I say. It’s awkward because usually I’d kiss him hello. But I don’t want to do that in front of A. “Ashley,” I say, “this is Justin. Justin, this is Ashley.”

Ashley puts out her hand to shake—it’s a very not-Ashley gesture, and I almost laugh from nervousness. Justin shakes. He’s looking at her whole body when he does.

“Let me get you a table!” Chrissy B chirps, as if his stage time in this amateur production has finally come.

As we walk over, more people look. If they’re thinking there’s a couple here, it’s Ashley and Justin. I’m the third wheel.