“It’s too late now. You know I work a lot of hours.”

He stands and tries to pull me into his arms, but I step away. “Ana. Come on.” He gives me a baleful look. “I can’t go to Brooklyn with you. You know that. Don’t blame me because you didn’t get into Harvard. If you’d let me help you with money, you wouldn’t have to work—”

“I’m not blaming you,” I say curtly.

And him give me money? Ha.

I carve my own way. Always have.

He checks his watch, smugness on his face. “Hey, it’s still your birthday so I didn’t entirely miss it. Let’s get out of here and go back to the house.”

Sounds so romantic.

“I need to study.”

“High?” His lips compress. “I’m not staying here. This place reeks.”

“Go home then,” I say as I step away and nod my head. “There’s the door.”

“Come with me.”

“I need to stay here in case Lila and Colette end up in the basement or at a tattoo parlor.” True.

He drops his hands. “Why can’t you give me some slack here? I’m sorry I forgot.”

“Oh, I’m being very understanding, Donovan.”

He narrows his eyes. “Are you? Really? You know how important this semester has been, the work I’ve done for the frat. My charity. My classes. I’m allowed to forget things.”

We’re going in circles. “It’s not just my birthday and you know it.”

His jaw pops.

“Did you talk to your parents about the holidays?”

An uneasy look flashes before he shuts it down. “No. I will. I promise.”

I inhale a sharp breath. I can feel his lie.

Why hasn’t he settled things with them?

He just saw them! Winter break is right around the corner!

“Don’t. I’m going skiing with Lila and Colette. We’ll fly back afterward, and I’ll stay in Ellijay with them for the holidays.” It’s better than spending Christmas alone in the apartment. I chew on my lip. Gah. June! I need to find her a home before I leave!

He fidgets, mulling my words over, then, “If that’s what you want to do, I’m cool.” He sighs. “Look, Ellijay isn’t far from Atlanta. It’s a redneck town with nothing to do, but I’ll drive to you. We’ll be together on Christmas and New Year’s. I can stay at a hotel. We’ll get a room.”

Of course he doesn’t want to stay with my friends, and technically, he hasn’t been invited to their house. Yeah, that wouldn’t go over well, but me and him, alone, with just each other in a hotel? Anxiety tugs at me. I don’t know. I mean, shouldn’t I want that? Somehow it feels…bleak. I guess it’s the distance we’ve had these past weeks. There’s an empty black pit in front of us, and it’s either fall in and lose each other or hold each other and jump over it.

“What about your parents? Won’t they be upset? You mentioned they have a huge party on Christmas with your extended family.” I bet their tree is fifty feet tall. I bet there’ll be oyster forks at dinner. I bet his mom wears the perfect little black dress. I bet his grandmother will be glad I’m not there.

He avoids my gaze. “I’ll talk to them and figure it out.”

Oh, Donovan.

You’ve had every chance since this past summer to figure us out, and you haven’t…

Tick tock.

Time is running out for us.

I know it, can feel it, and it hurts.

10

“If you don’t go on that ski trip, I’m going to invite Carrie Longmore over for the holidays,” my mom says. “You know she never got over you—”

“She had a crush on me in high school. She’s four years younger than me. There is nothing to get over—”

“—and you know how cute and perky she is. She’ll be sitting across from you as you eat your stuffing. She’ll flirt and rush to get your pecan pie. She’ll insist you watch TV with her, probably some terrible Christmas movie, then she’ll finagle you outside for a walk in the snow. How’s that?”

The scenario sounds suspiciously like last Christmas when Carrie suddenly showed up with her parents at Mom’s invitation. They might be our nearest neighbors, but I begged her to never do it again.

I make a groan as I sit inside my black truck outside Ana’s apartment. It’s late, but Mom was up and called me just as I got in. “You are a cruel woman.”

“Will you go skiing? Please?”

I lean my head back against the headrest, emotion clawing at me. I need to see her. “Mom, I haven’t seen you since fall break, and that was only for one day because of football—”

“You need this, River. Finish your semester, ski for a few days, then come home. I just…” Her voice stops, and she exhales.

I picture her at our house in Barley, a two-story colonial on twenty acres in rural Vermont. It’s an older home she and Dad loved renovating. She’s probably wearing her blue fuzzy robe and a pair of slippers. I can hear the crackle of the fireplace roaring in the den. On the wall is a framed picture of me and her and Rae and Dad. It was taken a week before he died, and every time I look at it, my gut clenches.

She sniffs. Rather dramatically. Several times.

I huff out a laugh. “If you were really crying, you’d hang up on me and pretend everything’s okay.”

She blows out a breath. “Fine. I was faking it. But! But! I am serious about skiing! If you don’t go…”

“I want to see you.”

“Grrrr. Look, you need to be normal. I need you to be normal. I am alive. I am here. I want it to be just a regular holiday when we do the things we always do. You ski, I bake a dry, nasty turkey that everyone says is good, Rae bitches about the snow, and Callie squeals when she opens her gifts. Just like always. I don’t want people acting like it’s the end of the world. I know how much you love that mountain.”

I let her words settle over me. My hands trace the steering wheel. I would love to ski the same slopes Dad and I went down.

“I’ll think about it.”

“I know what that means—no. You’re stubborn, just like your father. You’re a terrible child. Never listens. Carrie would make a good girlfriend for you. Local. Pretty. Likes me. Likes Rae. Likes Callie. Yeah, she talks too much and she’s not the brightest, but so what? Ugh. How is that class?”

I chuckle. Hearing her give me a hard time is the perfect way to ease my tension after seeing Donovan and Anastasia. “Never mind the class. How are you feeling?”

“Better today. My hair is coming back. I have a little stubble on top. My nails are weird though. I have no eyelashes, but Callie says I look badass. Four-year-old little girls are brilliant. Let me text you a picture.”

A photo comes through, an image of her in her robe, a yellow headwrap on her scalp, a big smile on her face.

Her face is thin and drawn, her eyes haunted.

I love the daily photos she sends me, but fear spears me. It’s as if she’s disappearing a little at a time. You know that feeling you get, the one that makes your soul shrivel, the one that tells you what’s happening is out of your control. There’s nothing I can do to save her.