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“What exactly was Johnny’s relationship with this girl, Micah?”

An unreadable expression crossed his face. “James…”

“It just doesn’t make sense. There’s not a single text, email, or even DM between them. Almost like he—” I paused, swallowing. “Almost like he erased it.”

Micah stared at me.

“You don’t think that’s strange?” I pressed.

“Johnny did a lot of things that didn’t make sense to me.”

“That’s not an answer.”

Micah’s jaw clenched. “Is it strange? Yeah. Strange for Johnny? I don’t know.”

I wished that wasn’t true. It was hard to measure Johnny by what other people did or how they acted. In so many ways, he couldn’t be calculated or analyzed. Everything that felt true to me about my brother had been based on feeling. On instinct.

I closed the laptop, slipping it into my bag. “I’m going out to Fort Bragg tomorrow to meet Josie.”

“Did you talk to her?”

“Not yet.”

Micah watched me, teeth scraping his bottom lip again. “Why don’t I drive out there with you?”

I searched his eyes. I didn’t know how to do this version of us, either. I didn’t know if it was possible. But before I could even answer, he was already standing.

“Text me what time we leave.” He waited to see if I would argue, but I didn’t.

A subtle smile tugged at his mouth before he started for the door, but I stopped him.

“Hey.”

He turned back. “Yeah?”

“Are we okay?” I asked.

He gave me one of hisI know you, you know mesmiles. “We’re okay,J.”

J. That’s what he’d called me when we were kids, and I had to swallow down the untethered feeling hearing the nickname he gave me.

I waited until he was out of sight before I picked up Johnny’s phone, punching in the passcode. The call log was still pulled up, and I reluctantly copied the unsaved number, typing it into my own phone. Slowly, I lifted it to my ear. It took a few seconds for it to start ringing, and I licked my lips, pulse climbing. It rang again and again, until finally the voicemail picked up.

The high-pitched, melodic voice was like a siren in my ear.

“Hi, it’s Autumn! Leave a message!”

Seventeen

The road to Fort Bragg was like a rope pulling me from the dark.

An hour and a half in, I was grateful that Micah had offered to come. Every few minutes, I had the impulse to turn my head and look at him, as if to prove to myself that he was really there.

The twisting route carved through the thick forests all the way to the coastline, where the sea battered the land into jagged, sharp-toothed cliffs. The farther we drove, the less I could feel Johnny. The more I could breathe.

There was an almost-comfortable quiet between Micah and me that kept me from getting lost in the labyrinth of my thoughts—Johnny. Autumn. Josie. The backpack. Each question was like a brick stacked on another. The weight of it all was proving too much to bear.

The last few days had felt like years, and having a ticking clock on my time in Six Rivers made me feel anxious. Like the stirring, penetrating energy that saturated the old-growth forest was already getting its tentacles around me. It was something that just sucked you in.