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Then I hear my dad calling, in the distance. By the time I get to my feet, Quinn is gone.

I walk into the foyer, and it’s the foyer of my own house. I hear a sound in the distance, coming from upstairs—a door closing.

I call out to my dad.

No one answers.

As I climb the stairs to the second floor, I hear helicopter blades.

When I get to the top of the stairs, it’s not my house anymore. It’s my childhood home. I see the door to the room where the terrible thing is going to happen, and I hear my dad’s voice, calling to me.

I start to tremble and cry.

I hear thewhump whump whumpof the helicopter blades as I walk toward the door.

The black cat is lying on the floor against the wall, her hind leg in a cast.

She’s wounded, and it’s all my fault.

When I finally reach the door, I’m shaking. I start to open it.

It opens all the way—into nothing. I plummet into the roar of the helicopter, and wake up in terror, my heart pounding.

The cat lies on her bed, watching me, green eyes alert. I think I startled her awake.

I’m still lying on the sofa.

I get up to make myself another drink, and I don’t sleep again that night.

I just think about all the things I need to say to Quinn, if I’m going to be honest with her.

And if I have the courage to say them.

Chapter 30

Harlan

It’s raining and dark when I show up at Quinn’s house. Lights are on inside, and Christmas lights twinkle around the windows.

As I approach the screen door, I can see Quinn in the kitchen, decorating a round cake. She’s spinning it on a turntable, scraping the pink icing on the sides to make it perfectly smooth.

I knock lightly on the old door frame, rattling the screen.

When she looks up, a lock of chocolate-brown hair falls over her face. I never would’ve thought she could get any prettier than she already was with that crazy turquoise hair, but I’m looking at her right now, and she’s fucking beautiful. I don’t know if it’s the pregnancy or the fact that she’s just meant to be a brunette, but she’s glowing.

She looks surprised to see me, standing out here in the rain. “Harlan.” She walks over to the screen door. “What are you doing here?”

“Well, sitting at home on a rainy night watching a cat heal is fairly boring.”

“If you’re trying to be adorably pathetic, it’s totally working.” She opens the door and tugs me in out of the rain.

The next thing I know she’s ladling apple cider from a pot on the stove into a mug for me and dusting it with cinnamon. The whole place smells like apples and cinnamon, Christmas decorations have been hung everywhere, and music is playing softly somewhere down the hall to the bedrooms. Not Christmas music. The eighties stuff Quinn and her mom love.

We take our mugs into the living room, where there’s a small Christmas tree twinkling, and boxes and piles of… stuff. Literally everywhere. I watch in awe as Quinn manages to clear a few piles from the sofa to balance precariously on other piles, so that we can sit down.

The mess doesn’t even stress me out as much as I’d think it would, I’m just so glad to be with her.

“We’ve been clearing out Mom’s everything room to make room for the baby,” she explains. “It’s been a process, as you can see.”