Page 49

CHAPTER 49 CASS

February 2007

New York to Charleston

When Amanda and I debated whether we’d rather die of heat or cold, I always picked cold. And in everyday life, I’d rather be too cold than too hot. “If you’re cold,” I explained to her, “you can always add more layers, but there’s nothing you can do if you’re too hot.”

She thought my logic was absurd. She said, “Dying of cold feels lonely, whereas dying of heat is sexy.” Then I laughed because her explanation didn’t just contain less logic than mine; it contained no logic at all. Soon she also started laughing, because us laughing together was her favorite thing.

Charleston was the hottest place I’d ever been. Which I liked, because then moving there wasn’t just about Ryan, about the movie—it also felt, just a little bit, like a punishment. I lived in a small home on Sullivan’s Island, two bridges and ten miles from downtown. I never went on set locations, or into the city, while they filmed the movie, but I visited those areas the day after they wrapped, tried to absorb the leftover scraps of Ryan and her thrilling life.

Soon after filming for the first movie ended, I started writing the second book in the trilogy. I wrote with a sense of urgency. Ryan could only keep playing Persephone—a role that connected her to me, however invisibly—if I kept writing her story.

That first year in the South, I would take long walks in hundred- degree heat, crazy humidity, sweating so much my eyes stung. I was always looking for ways to wring myself out, hoping I could sweat out the guilt and pain of what I’d done to Amanda.

Some days, I believed I had.