Chapter 4
I stared at my reflection in the bathroom mirror, mascara wand hovering near my lashes.
The girl looking back at me was almost unrecognizable from the one who’d cried herself to sleep in this house two years ago.
My hair was longer now, falling past my shoulders in loose waves.
I’d learned how to do my makeup properly—nothing dramatic, just enough to make me look alive. Put together. Normal.?
I finished my mascara and stepped back to examine the full effect. Denim shorts, a simple white tank top, my favorite sandals. Casual. Easy. Like I wasn’t screaming inside at the thought of leaving this place forever.
My room behind me was practically empty.
Boxes were stacked against the walls, labeled in my mother’s neat handwriting: EMILY - STORAGE, EMILY - DONATE, EMILY - COLLEGE.
The walls were bare, little rectangles of darker paint showing where my posters and photos had hung for years.
My desk was clear. My bookshelf was empty.
Even my bed was stripped down to the mattress, my sleeping bag rolled up in the corner because I’d already packed my sheets.
This room had been my sanctuary for eighteen years. Now it looked like a crime scene, all evidence of my existence carefully removed and boxed away.
My phone dinged on the bathroom counter, making me jump.
Kat: outside
I grabbed my phone and my small crossbody purse, taking one last look around the hollow shell of my bedroom.
Tomorrow morning, my parents and I would load up the car and drive away.
The new owners were moving in next week.
By the time they settled in, I’d be somewhere over the Atlantic, flying toward Europe and a summer of trying to pretend I was excited about my future.
I closed the door behind me and headed downstairs.
Mom was in the kitchen, wrapping glasses in newspaper. She looked up when she heard me. “Have fun tonight, sweetie. Not too late, okay? We have an early flight.”
“I know. I’ll be back by midnight.” I kissed her cheek. “Love you.”
“Love you too, baby.”
I walked out the front door and down the driveway to where Kat’s beat-up Honda was idling. She grinned at me from the driver’s seat, her dark curls piled on top of her head in a messy bun.
“Last party!” she sang out as I climbed in. “You ready?”
“As I’ll ever be,” I said, buckling my seatbelt.
Kat pulled away from the curb, and I watched my house disappear in the side mirror. Strange how something so permanent could become so temporary. How a whole life could be packed into boxes and erased.
“You okay?” Kat glanced at me as we turned onto the main road.
“Yeah. Just weird, you know? Leaving.”
“I know.” She reached over and squeezed my hand. “But you’re going to U Penn! That’s amazing, Em. You’re going to have the best time.”
I forced a smile. “Yeah. I’m excited.”
It wasn’t entirely a lie. I was excited about college, about getting out of this town, about starting fresh somewhere nobody knew me. Somewhere I wouldn’t see reminders of him on every corner.
The fields rolled past outside my window, golden in the evening light.
I’d driven these roads a thousand times.
Knew every curve, every landmark. The old barn where Kat and I had taken homecoming photos.
The gas station where Tyler used to buy me candy when I was little.
The turn-off that led to the woods, to the pack house, to—
I shut that thought down hard.
“So Europe,” Kat said, filling the silence. “That’s going to be incredible. How long are you gone?”
“Six weeks. We’re doing London, Paris, Rome, Barcelona, Amsterdam. Mom has this whole itinerary planned out.”
“Living the dream.” Kat sighed dramatically. “Meanwhile I’ll be slinging coffee at the diner all summer.”
“You’re going to State in the fall though. That’s exciting.”
“Yeah, I guess.” She shrugged. “Wish you were coming with me.”
“Me too,” I said, and meant it. Kat was one of the few real friends I had left. Most of my other friendships had withered over the past two years, casualties of my depression and withdrawal. Kat had stuck around though, even when I was at my worst.
We drove in comfortable silence for a while, the sun sinking lower on the horizon. I let my mind wander, watching the familiar landscape blur past.
Tonight was my last night here. Tomorrow I’d be gone, and I’d never have to come back.
My parents had sold the house—they were done with the suburbs, ready to travel and enjoy their empty nest.
Tyler had gotten a job in Chicago right after graduating college last year.
He was building a life there, had a girlfriend, an apartment in the city. He wouldn’t be coming back either.
And I’d gotten into U Penn. Full scholarship. My guidance counselor had cried when I told her. My parents had been so proud. It was everything I’d worked for, everything I’d wanted.
Except it wasn’t, not really. What I’d wanted was—
No. I wasn’t going to think about that. About him.
But of course, once the thought was there, I couldn’t stop it. Couldn’t stop the flood of memories, the ache that never quite went away no matter how much time passed.
After Ryder left for college, we’d FaceTime every single day.
Sometimes twice a day. He’d call me in the morning before his classes, and again at night before bed.
We’d talk for hours about nothing and everything.
He’d tell me about his professors, his roommate, the campus.
I’d tell him about school, about the college applications I was working on, about the mundane details of my life without him in it.
Those calls were the only thing that kept me going. The only bright spot in the gray fog that had settled over everything after he left.
But then he’d gotten busy. Midterms, he’d said. Papers due. Group projects. The daily calls became every other day. Then twice a week. Then once a week, if I was lucky.
I’d tried to be understanding. He was in college, adjusting to a new life. Of course he was busy. Of course he had less time.
But then he’d stopped returning my calls altogether. I’d call and it would go to voicemail. I’d text and get one-word responses hours later, if I got anything at all. The FaceTime calls stopped completely.
I’d told myself he was just overwhelmed. That he’d reach out when things calmed down. That he still cared, he was just stressed.
And then Christmas came.
I’d been counting down the days. He was supposed to come home for winter break. Two whole weeks. I’d planned everything we’d do together—movies we’d watch, places we’d go, late nights at the cliffs like old times.
But he never came.
I’d worked up the courage to go to his house, my heart pounding as I knocked on the door. A woman I’d never seen before answered—middle-aged, wearing an apron, flour dusting her hands.
“Can I help you?” she asked with a polite smile.
“Is Ryder home?” The words came out small, uncertain.
Her smile turned confused. “I’m sorry, who?”
My stomach dropped. “Ryder. Ryder Black? This is his house.”
“Oh, no, sweetie. We moved in about a month ago. The previous family doesn’t live here anymore.”
The world tilted. “They... they moved?”
“Yes. I’m sorry, I don’t know where they went.” She looked at me with concern. “Are you okay?”
I nodded automatically, backing away from the door. “Yeah. Sorry. Wrong house.”
But it wasn’t the wrong house. It was Ryder’s house.
The house where I’d spent countless afternoons.
Where Tina had made me snacks and let me do homework at their kitchen table.
Where Ryder and I had watched movies in the basement and played video games until his dad told us it was time for me to go home.
And they’d moved. A month ago. And no one had told me.
I’d driven home in a daze and gone straight to my room. And then I’d cried. I’d cried until I couldn’t breathe, until my throat was raw and my eyes were swollen shut. I’d cried until there were no tears left, and then I’d just laid there, hollow and empty.
I didn’t get out of bed for a week. Didn’t eat, didn’t shower, didn’t do anything but stare at the ceiling and try to understand how the person who’d been my whole world could just disappear and stop caring.
My parents had been terrified. They’d found me in the bathroom, pills scattered on the floor, my hands shaking as I’d tried to open the bottle. Mom had screamed. Dad had grabbed me, held me so tight I couldn’t breathe, kept saying “No, no, no” over and over like a prayer.
They’d taken me to the hospital. Kept me there for three days while doctors asked questions I couldn’t answer and therapists tried to get me to talk about feelings I couldn’t put into words.
How could I explain that the person who’d been my entire world had vanished?
That I’d driven to his house expecting to find him and found strangers instead?
That every unanswered call, every ignored message, every day of silence had carved out a piece of me until there was nothing left but this hollow, aching emptiness?
When they finally let me come home, Mom wouldn’t leave my side.
She slept in my room, sat with me while I stared at the wall, tried to coax me to eat even though food tasted like ash in my mouth.
Dad had taken time off work. Tyler had come home from college and stayed, even though it meant missing classes.
They were all so scared. I could see it in their eyes every time they looked at me—this terror that I might try again, that they might lose me.
After two weeks of me barely speaking, barely existing, they’d made the decision.
“We think you should stay with Grandma and Grandpa for a while,” Mom had said, her voice thick with tears. “Just until you’re feeling better.”
“A while” turned out to be the rest of my junior year and the entire summer. Seven months away from Pinewood, away from the memories, and away from everything that reminded me of him.
Grandma and Grandpa hadn’t let me wallow.
They’d put me to work in their garden, made me help with cooking and cleaning, dragged me to church and community events.
They’d kept me so busy I didn’t have time to think, to hurt, to fall apart again.