Chelsea wipes her napkin across her cheek, then goes back to eating.

  I clear my throat and turn my head to look at Hannah.

  Everyone who loves us dies.

  Jesus fucking Christ.

  Hannah’s lips are pressed together. She’s definitely trying not to laugh.

  How the hell is that funny?

  Hannah dips another wonton into the container of sweet-and-sour sauce, casual as ever.

  I think about the house.

  The curtains framing the window. The many pairs of kid-sized shoes at the front door. The abundance of comfortable furniture in the living room behind me.

  These three live here together.

  I’d bet my savings on it.

  Because everyone who loves us dies.

  Something desolate settles in my stomach next to the sesame chicken.

  Hannah reaches over and pats my forearm, probably trying to snap me out of my mental spiral. “Don’t worry, Maddox, you can’t catch it from proximity.”

  I swallow through the tightness building in my throat. “You sure about that?”

  Hannah nods. “It’s one of the rules.”

  Ruth huffs. “Since when have you cared about the rules?”

  When I met Hannah, I thought she was a bit of a Goody Two-Shoes. But I’m starting to think that’s not true.

  Maybe it’s her quick comebacks that started to change my mind. Or maybe it was fucking her over her desk last night during the employee party that gave me the hint.

  “And who did I learn that behavior from?” Hannah looks at her mom.

  “No idea what you’re talking about.” Ruth takes another bite of her food.

  “Plus,” Hannah tells the table, “we’re not getting married. We’re not even dating.” She holds up a hand. “I mean, we won’t date. We can’t. Not that we would. But even if we wanted to, he’s my boss.” She points her finger between us. “And we don’t want to.”

  Everyone stares at Hannah.

  She’s adorable when she’s flustered.

  “Well, technically.” I lift an egg roll to punctuate my point. “I’m not your boss. I just own the company.”

  FORTY-ONE

  HANNAH

  Maddox sits back in his chair with a groan, and I don’t know if it’s from eating that second cinnamon roll or from losing the last round of poker to Chelsea.

  We don’t actually play for anything, just bragging rights, but I don’t think Maddox has lost at cards to a twelve-year-old before.

  “I concede defeat.” Maddox lifts his hands.

  “How gracious of you.” Chelsea snickers as she stacks her chips.

  Tonight has been… nice.

  Surprisingly nice.

  Devastatingly nice.

  Maddox came here to talk.

  Talking could mean a lot of things, but no matter which way this conversation goes, I don’t expect I’ll enjoy it.

  “Welp, I think it’s time for some reality TV therapy.” Mom pushes her chair back from the table. “We’ll clean up later. You two” — she points to me and Maddox — “can go talk in Hannah’s room.”

  “If I have a boy over, will you let us talk in my room?” Chelsea asks as she heads toward the couch.

  Mom follows her. “Of course. When you’re thirty-five.”

  Maddox and I watch each other, his amused look to my slightly pained one.

  “Shall we?” He pushes up to stand.

  I don’t miss the way he grimaces getting out of the unforgiving wood chair.

  “How are your knees?” I ask before I can think better of it.

  But even if I hadn’t been outed by Mom and Roberts over the last twenty-four hours, it’s no secret that playing pro football damages your body.

  He shrugs. “I’m nearing thirty-seven and have the knees of a sixty-five-year-old. So they’re doing great.”

  I shake my head and gesture for him to follow. “Come on, old man. Let’s go talk.”

  FORTY-TWO

  MADDOX

  We cut across the house to the back of the living room, but instead of heading up the stairs, Hannah leads me down a little hallway.

  She hesitates for a second, then walks through an open door.

  Following, I find myself in Hannah Utley’s bedroom.

  It’s small. Probably the same size as my walk-in closet. But it’s comfortable.

  I glance at what must be a full-size mattress and try not to imagine how much I would not fit on that bed.

  The built-in bookshelves make me think this may have been designed as a study, but Hannah has turned it into a nice bedroom.

  “I don’t have any chairs in here.” She stops at the head of the bed and turns to face me. “But we can sit on the bed if you’d like.”

  My eyes roam over the neatly made bedding.

  I want to feel it. The cream-colored comforter. The mattress. All of it.

  But I don’t sit. I want to stay standing for this.

  I focus my attention on the woman in front of me.

  There’s no great way to lead into this, so I just start. “Last night, you said you’re the one who didn’t call.” She rolls her lips together as she watches me. “But we never shared our numbers, and I know you know that. So I need you to help me understand.”

  Her eyes close. “I shouldn’t have said anything. It doesn’t matter.”

  “It does matter,” I tell her.

  She opens her eyes, and they’re full of sadness. “Why?” Her tone sounds so defeated.

  So I tell her the truth. “Because I missed you.”

  FORTY-THREE

  HANNAH

  My throat constricts.

  Because I missed you.

  FORTY-FOUR

  MADDOX

  I take a step closer as I watch her fight to keep her features even. “Since seeing you again, I’ve thought about it a lot. And all I keep coming up with is that there’s something I’m not understanding. Something I don’t know.” I want to touch her, but I keep my hands at my sides. “What happened, Little Bunny? What made you run?”

  She pushes her hands into the front pockets of her shorts. “I wasn’t running. Maddox…” Hannah presses her lips together. “Do we really need to do this? Can’t we just pretend…?”

  “No pretending.” Now that I’m here, there’s no stopping. “Just the truth.”

  Hannah nods once. “My mom… Right after, when I got back to my dorm room that morning.” She refers to our night in the library. “I got a call from a nurse. My mom had a stroke.”

  “Fuck,” I breathe out.

  “She was in the hospital.”

  “Jesus, Hannah.”

  “I had no choice. I had to come home.”

  I think about the way our hands parted when we left the library. And how I spent the day thinking about her, and she spent her day…

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask, knowing I have no right to feel any sort of hurt over this. But I still can’t believe she just left.

  “I tried.” She repeats the statement from last night.

  “I don’t —”

  “I put a letter in your mailbox.” She rushes the sentence out.

  “You…” I trail off. “What?”

  She shrugs like it’s not a big fucking deal.

  “A letter?” I try to wrap my head around it.

  “No one answered when I rang the doorbell.” She lifts her shoulders again, but it’s a smaller movement this time. More restrained. “So I put it in the mailbox.”

  I tried.

  What can only be guilt presses in around my lungs. “I never got it.” Saying the words feels like throwing a punch. “I never got your letter, Hannah.”

  She gives me a weak smile.

  She wrote me a fucking letter. The day her mom had a stroke.

  “What did the letter say?”

  “Maddox —” Her gaze drops away from mine.

  “Please,” I cut her off.

  “It said what I just told you.” She pulls her hands from her pockets and lifts them before letting them flop back down to their sides. “That my mom was in the hospital and that I had to catch a bus home. And with the shop —” She looks up at me. “We owned Petals, that flower shop from my résumé. Mom practically lived there, running the place. And if she couldn’t work… then I’d have to.”

  The timelines all click into place.

  Hannah left for school because Ruth ran the shop. But a week later, Ruth couldn’t run it anymore.

  “What else did the letter say?” I need to know all of it. Need to know the extent of the damage.

  Only one shoulder goes up this time. “I said something foolish about how much our time had meant to me.” Foolish. It wouldn’t have been foolish. “And I wrote down my number.” The blow hits. I knew it was coming, that she would have included it, but to hear her say it… “I said something about how I know long distance sucks, but that I’d like to talk to you again. Maybe read together.” She whispers the last sentence.

  I take a step back.

  She wanted to read to me over the phone. Like she’d done that night.

  “And then I never called.” I feel like I’m breaking my own heart.

  Hannah gives me another one of those fucking shrugs. “I get it.”

  “No.” I shake my head. “No, there’s nothing to get. I didn’t — Hannah, I never got that letter. If I did, I would’ve called.”

  “Okay.” She says it like she doesn’t believe me.

  “I would have.” I run my hand through my hair. “I don’t know what happened to it, but I never got it. You have to believe me.”

  Hannah is biting her lip, but she nods.

  An intense sense of loss fills me, and I fucking hate it. There’s so much time we could have had together, but instead, we lost it all.

  “Why didn’t you write to me again?” My voice sounds different from a moment ago. “You knew where I lived.”

  She huffs out a broken laugh. “Because writing that letter once was hard enough. And because I didn’t want to be the desperate hookup begging for attention from hours away.”

  I grit my teeth. “You weren’t just a hookup. You have to know that.”

  “How?” She lifts and drops her hands again. “How was I supposed to know that, Maddox? As far as I knew, I left you a letter telling you how I felt, and you ignored it.”

  I clench my fists. “That’s not what happened.”

  “I believe you, okay? I believe you never got the letter, but at the time, I didn’t know that. And it hurt.” Her voice cracks. “I figured you didn’t care.”

  “I cared a lot.” I take a step closer.

  Hannah stops me with her next question. “Did you go to the library looking for me?”

  My mouth opens, but I don’t want to answer.

  Because I didn’t.

  FORTY-FIVE

  HANNAH

  I can see it on his face.

  He didn’t go to the library.

  I believe him about everything else. I do. But I believe that too.

  “You weren’t going to meet me that night.” My heart sinks as I say it.

  None of this even matters.

  He never tried looking for me.

  It would’ve been over anyway.

  “I was going to.” He grits the words, frustrated.

  I think about that damn paper football, and the pressure building behind my eyes is too much.

  “Can you please leave?” I ask quietly.

  “It’s not like that.” Maddox takes another step closer, and I focus my gaze on the center of his chest. “I didn’t go because I’d already heard you’d left. And I was mad that you left without telling me.”

  I drag my eyes back up to his. “Heard from who?”

  “This — some girl. She said she overheard you telling people you were transferring back home.”

  I shake my head. “I never told anyone, Maddox. I sent an email to my boss, but I never said the words out loud to anyone. You were basically the only person on campus who knew I existed.”

  And he didn’t even look for me.

  Fuck, this all hurts as much today as it did back then.

  FORTY-SIX

  MADDOX

  “Please leave.” She’s back to not meeting my eyes. “Now. Please.”

  I shift my weight, starting to step forward.

  I don’t want to go.

  I don’t want to leave her, looking like I just broke her heart all over again.

  But she’s asking me to leave.

  “Alright.” I step back.

  I’ll do what she asks now, but this conversation isn’t over.

  I turn and take the two strides to the door.

  When I pull it open, my gaze is drawn to the bookshelf right next to my shoulder.

  And there, on the shelf in Hannah’s bedroom, is a book with a label taped to the spine showing that it’s property of the HOP U Library.

  The book.

  My copy of The Count of Monte Cristo that went missing after our night together.

  The one she read to me, with my chin resting on her shoulder and her voice filling my mind.

  I step out of Hannah’s room and into the hallway.

  All these years, and she kept the book.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  HANNAH

  I sink onto my bed, confused and sad.

  For so many years, I wanted to have this conversation with Maddox, but now that it’s done, I don’t actually feel any better.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  MADDOX

  The world feels off.

  I said good night to Chelsea and Ruth on my way out, thanking them for letting me join the birthday celebration.

  I smiled. Acted like I was fine. But it felt like someone else was talking.

  And now, behind the wheel of my car, halfway home, nothing feels right.

  I take the turns, the streetlamps turning on as darkness settles across the sky, but I don’t see the street in front of me.

  She left me a letter.

  I can’t stop thinking about it. How it must have felt for her to write that. How terrifying it would have been to get a call like that about her mom.

  I just met Ruth, and I already care about her. But to go through that as a twenty-year-old, with all the unknowns.

  And the knowns.

  I feel nauseous.

  Hannah left the library, and then everything changed. She didn’t even need to be told by her mom; she knew that if her mom was in the hospital, she couldn’t afford to stay at school.

  She had to drop out that same fucking day so she could go home and work.

  And I…

  I slow my car as I pull into my driveway.

  Anger, like I’ve never felt before, builds around me.

  I stop in front of my front steps and put my car in park, but I don’t get out.

  This whole time, I thought I was the wronged one. But even if it was all a misunderstanding, my feelings of being abandoned were real. Because Hannah may have written me a letter, but I never got it.

  I never said the words out loud to anyone.

  You were the only person on campus who knew I existed.

  My hands feel unsteady as I pull my phone out of my pocket.

  I open my Instagram page, the one with half a million followers, and I type in a name.

  Sure enough, there’s a result.

  The profile image is small, a woman with a man and two small children. And even though it’s been years, I recognize her.

  As I type out my message to her, I can picture that day — fifteen years ago — like it just happened.

  We’d just gotten done with practice, and I rushed home to shower and change. My short hair was still damp, and I was jogging across the lawn, heading toward campus, when I saw her.

  Essie was walking up the sidewalk toward the Football House, and she lifted her hand, calling out a greeting to me.

  I didn’t want to talk to her, but I was early. Hannah wouldn’t get off work for another two hours. I was just heading to the library because I’d rather be near Hannah than anywhere else.

  “Hey, Maddox!”

  “Hi.”

  “Where you off to?” She steps forward.

  I shuffle to the side, not wanting her too close to me. “The library.”

  Her features twist into a sort of frown. “I heard about your friend. Sorry about that.”

  My brows furrow. “Uh, what friend?”

  “That Utley girl.”

  That Utley girl.

  Panic floods my system. “What happened to her?”

  Essie lifts her shoulder. “Nothing happened to her. I just meant about her dropping out.”

  Her words don’t make sense. “I don’t understand.”

  Essie takes another step closer. “Me either.” She gives me a sympathetic look. “I just overheard her talking to some people about how she had to move out today. Did she not tell you?”

  My fingers clench around my phone, and I have to force myself to loosen them.

  Did she not tell you?

  Someone lied to me. And I don’t think it’s Hannah.

  My phone vibrates as Essie, the married woman and mother of two, replies with her phone number.

  I dial it.

  One ring later, the call is picked up.

  “Hey, Maddox. It’s been a while.” Her voice is quiet. Like she’s trying not to be overheard.

  I was going to be friendly. Ask nicely. But I can’t do that.

  “First week of senior year, you told me you overheard Hannah talking about transferring home,” I snap. “You lied to me. Why?”

  She lets out a nervous laugh that sets my fucking teeth on edge. “Who’s Hannah?”

  “Hannah. Utley.” I enunciate each name, remembering how she called her that Utley girl.

  Did she not know Hannah’s full name?