Begin Again

That weekend a cold front comes in that has everyone burrowed indoors—everyone except Shay, who’s home for the weekend. After spending most of Saturday and Sunday sitting on my bed overthinking every thought I can possibly think and not getting a single thing done, I regret not going home, too.

The thing is, there is plenty to overthink. Namely the fear that’s rippled like an undercurrent ever since I got my acceptance letter—the fear that I don’t belong here. That I’m not cut out to match pace with these ultrasmart, supercompetitive kids in this top-tier school the way my parents were. That I’ll never have the same easy sense of belonging it seems like everyone around me has, that even Connor seems to have even though he doesn’t go here anymore.

Then there’s Shay and Valeria, a problem I’ve still managed to unpack from a hundred directions even though the most obvious one is stay out of it. And I have. But it doesn’t take it from the forefront of my mind, knowing Shay is out there angry with herself and Val is out there embarrassed to have people reading her words and I’m just sitting here unable to do anything to help.

In the periphery I keep trying to ignore is . . . everything else. The overdue call to my dad. Milo’s news. The ribbons I’m worried I’ll never have enough of. Those are the sharper thoughts, the ones I have to push down before the edges catch me by surprise. So I ignore them. I make lists that go nowhere. I draft an email to my professor about the exam I never send. I stare at my phone long enough to burn a hole in it.

And then the phone rings. There’s this instant, almost desperate kind of relief. I’ll tell Connor everything. Maybe he’ll know what to do, what to say.

“Hey.” My voice is so hoarse I realize I haven’t spoken to anyone all day. “How’s life?”

“It’s, uh . . .” I hear a door click shut and imagine him in his bedroom at his parents’ house. “Well. I guess it could be better.”

“What’s wrong?”

“You’ll be so disappointed in me.”

I sit up straight in bed. “I could never be disappointed in you.”

Connor sighs, like that’s the last thing he wants to hear right now. “I’m, uh . . . I’m not doing so hot in my classes. It turns out.”

There’s an immediate sympathy chased by an overwhelming relief. “Oh. Well—me neither, really.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” I say, my spirits already lifting just hearing him on the other end of the line. “I just bombed an exam, actually. How about you?”

There’s a beat. “I’m, uh. I’m failing two classes.”

I’m glad he called and didn’t FaceTime, because I can’t stop my eyes from widening. “Well. There’s still time to turn things around.”

“Yeah, but . . . my application to transfer back. They’ll see those.” Connor takes a breath so heavy I can feel the weight of it even all these miles away. “Andie, I don’t think I’m going to get back in.”

The words sink under my skin like an ice bath. I want to unhear them, but there they are anyway, already sinking in. It’s as if they numbed my brain cells, because all I can say is, “But your ribbons.”

He’s quiet for a moment. “I’m so sorry, Andie. All I wanted was for us to be together.”

I close my eyes just to give myself a moment to think, but a tear comes spilling out. I may not have asked him to, but he transferred there to be with me. And now he can’t get back.

“I could . . .”

I know what I’m supposed to say, but I can’t say it. Instead I’m replaying this version of our lives I’ve been writing in my head since I got here. How next semester Connor would be here sharing an apartment with his friends across the street from an apartment where I’d live with Shay. How he’d join our trivia team and I’d cheer him on at his games. How we’d weave each other into the fabrics of the lives we made here, introducing each other to our friends, to our favorite spots on campus.

But now when I try to conjure the images, I come up empty of them. Like all it took was reaching out to realize they were made of smoke.

“You could transfer back?” Connor finishes for me.

I know it’s what we were both thinking. But that does nothing to ease the sharp hurt of hearing him say it. Of knowing he expects it.

I press my lips together, swallowing hard. The hurt doesn’t go with it. “It’s not over yet,” I say. “Maybe you’ll get in.”

“Maybe,” says Connor doubtfully.

I close my eyes again, trying to ground myself in the reality of what’s happening, to decide what comes next. It should come easily. By now I’m used to things falling through. I just thought if I could hold on hard enough, Connor wouldn’t be one of them.

But it feels like even in asking that of me, a part of him is already gone. As uncertain as the future is, one thing I know for certain is this: I would never, ever ask him to do the same for me.

The rest of the call I feel like I’m half in my body and half not. We talk about classes and our friends at home and the future. We tell each other “I love you” and hang up. My eyelids are so heavy that I fall asleep before Shay even gets back from the weekend, and I stay asleep so thoroughly that she has to shake me awake for the Monday morning broadcast.

Milo doesn’t say anything about the acceptance letter when we get to the studio, and neither do I. Not that morning, or for the rest of the week, which whips by in an aimless, uneasy blur. On Friday comes the only bright spot—not only do I give my whole segment without looking at my notes, but I even take two more callers on the fly.

Milo offers me a smile as tired as mine when he takes over the mic and wraps up. “Anyway, that’s the latest, unless you’re one of the freshmen only tuning in to get your hands on more of those ribbons. I’ve been told you’re supposed to meet at the gazebo in the arboretum at three p.m. I have no idea what’s going to happen to you there, but seeing as I’m not harebrained enough to go outside in this cold, that’s not my problem.”

That’s it. A place I can funnel all this loose, chaotic energy. I’ll get another ribbon. I’ll put it out into the universe that I’m not giving up—not on the ribbon hunt, not on Connor, not on my mom’s legacy.

After class I head back to the dorm and gear up, adding extra layers when I hear the howl of wind outside the window. It’s still freezing when I head out for the little path that leads to the gazebo, but for the first time in days there’s a singular sense of purpose driving me onward, and with it comes a numb kind of calm.

That is, until I realize whoever reported the Blue Ridge State weather forecast this morning was standing in front of a green screen of lies.

“Sourdough cheese toast,” I cuss, the wind strong enough to blow me sideways. “What on earth?”

I stare up ahead, dumbfounded. It’s snowing. No, not just snowing—all at once it’s snowing hard enough I can barely see ten feet in front of me.

At first it’s so breathtaking I stop in my tracks to stare at it. It’s a sheet of white, powerful and beautiful, erasing everything in its path. I feel it falling all around me and there’s this sense of awe so overwhelming that for a moment I almost forget why I’m here.

Then there’s a flash so close it looks like flames shooting down from the sky, and a rumble so loud and deep I can feel it in my bones.

My hands fly to my mouth. “Thundersnow.”

It’s not my first time experiencing it, but it is certainly my first time being reckless enough to get caught in the middle of it. I reach for my pocket to pull out my phone as if the weather app is going to somehow save me from my own stupidity, but just then a gust of wind blows enough snow into my eyes to knock me back a few feet.

“Andie!”

I glance up, but there’s nobody there. Just the wind howling and the snow flurrying. I narrowly avoid falling on the path, but once I find my footing, it’s almost impossible to tell which direction I’m facing. It’s like being in a snow globe getting violently shaken by a kid in a gift shop.

I try to stay calm and pick a direction, reaching for any advice my dad might have given me back when we were outdoors in all kinds of elements. I think of my mom’s old compass, how she’d never use it herself but she’d sometimes hand it over to me, let me see if I could lead us. I wonder where it is now. If it could lead me out of this mess the same way the memory of my mom led me into it.

There’s another flash of lightning, close enough that this time I can’t help letting out a yelp. The boom of thunder is so immediate that at first all I can hear is the rumble of it, followed by a series of cracks and a deep, unsettling rustling—the sound of a tree coming down.

I’ve done some stupid things in my life. Forgotten book reports. Worn jeans to Mrs. Whit’s birthday tea. Gotten myself in the middle of friend fights I had no part in. But this is a different level of stupid, I realize all too soon and way too late. This is the kind of stupid where you end up dead.

The tree falls just a few feet away, and all I can do is stare at it, the branches splintering so intensely that they spray me. A twig flies right at my face. I throw my arms up, but not fast enough—something slices my forehead, and I back up so fast my feet slip on a sheet of ice that’s somehow collected under the snow.

“Andie.” Someone grabs my elbow, steadying me before I can fall.

My arms are still braced, my entire body tense. Somehow the voice I’m hearing is even more implausible than all of Mother Nature ganging up on me at the same time.

“Milo,” I splutter. “What are you . . .”

He grabs me by the shoulders and spins me around to face him. “Shit. Are you okay?”

My forehead is stinging and my body’s shaking and I’m cold enough to chip like ice. “Yes,” I say anyway, because right now not being squished by that tree is okay enough.

Milo frowns just above my field of vision, but his eyes are on mine before I can figure out why.

“My mom has a supply shed close by. Hold on to my arm, okay?”

I’m on autopilot, clutching him like he’s the last solid thing in the world, my mind replaying the fallen tree over and over again. We slowly make our way through the impossible onslaught of snow with Milo leading the way, our bodies pressed against each other and braced against the snow. Something keeps messing with my vision. I blink and I blink, but it only gets worse.

The door slams behind us before I even realize we’ve made it to the storage shed, a dimly lit building that’s half the size of a dorm room and crammed to the gills with shovels and fertilizer and orange cones. Then everything’s quiet and still except for Milo, who whips around and looks at me again, letting out a low hiss.

“What?”

He doesn’t answer as his fingers graze my face, pushing my hair back behind my ear. “Your forehead. You’re bleeding.”

My own hand flies up to my face, bumping straight into his. “Ow,” I exclaim, the pain of it registering the moment I can feel the warmth of blood against my fingertips. “Oh, no. Oh, shoot. Is it bad?”

Milo takes a step closer, lifting his hand again to push back my hat and peer at it. “It’s just bleeding a lot, I think. It’ll be fine.”

My lips form a knot, unwilling to ask the actual question on my mind, which is whether it’s going to need stitches and just how much of my face it’s going to affect. I see Milo watching me and brace myself for a well-deserved teasing, but instead his eyes soften.

“Seriously, Andie. Once it’s fixed up I don’t think anybody will even notice it.”

I still keep my palm pressed on my forehead like the pressure will undo it happening in the first place. “How did you . . . how did you know I was out here?”

Milo finds a giant box full of supplies and sets his foot down on it, testing its weight. When he seems satisfied, he gestures for me to sit on it.

“I knocked on your door, and when you didn’t answer . . .” Milo pulls the hood off his head, rooting through the shelves of the dimly lit shed. “I remembered you talking about how your school app never synced, because of the transfer. There was an alert everyone else on campus got. Telling us about the storm and canceling everything, including the ribbon event for today.”

“So you realized where I was,” I say, very close to blubbering.

Milo sits down next to me and presses a clean piece of cloth to my head. “Hold that there,” he tells me.

My hand grazes his as he pulls away to find something else in the first aid kit he pulled out. “You walked through this circus because of me.”

“Well,” says Milo, with a hint of a smile, “I am the broadcaster who led you out here and the RA who’s responsible for keeping you alive. So if you were killed by thundersnow, your grandmas probably would have killed me next.”

I’m not expecting to laugh, but the image of six-foot Milo cowering at my tiny but vengeful grandmas immediately demands it. The hint of a smile on his face deepens, like he’s pleased with himself, but he turns his attention back to the alcohol wipes in the kit before I can fully see it.

“Do you have a hair tie or anything?” Without waiting for me to answer, Milo turns back to the shelves. “I’m sure my sisters left some in here somewhere . . . this was always more their hideout than ours.”

I can tell by “ours” he means his brothers. Even with my head bleeding and the sky throwing a full-on tantrum outside I am careful of where I verbally step. “Where was your hideout?”

“Nice try, but you’re not getting all the Flynn family secrets out of me today.”

He produces a scrunchie that looks older than we are and hands it to me. I pull the cloth from my forehead and Milo leans in to peer at it, the pale green of his eyes so close and so focused that I don’t even bother to stop myself from staring at them.

“This is gonna sting.”

I wince when Milo dabs at my forehead with the alcohol wipe, but the adrenaline is still too loud in me to really feel all that much. Another gust of wind hits the shed and rattles the walls and the doorknob like a giant is trying to smash the place down. Milo doesn’t even seem to notice, pressing a bandage to my forehead with such careful precision that even I stop breathing for a moment.

“Thank you,” I say.

Milo just shrugs, taking a seat next to me on the box and frowning at the tiny little window next to the door.

“I can’t believe how hard it’s coming down out there. That was like something out of a movie.”

“And yet you were willing to get squashed by a tree for a ribbon anyway,” says Milo, his tone a mix of exasperation and the kind of familiarity that feels deeper than it should, with the two of us so close together.

I close my eyes, the embarrassment swooping in faster than the wind outside. “You probably think I’m an idiot, huh?”

Milo just stares at the floor thoughtfully. “You want to be in one of these societies that bad?”

I grab at the damp fabric on the knees of my jeans. “Yeah. I . . .”

It’s not a secret, but it’s still mine—mine and Grandma Maeve’s and even my dad’s. A piece of my mom that doesn’t belong to anyone outside of us, at least not anyone I’ve ever known. But it doesn’t feel strange to tell Milo, once the words start spilling out. It feels like a relief.

“My mom was in one of them. I don’t know which. You don’t get to find out which society alumni were in unless you qualify for them, and I’m just . . . so worried I won’t have enough.”

Milo watches my hands, still clutching at the denim like I’m holding on to the ribbons themselves. “You’re on track to get plenty.”

“Yeah, for me. But I need more for Connor.” I bite my lower lip to stop myself from saying it, but it doesn’t work: “Not that it matters now.”

“What’s that mean?”

I’m almost grateful for the sting of my forehead. It’s just the distraction I need to keep myself from tearing up again. “He’s failing some classes. I don’t think he’ll be able to transfer back.”

Milo seems to have taken that argument we had in his car to heart, too. “So you’ll just be long distance,” he says.

I don’t answer because I know if I do, it’ll be some way of dancing around the truth. And the truth is that Connor and I are no good at long distance. I probably knew it last semester. I still didn’t want to believe it when I was giving advice about it on the broadcast. I know it for certain now. If we’re going to have a future together, we have to be together.

And if Connor can’t be here—if that future is really gone—then every other part of it shifts, too. The same way it did when my mom died. The same way it did when I lost the nerve I used to have for talking to crowds. I don’t know what losing Connor would look like, but I’ve lost enough now to know it will leave a mark.

I swallow hard. I don’t want to think about transferring back. I don’t want to think about giving it up: not Shay and Milo and Valeria, not our friends at Cardinal, not Bagelopolis or the radio show or even this moment right now, stranded in the middle of a thundersnow storm with a boy who has an uncanny knack for cutting through the things I don’t say to the things we both know.

“Wait,” I say, sitting up straight. “Why were you knocking on my door earlier?”

“I . . .” Milo blows out a breath. “It’s not important.”

I bump my shoulder into his. “C’mon. It’s not like we’re going anywhere anytime soon.”

Milo sighs. “I have to put a deposit down soon if I’m going to California.”

I can’t help myself. “And you wanted my advice?”

“Yeah, yeah. Don’t get too cocky about it, new kid.” The words are undercut by the decidedly fond look on his face. “But you’ve been known to have a level head about things.”

I look down at my boots so he doesn’t see my smile falter. I usually do have a level head—when it comes to strangers, that is. When it comes to giving advice to people whose decisions won’t affect me. And at some point in the last couple months, the decisions Milo makes became exactly that.

“Well.” I clear my throat, stalling for time. Most of the time the advice just snaps into place. If I have enough information I can bird’s-eye-view the whole situation, look at it wholly and objectively and compassionately before I say anything at all. But all I see is Milo chugging Eternal Darkness and Milo coming to life in front of the studio mic and Milo fist-bumping us after a trivia-night win. “Have you thought about what your life would be like there?”

It’s Milo’s turn to look down at his boots. “More like thought about what it’d be like to get away.”

Another clap of thunder rattles the entire shed, knocking us into each other. I don’t even bother pulling away. There’s nothing to overthink, nothing to consider—there’s just fear and this mutual trust that seems to blot everything else out.

“Shit,” says Milo, just as I mutter, “Frosted Flakes.”

He lets out a short laugh.

“What’s so funny?”

Milo opens his mouth. “You with your—” Another flash of lightning.

“Salted caramel Oreos!” I mutter, just as Milo lets out a low “Jesus.”

We brace ourselves for the rumble of thunder that follows the jolt of lightning, laughing at the same time.

“Oreos?” Milo wheezes through his laughter. “Where did these swear words of yours even come from?”

“My favorite foods, of course.”

“Is that it? Bad things happen, and you just think of foods you like to eat?”

Another burst of lightning. I yelp in surprise, but Milo yells, “Pretzel bagel and unicorn cream cheese!”

And just like that, I’m laughing so hard that the rumble of thunder barely even registers. “You like the unicorn cream cheese?”

“Indiscriminate fruit is my favorite flavor,” says Milo without a hint of shame. “Lucky Charms, Gogurt, whatever the heck we’re putting into unicorn cream cheese included.”

“I never knew. You drink Eternal Darkness black, I never thought you’d like something so sweet.”

“I contain multitudes.” He leans back against the box, propping himself against the wall. When he speaks again his voice is so low it’s hard to hear over the wind. “So. What do you think?”

I take a beat, but I already know my answer. I just don’t think he’s going to like it.

“I think . . . well. Both schools have amazing broadcast programs.”

Milo’s lip quirks again, realizing I must have done some side research on my own. My cheeks flush.

“And I know you initially switched out of biology because you were mad at Harley,” I add quickly, before he meets my eye. “But that also makes sense, since you were clearly meant to do this.”

“High praise,” he says, with his usual wry deflection.

“Honest assessment,” I correct him. “And an important one, because the thing is—you got lucky, with that part working out. Doing something because you were mad at your brother, I mean. But I don’t know if you’ll luck out again. What I mean is—I want you to make sure that if you’re making this decision to go, it’s just for you.”

Milo’s jaw tenses. “The other program is more well-known.” He picks a corner of the shed and stares at it, then concedes, “Blue Ridge State’s is smaller. More competitive, but more chances for hands-on experience.”

I don’t mention the radio show he’s technically supposed to lead until graduation, when he helps train another Knight. It wouldn’t be the first time one of them had to leave early. It’d just be the first time it was someone who mattered to me.

“Both good programs,” he says, echoing me.

I nod. “But the thing is . . . you’re never going to know if you’re going for yourself or because of Harley unless the two of you settle things first.”

Milo blows out a breath. “I’ve got a few weeks for the deposit, not twenty years.”

I nudge my shoulder into his. “He’s your brother. And it sounds like you were close.”

Milo doesn’t nudge back, but he doesn’t move, either. Our shoulders stay just faintly touching, this quiet, grounding thing in the tumult of the storm.

“Yeah. Especially after . . . well, after our dad died. We were the youngest. We got the least amount of time with him. So we just kind of—I mean, we were always close.” For once, Milo’s words aren’t as ready and blunt as they always seem to be. He has to pause. Has to consider. “But I think after that it was like—yeah, we were all hurting, but there was this specific kind of hurt that our older siblings didn’t quite get.”

I think of the way Grandma Maeve and I have our own little unit of grief, this lens we see the world through that it feels like nobody else quite does. One I know my dad must too, if we ever really talked about it.

“I can see how that would happen,” I say softly.

“Honestly, I think Harley wanted to go out of state himself, but stuck around to stay near me.” Then Milo clears his throat, blinking hard. Something in his posture changes. Hardens. “But I guess it wasn’t just for me. I guess it was for Nora, too.”

I choose my next words carefully. He asked for advice about college, not this. Trouble is they’re one and the same.

“It sounds like he didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“But he did.” Milo’s fingers curl and uncurl into his palms, some of the knuckles popping as he fidgets. “Nora was my . . . I mean, shit. She was my best friend. He’s my brother. And here I was, just the biggest jackass, thinking how lucky I was to have them in my life even after everything went to shit, and the two of them were just . . . waiting, probably. Who even knows for how long.”

Best friend. The words stick to my ribs. The way he said them first and only. It’s the way I think about Connor, too—my best friend first.

“And the way I found out was just—so humiliating,” says Milo, shifting his body slightly like the memory is itching just under his skin. “What did they think was going to happen?”

He says it with the tone of someone who’s asked it a hundred times since, and tried to wrap his head around the answer even more than that. I wince, imagining him in the theater that day, his eyes falling on the pair of them. The hurt. The embarrassment. But probably more than any of it, the surprise.

“It’s not like I would’ve been okay with it if they had just told me,” Milo admits. “But the way they went around my back, it’s like—shit. I knew things weren’t perfect, but I thought she and I were happy. And I thought Harley and I were pulling each other along. I thought the deal was that I needed them, and they needed me, but I guess they just really needed each other.” He takes a breath, some of the tension in his body giving way, making space for words pulled up from somewhere deep. “So was I just not . . .”

He shakes his head roughly. Enough, he was going to say. My throat is thick with the familiarity of the feeling. It’s followed me through my family falling apart, through the years I spent trying to make myself fit in someone else’s. Sometimes I’m scared it might follow me my whole life.

I reach out for one of his hands, gently uncurling the fingers. Once his hand is in mine I squeeze like I can will that feeling out of him. I know that words alone aren’t strong enough to fight it; at least not right now, when he’s staring down to the deepest part of it. I can’t make it go away, but we can share some of it for a little while.

He stares at our intertwined fingers, shifting the warmth of his further into mine, easing his own pressure into it. And this—this is why I love what I do. Why I want to spend my whole life doing it. For these heart-stuttering, breathtaking moments when you realize that if you carve us all down to our barest parts, we’re all the same.

“I think all of those things can be true,” I say. “That you need each other. That you love each other. Sometimes life just changes the nature of it. But it doesn’t make it matter any less. And it doesn’t make it anybody’s fault.”

Milo lets out a terse laugh, but doesn’t interject.

“You’re good, Milo. To the people you love and the people you don’t.” Milo might not be willing to look at me when I say the words, but I can feel him letting them settle all the same. I press on. “And they know that. Anyone who knows you does. And I bet you anything that’s why they lied. Because you would never do anything to deserve it.”

Our hands are still tangled, his gripping mine like it’s anchoring him to the spot. Before I can think the better of it, I add, “You must miss them.”

All of the hard lines in Milo’s face soften at once. Like the opposite of bracing yourself; something that lands before you even saw it coming.

“It sucks,” he says, the words dull on his tongue, without their usual edge. “Knowing they probably don’t miss me half as much.”

I let out a hum of doubt. We both know it’s not true, even if it makes him feel better to say.

Something in the room seems to shift then. A change in the light outside, the sun briefly gleaming behind a storm cloud, jolting us back to our senses. Whatever spell Milo was under seems to flash through right with it. He gives my hand a quick squeeze before letting it go.

“Unlike you lot, who probably won’t miss me at all,” he jokes, his throat still thick with emotion. “Probably go changing Eternal Darkness’s recipe again the minute I leave.”

I stare out the tiny window like the light might come back. I’m so fixated on it that the words slip out of me before I know whether I really mean them. “I don’t know if I’ll be here, either.”

“Wait, really?”

I swallow hard, casting my eyes away from the window but still avoiding his gaze. “I mean . . . even if it weren’t for Connor. I’m not doing so hot in my classes either. Maybe it’d be for the best if I just went back.”

I brace myself for a scoff or some remark I no doubt deserve, but instead Milo asks the kind of question that cuts right past all the tangles of the situation and to the core of it.

“What are you scared of?”

I open my mouth, but I’m too stunned to think of a response. At least one that doesn’t feel like more of a reflex than the truth.

“Because leaving Blue Ridge State . . . maybe for me, it’d be running away,” says Milo. “But for you it’d be chickening out. And you’re no chicken.”

“Says who?” I mutter. “You’ve seen me on the radio show.”

Milo swings his foot out under the chair to gently knock mine in the back of the heel. “I’ve seen you get braver and braver every week. So what’s different about this?”Còntens bel0ngs to Nô(v)elDr/a/ma.Org

The difference is what’s at stake. The difference is that despite everything—despite the plans and the dreams and carefully curated lists I’ve made all on my own—I sometimes feel like I have no sense of who I really am. But knowing I always have a place to belong with Connor and his family makes me feel solid in a way nothing else has.

It’s the first time I’ve ever admitted the full extent of it to myself, even privately. There’s almost a relief in the understanding. But with it is the magnitude of everything I might lose.

“It’s like you said,” I manage. “About Nora being your best friend? He’s mine. And his family . . . they’re my family, too.”

“So you’ll get past this. If that’s really how it is.”

I don’t want to test that boundary again, the way I did when I transferred here. But Milo’s right. I know he is. It’s like the bird’seye view I can have for strangers—suddenly, seeing it through his eyes, I am starting to see it for myself.

If Connor’s parents really love me—if Connor really loves me—it’ll be okay. We can be okay.

“And in the meantime—the ribbons. If they’re that important to you, just get them for yourself.” Milo nudges my foot again, this time with some playful force behind it. “And maybe, you know. Study.”

“Called out,” I say with a wince. “I was just trying to be fair about it. Ribbons for him and ribbons for me.”

“Well. Maybe just try ribbons for you, huh?” says Milo. “I mean—it’s about your mom. He must understand that.”

Except he doesn’t. I’ve never told him. And that never seemed all that strange until now, when I realize I told Milo without a second thought.

“And you’re too smart to be bombing a class.”

I feel my head droop, my eyes fall into my lap. That’s the most embarrassing part of this, probably. I have all these standards and expectations for myself, these carefully laid plans, and somehow I’m so far off track from them that it seems impossible to find my way back. It feels like a confirmation that I shouldn’t be here at all. That I’m not good enough to make it in this place where my own parents thrived.

“So go fix it,” Milo presses, before I have to think of something to say. “What else is all this work-study bullshit for if not the study part?”

I smile grimly. “Free bagels?”

“Absolutely that. But also for all those ridiculously ambitious color-coded dreams of yours to come true.”

This time when the resolve hardens in me, it’s not demanding. It’s gentle and easy, like something I already know the feeling of coming back. It occurs to me, meeting Milo’s gaze, that the ache I’m so used to feeling is quieter now than it’s ever been.

“I guess I could go to the TA sessions, too,” I say. “Catch up before the end of the semester.”

“That’s the spirit, new kid.” His leans back a bit to check the bandage on my head, then adds, “Hey, maybe if you stay, you’ll even take over the radio show for me.”

I shake my head vehemently enough that Milo’s eyes widen in mild alarm.

“Well if you’re that put off by being my successor . . .”

I find myself starting to grin even as the thunder keeps rumbling above us, distant but fierce. “It’s got nothing to do with you.”

“Sure it doesn’t,” says Milo, clutching his chest and pretending to be wounded.

I lightly kick his foot with mine. “Drama king.”

“Drama dictator,” he corrects me. “Go big or go home.”

Then the grins are genuine, both for him and for me. It feels like a break in the storm even as it rages on, enough of one that we lean back to wait it out, content to be in this moment now, and not the uncertain ones ahead. At some point the shed starts to dim, the early evening setting in and sharpening the angles of light from the one dim bulb in the shed, and the two of us realize the storm has long since passed.

Milo gets up first, leaning down to look at my forehead. “First stop, the student health center.”

“I’d rather just burrow under the covers for the rest of the night and curse every air molecule that caused this.”

“Too bad I’m the RA. What I say goes, or you’ll get in trouble with the residence hall director.”

“Scare me.”

“And lose privileges to the rec room,” says Milo, his eyes gleaming. He knows he’s got me. Our weekly games of Werewolf have gotten so out of hand that seven different dorms pile into Cardinal to pretend to murder each other and eat snack cakes. We’ve even started a betting pool over whether Tyler or Ellie will ask the other out first. Like most competitions with Blue Ridge State students, it’s all gotten pretty intense.

“Fine,” I say, getting up from the storage box and dusting myself off. “You got me.”

I don’t miss Milo’s slight hover, the way his hands are just far enough from his sides to catch me if I stumble. But I am touched to see it just the same.

That is, until we reach the door of the shed, and Milo pauses with his hand on the door. He turns to me, his gaze so deliberate I feel almost weak under it, but in a way that I don’t necessarily mind. In a way that makes me feel too seen, but just enough at the same time.

“Andie . . .”

And then the fear hits. It’s irrational and comes out of nowhere, but I have this stupid thought that he’s going to say something that’ll upend us. Something I’ve felt in a few jolting moments we’ve been alone, that’s been humming between us for the last hour we’ve been locked in here together.

But I’m wrong. For better or for worse, I’m wrong.

“While we’re just butting into each other’s business like this—talk to your dad.”

I look up at him in surprise. I hadn’t even mentioned the calls I was dodging. Not for the past few weeks, and not even in this time we’ve been more open with each other than ever before.

Milo stares at his own hand, still touching the doorknob. “If I had the chance to talk to my dad again—well. It’s different. But you know.”

I nod. It is different. Milo’s dad didn’t choose to leave. But we both know what it’s like to lose a parent and all the moments that would have come after.

Ever since he tried to get in touch, I’ve been willing to forfeit those moments with my dad. I may have had no choice in his leaving, but I do have a choice in him coming back. And I can’t help resenting him for having to make it. I can’t help resenting him knowing that, if the roles had been reversed, my mom would have stayed, and I’d never have to make a choice like this at all.

It isn’t just Milo’s words that sink in then. It’s my dad’s, too. The voicemails he’s left. The giggle of a little girl I’ve never met. The sound of my own voice wondering when things would go back to the way they were, when I’d get my dad back again.

My fingers curl into my palms. He is back. He’s trying to be. But I don’t even know what that looks like anymore, so I have no idea how to let him back in.

Just then Milo opens the door to the fresh, post-storm air, to the too-white snow and the too-bright sky. We blink into it for a moment, both of us processing the arboretum like we’ve stepped into some alternate reality. No storms. No dead parents. No doubts about the future holding us back.

“For the record, Milo,” I say quietly into the new air, “I would miss you.”

It doesn’t change anything, but it feels important for him to know. Or maybe just important to say it out loud. Like maybe I can make the hurt of missing him a little less if I own up to it now instead of later.

Milo turns away from me, carefully shutting the door behind us. When he looks at me again, there’s something resolute in his eyes that I can’t get to the bottom of no matter how hard I try.

“For the record, Andie—same to you.”