I sit on my bed, bouncing up and down a little, as I eagerly await Eve's call. She just spent her first day at her new school, and I can't wait for her to tell me how it went. Hopefully it went better than mine did. It's not that anything really bad happened, it's just she wasn't there and it's going to take a lot of time to get used to that.

Just as I think I won't be able to wait any longer and I might just go against our original plan and resolve to calling her instead, my phone screen lights up. I smile at her contact image: the same photo I put in the locket I gave her.

"Hey, Evie!" I answer her call excitedly, laying back on my bed.

"Em, the craziest fucking thing just happened," Eve says, panting.

"What happened? And why are you out of breath?"

"I just ran home so I wouldn't be late for dinner," she explains, and before I can ask where she was (because school ended a whole two hours ago), she says, matching my own excitement when I picked up the call, "I was hanging out with an actual friend I actually made!"

I could've dropped my phone to clap my hands together in celebration, but she wouldn't have heard me say, "You made a friend, I'm so proud of you! Tell me about them?"

"Wait, Em, that's not the crazy part."

"Then what is?"

"Ryder— that's my new friend's name— lives with Raven! You know, the one I told you about who I used to hang out with at—"

"At The Box, yeah, I remember you telling me about them."

"Isn't that insane? Like, what are the odds they ended up here and so did I?"

Worry creeps over me like an icy chill. My mouth is frozen in the shape of words that have escaped me and that I can't even bring myself to say if they hadn't. Not even when Eve's gradually more panicked sounding voice asks from across the line, "Em? Em are you there?"

I force myself to snap out of it. "Yeah, yeah, I'm here, Love."

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Nothing but the fact that I know how much of a bad influence the group at The Box was on Eve when she was fourteen, and I don't want her falling into any of the shit they enabled her to again, especially since she's so far away from anyone who can really save her. I'd like to say that I'm referring to myself, but Gerard is the one she needs to be back with right now.

"Come on, it's not nothing."

"I just... remember what happened the first time you hung out with them?"

"It's not gonna happen again, Em. I promise. I'm not gonna go off into the woods and smoke or drink or anything. I told Dad I'd never do it again and I don't plan on betraying him because I know how serious this is to him."

I let out a sigh of relief, satisfied with her answer. "Thanks, Evie. I don't mean to be all overprotective. I know you're probably tired of that."

"I understand... I guess I'd be protective of you, too."

Although she can't see me, I smile softly. I didn't tell her that there was a small part of me that worried our relationship wouldn't survive with hundreds of miles between us, and that's saying something because I've never been good at hiding things from her. Heck, I can't believe she didn't notice the way I looked at her with heart-eyes before we'd ever expressed our feelings for each other. But that doubt has since fizzled out. I'm sure that next time we see each other, whether it be when she gets to come visit, or when I find a way to get to Rhode Island myself, nothing will have changed. The distance won't have dimmed the spark between us.

"Did you read the letter yet?" Eve asks out of the blue.

I hesitate. I can see it from here, sitting on my desk in the light of my lamp. "I- No. I haven't yet, but I will! Tonight."

"This is gonna sound weird, but can you maybe open it now? Just skip down to the P.S. and read that part."

"Uh, alright." I roll off my bed and cross the room, taking the letter, then tear it open carefully. The P.S. at the bottom of the letter is a lot longer than any other P.S. I've ever seen. I start scanning my eyes down the paragraph.

"Eve... do you really think this could work?" She'd written out a detailed plan to be carried out the days after the last day of school, and she'd taken full advantage of the fact that I'll be a fully licensed driver by then. "I mean, I wish it could, but I can't just drive all the way to Rhode Island and kidnap you... Laura would notice that you're not there and, also, it's kind of illegal."

She begins to rattle off an explanation at a speed my brain can barely keep up with. "Okay, see, this is why I needed you to read it on the phone, cause I kinda came up with that in the middle of the night a few nights before I left. I was desperate for a plan that could get me out of needing to stay here. But I realized that it's a stupid idea, it won't work, and you probably wouldn't be on board with it anyway, right? You don't even have to pretend."

"Yeah, Eve. I'm sorry, I just can't—"

"I know. Don't apologize. I'm the one who came up with the stupid plan."

"There are just so many things that could go wrong, Love."

"I know..." she trails off, but then with more urgency in her voice, says, "I gotta go. Laura is calling me down for dinner."

"Alright, talk to you later, Evie."

"I love you," she says hurriedly, and before the words can leave my lips in turn, she hangs up. I swallow my disappointment at both how short the call was, and how a plan like the desperate one she made up could never work, then lay back on my bed again, holding the letter above my face to finally read it.

• • •

Emerald,

Not to start on a depressing note or anything, but I truly don't think I'd be alive without you and I need you to know it. If you're worried about me never coming back or something, don't think for a second that I'd feel at home anywhere but Jersey— or anywhere at all for that matter— with you. I wouldn't be able to live without you.

I miss you over the weekend if we don't hang out, so I can't even imagine how much I'll miss you when I'm in a complete other state. I told myself I could just pretend it's like one long weekend with each day being 3 months long. And then I realized that was a stupid idea.

There's so much to fit in this letter and I'm so bad at words. And I'll probably think of a hundred more things once the envelope has already been sealed, but for now, let me say this:

I fucking love you so fucking much and you're so hot holy shit.

...I really thought I was about to say something really heartfelt and then I wrote that instead, but I think it works. I don't know how else I'd put it anyway. I don't know how else I'd describe how much I'm gonna miss seeing your face almost everyday and how much I'm gonna miss holding your hand and kissing you and hearing you laugh.

I have this vision of us in a little house together one day, far away. We'll have a library and a window looking out on a lake or some mountains. I'll have written a book and you're probably going to be some super smart scientist saving the world, and we'll have a cat and a dog.

Basically, we belong together and that's not gonna change just because I'm far away for a while.

I love you so much, Em.

Evie

• • •

I throw my phone onto my bed after hanging up the call with Emerald and go down the stairs swiftly. Laura's cooking has improved a lot from the microwave dinners I remember from my early childhood, or the nothing at all on some nights.

I sit across from her at the kitchen table where she has set a plate of spaghetti. She smiles at me. It's her normal smile, but the more she flashes it at me, the faker it feels. "I hope you like pesto," she says.

"I don't know, I've never tried it."

She motions for me to try it, so I do. "It's good," I say.

She seems satisfied with my answer even with its complete lack of emotion and leaves me alone for a few moments, but I keep having the same problem every time we sit down for a meal. It gets quiet and the sound of our silverware scraping our plates, the sound of us chewing, fills the room, fills my head. I'm going to snap soon, but I'm too stubborn to start a conversation with her.

She saves me the trouble, though, and what she says makes me want to go back to listening to the eating noises. "Speaking of food... I know that you've struggled with an eating disorder. How are you doing lately?"

"You sound like my therapist," I deadpan.

She twirls some noodles around on her fork, but then drops it. It clatters on her plate, making me flinch, but she doesn't notice. "That reminds me, you have an appointment with your new therapist next week."

I squeeze my fists under the table and keep my voice level when I say, "New therapist? I don't need a new one."

"It was part of the agreement, Evelyn, that you keep living your life as normal, going to therapy, taking your medication—"

I clench my jaw and say through gritted teeth, "Normal? Going to talk to a therapist who isn't Sam isn't going to make my life go back to normal, taking my meds isn't gonna magically make me wake up in New Jersey. Maybe I'd actually take them if it would." I cover my mouth. My stomach drops.

The room goes dead silent, then, "You haven't been taking your meds?" Laura asks, her eyebrows raised.

I look down at my plate of food that doesn't seem so good anymore. My stomach feels like it's clawing its way up my throat. Every word I say seems to make it worse, but I swallow hard and tell Laura, "No. I haven't taken them in weeks."

She reaches across the table and tries to place a hand on top of mine, but I pull away before she can even get close. She asks, "Why not, Sweetheart?"

White hot anger surges through my veins, gives me the energy to push away from the table, the legs of the dining room chair screeching on the tiles. "You do not get to call me Sweetheart. Quit acting like you care! It feels so fake after all the shit you put me through. You call me Evelyn. Don't call me Eve, or Evie, and never fucking call me Sweetheart again." I stand breathlessly, staring into her soul, waiting for tears to well in her eyes, but they don't.

Her voice is calm when she speaks and it's infuriating, but I bite lip so I don't yell at her some more. "I'm not pretending to care, Evelyn. I'm just trying to be your mother."

"I don't want you to be my mother!" I don't want her in my sight anymore, so I shove my chair back under the table forcefully and yell one more thing as I make my way up the stairs, my footsteps heavy. "Lindsey was more of a mom than you'll ever be."

I slam my bedroom door and the whole house seems to rattle.

The words play in my head like credits rolling on a loop. I stuff my face into my pillow, squeeze my eyes shut, but the words are etching themselves into my brain: Lindsey was more of a mom than you'll ever be. It hurts so much because I never did get to call Lindsey "Mom."