Chapter 25

Jace isn't at school today, and I swear, it's not the reason I can barely make it an hour in the classroom before I realize I'd rather be anywhere else. So, I fake sick, convince our teacher to allow Jonah to give me a ride to the nearest bus stop and head home, where I spend the majority of the day plastered to my couch, scrolling through my phone until I can physically feel my brain start to rot.

I would've stayed there all night if I didn't have to work.

Just as I peel myself off the couch, there's a knock on the door. I peer out the living room window to see Jonah's truck and immediately open the door. "I was just about to get ready," I tell him. "You didn't have to pick me up."

"So you're not actually sick?" he asks, stepping into the house.

"Nah, I just needed a mental reset."

He stands in the entry way, hands at his sides as he looks around the place. "Man, it's kind of eerie being in here again."

"You've been here before?"

He eyes me beneath the brim of his ball cap. "It's been a while, but yeah, when Jace used to live here."

"Jace lived here?"

Jonah nods, his brow bunched as if I'm stupid for not knowing. To be fair, how could I? It's not as if I sit around talking with townsfolk, and getting anything out of Jace is like pulling teeth.

Besides the fact that he thinks I'm beautiful. A kind of benign thing to tell a girl right before dipping out on her, and the entire school, for the rest of the day.

At some point, I have to come to terms with the idea that I'll never truly understand the inner workings of Jace's mind, and I'll have to be okay with that.

I'm not quite there.

Yet.

"I wonder if it's still here," Jonah murmurs, and I have no idea what he's talking about, but I don't ask. Not even when he heads upstairs and directly into my bedroom—into my closet— moves the box of shoes I've yet to unpack. Dropping to his knees, he searches the baseboards. "There it is!" he says after a beat, pointing to something I can't see from my position. I kneel down next to him, my eyes widening slightly when I see the letters etched into the wood.

R J J

I whisper the letters out loud, looking to Jonah for confirmation.

"Reyna, Jace and Jonah." He smiles, his gaze distant, lost in childhood memories. "Reyna made us do it," he explains. "She said we should leave behind something that's forever, and even though Jace and I were too dumb to know what she meant, we did it anyway." He laughs once. "Man, we'd pretty much do anything that girl told us."

After a beat of silence, I ask, "How old were you?"

He thinks a moment. "It was when Jace still lived here, so before…" I don't know what before means, and again, I don't ask. "Maybe six?"

"So you guys were close close, huh?"

"Yeah…" he says, a wistful lilt in his tone, before snapping his head up and coming back to reality. "I mean, not as close as Reyna and Jace became, but yeah."

This time, I do ask. "Reyna and Jace?"

He shrugs. "I'm pretty sure they had a sneaky link thing going on right before she left."

"Sneaky link?"

"Friends with benefits."

"Oh."

Oh.