Hink didn’t even know we’d made our deadline until I approved the proofs four days later. Once he found out, he proceeded to flip the eff out because we’d violated every rule in the charter. Turns out almost all the sins teenagers want absolved involve sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll, and Lola and I had to petition the PTA to hold a vote on whether the newspaper could even be released.

The deciding vote ended up coming down to Mr. Hotchkiss. Luckily, a container of lemon curd cupcakes had appeared on his desk two hours before the hearing and put him in an abnormally good mood. He voted in our favor, and kept a framed copy of Sadie’s handwritten apology on his desk for the remainder of senior year.

The Westland Redemption was distributed the next day, at which point it proceeded to blow Kyle’s legacy out of the water, by which I mean at least 60 percent of the student body picked up a copy. A 15 percent spike in circulation—enough to convince Hink and Valentine that, despite my wantonness, I’d redeemed myself enough to remain in charge of the newspaper for at least one more issue.

When Lola and Georgia broke up without warning or explanation, Murray and I dragged her kicking and screaming through the pain, just as she’d dragged us. We made her sing Christmas carols and drink eggnog. We made her put on a hat and scarf and gloves and drive with us (and Maddy) to the mall to get our picture with Santa. We made her watch The Nightmare Before Christmas on Christmas Eve, her small body wedged between ours under the covers of my bed. We made her better. Not quickly. Not by a long shot. But we helped.

After Christmas, my parents announced that they’d decided to take separate vacations. One to Canada, the other to Mexico, but this time there was no unwanted pregnancy at the end to bring them back together. When he returned home, Dad packed his things . . . and moved all the way into his carpentry workshop in the backyard. They still ate breakfast together every morning.

And gradually, as her tithe was paid, the gold seams in Grace Town began to appear. After Christmas break, her limp grew less noticeable, until she stopped walking with her cane altogether. She started driving to school. Sometimes she’d wear a piece of Dom’s clothing: a knit cap, a necklace, a jacket. But mostly, she wore her own things. Slowly, as she worked off her imagined debt, she let herself be redeemed. Justice had been served.

We came unstuck from each other’s lives. We deleted each other off Facebook and Instagram and Snapchat. We signed custody of Ricky Martin Knupps II over to Ryan, who renamed him “Fish Fish” and loved him more than we ever could. All the ties that had connected us slowly snapped and healed, until we were separate entities once more. Until I remembered her only when an ache of longing throbbed through me: on New Year’s Eve when the fireworks went off, when I watched movies by myself in the dark, but mostly when I woke up in the morning and she wasn’t there.

And all the while I loved her, just as she loved him.

In secret, between the shadow and the soul.

NOTES

THE VERY CORE of this book was born from the July 11, 2014, Nerve article by Drake Baer called “This Is Your Brain on a Break Up.” In particular, the interview with Lucy Brown, a neuroscientist at Yeshiva University, directly inspired Sadie and her career.

Grace’s fishpond in the abandoned train station wouldn’t exist without the November 30, 2013, Renegade Travels article “Exotic Fish Take Over Abandoned Bangkok Mall Basement.” The station itself is loosely based on a beautiful, ghostly, disused one in Sydney, which I totally never ever broke into.

“I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night,” which Henry references in Chapter 7, is a quote from “The Old Astronomer” by Sarah Williams.

The comedy sketch starring Ricky Gervais and Liam Neeson mentioned in Chapter 9 is from “Episode One” of BBC Two’s Life’s Too Short.

Henry’s PowerPoint is based on several hilarious and persuasive examples from Tumblr (“Why You Should Let Me Touch Your Butt,” “Why You Should Let Me Touch Your Boobs,” etc.). However, it draws most heavily from one called “Why We Should Do Sex Things,” which I first saw on Imgur; I can claim very little of its brilliance. To the anonymous girl who wrote the original: I sincerely hope it got you laid.

The line that Henry’s father says about Grace in Chapter 17— “Strangeness is a necessary ingredient in beauty”—is a quote by Charles Baudelaire.

I don’t know who originally wrote “Stories with happy endings are just stories that haven’t finished yet,” but I first heard a version of it in Mr. & Mrs. Smith.

“If love could’ve saved you, you would have lived forever,” the inscription on Dom’s grave, is, as best I can tell, by no author I can easily identify.

“If you were a carrot, you’d be a good carrot” and “Purple, because aliens don’t wear hats” are ripped straight from the glorious cesspit that is the internet, as are, I’m sure, a dozen other offhand pop culture references I’ve failed to properly attribute here (my references are out of control).

Please don’t hold my wantonness against me.