I stayed quiet because, I didn’t know what to say. To be honest, I felt a little crazy. My mind was still spinning from my panic attack, and my heart rate was too high to decide if I wanted to hug Jax or yell at him for disappearing all those years ago. Before I could do anything, he was already walking away, leaving me alone with all of the thoughts and questions shooting through my brain.

After Jax left, I headed straight into the house with an overwhelming urgency. I rushed toward my bedroom, straight for a box I had yet to unpack. Ripping the tape from it, I tossed items out of the way until I came upon a golden treasure box. In that box was where I kept all my most precious items. Mama’s jewelry. Daddy’s favorite ties. Daisy’s drawings. Old photographs. And letters from Jax.

Letters he’d written to me so long ago. Letters I’d kept safely locked away throughout the years. I hadn’t read his words in the longest time, but now my heart was pounding wildly in my chest as I reached into the box and unfolded the notes to read the words ten-year-old Jax had written to me.

His words were scribbled across the pages in black ink, and I smiled at how he was always able to stay within the lines—the complete opposite of how I used to write my notes. While my handwriting was messy, Jax’s was always tame.

I collected the pieces of paper and headed out to the convertible to sit under the sun while I read the words from the man who once was my best friend.

I didn’t expect to get so emotional while reading them. I didn’t expect tears to form in my eyes as my stare dashed back and forth on the pages. We’d written each other for three years straight during the months we weren’t spending at summer camp together. We’d stayed in touch the best way we knew how. I remembered spending three years rushing out to the mailbox, hoping to see Jax’s perfect penmanship on an envelope.

I swore I had probably read those letters a million times back in the day. The edges of the pages were tattered and worn, but that didn’t take away from the odd set of butterflies that found their way to me. It was from little things that had probably felt so minor back then when I read them.

Words like:

I miss you.

If you need anything, let me know.

See you later.

They were all so simple, not holding a big meaning to them at all, but at that moment in time, I felt as if they meant the world to me—especially see you later. There had been a day and a time when I thought I’d never see Jax again, yet now here we were. Later had finally found its way to us both.

My finger rolled across the envelope with Jax’s address on it. My eyes focused on the word Havenbarrow in his address, and goose bumps filled me up. I had been just a kid so I hadn’t known how to track him down, but he’d been right here this whole time, a forty-five-minute drive away. I supposed my mind hadn’t held on to the name of the town all these years since I hadn’t known where it was, so I hadn’t recognized it when Yoana surprised me with the house here. To my young self, it might as well have been across the world.

I read one of the last letters he’d written to me, and one paragraph stood out to me more than any others.

I know there’s no reason for me to say this because your parents are awesome, but you say it to me in every letter you’ve written to me about my dad, so I figured I should say it back, just in case there’s ever a day you need to hear it.

If you need to run away, run away to me.

-Jax

The tears I’d been fighting finally began to fall from my eyes. Even through all my hurting, I still believed in many things, and destiny was at the top of that list. There had to be a reason I had been brought to the town where my former best friend lived. Not only did he live in Havenbarrow, but we also crashed into each other in the woods. It had to be a sign of something. It had to hold meaning in some way, shape, or form.

Perhaps I was wishing and hoping for it to mean something even though it didn’t. Maybe my spirit needed a bit of magic in it after a year of holding so much darkness.

I wished for a miracle, and around the corner was Jax Kilter.

Still, I didn’t know what it meant. I just needed it to mean something. Anything, really. I needed something to feel hopeful after a year of feeling the complete opposite.