Just then, my phone dinged, and a message appeared.

Penn: There’s a big gala happening this weekend, and I don’t want to have to explain why my wife isn’t there. You can come home now. I overreacted. We’ll figure our shit out.

Penn: Fuck, Kennedy. Please. I need you. I miss you.

I miss you.

Those words didn’t give me butterflies the way they had in Jax’s letter.

They felt forced—controlling, almost, as if he only said them to get his way. I knew the only reason he said that was because he was feeling the strain of having to explain to his friends and colleagues why I hadn’t been attending events. He worked so hard to keep up the appearance that he and I lived the perfect life, that we were the happily ever after others dreamed of. I would have bet he was having panic attacks trying to sugarcoat the fact that his wife had left his side.

Good.

It was about time he knew what panic attacks feel like.

Regardless, his kind, gentle text messages didn’t erase the nasty words he’d said to me the night he pushed me to leave his side. I knew better than to fall into the false narrative of emotions he’d randomly text my way.

I went back to reading my letters from Jax. They held much more authenticity within the words.

My mind couldn’t help but wonder about Jax and who he’d become throughout the years. I couldn’t help but wonder how many parts of the young boy I’d once loved still lived within his heart.

11

Kennedy

Eleven years old

Year one of summer camp

Jax Kilter was so handsome.

It was a weird kind of handsome that a lot of people didn’t find handsome, but I did because I thought all things that were different were handsome and beautiful. I liked his dark brown eyes that looked like my favorite chocolate bar, the big ears he hadn’t grown into yet. I liked how his nose bent a little to the left as though it was made to do that. I liked his big glasses. He looked imperfect in so many ways, and I liked that about him.

Mama said the best people are the imperfect ones because the best adventures in life don’t come from perfect things.

I liked Jax’s facial hair, too, even though he didn’t have any facial hair yet. I knew one day if he did grow facial hair, I’d like it on him. I’d have bet he was going to be a handsome man because he was already a handsome boy.

I liked Jax Kilter so much for so many reasons, but one of the biggest reasons was because he didn’t fit in with anyone else at camp, and I didn’t fit in with anyone at camp because I talked a lot and was kind of different and ohmygosh maybe we could be friends!

I didn’t wake him up yet, because I knew once I woke him up, he might run and never want to talk to me again. I’d had a lot of friends who stopped talking to me after our first hangout session because they thought I was a weirdo.

Mama and Daddy told me being weird was a good thing, though. If a person was weird, that meant they had flavor, and I didn’t want my life to be bland. I had so many big, colorful dreams and I didn’t ever want to lose my way on achieving them because I gave up my weirdness.

The best quality about me—other than my ability to burp the ABCs—was that I was so comfortably weird.

I swallowed hard as I watched the sun start to rise outside and then I nudged Jax in the arm. “Hey,” I whispered. “It’s time to get up.”

Jax stirred and grumbled and stirred some more. “Five more minutes, Ma.”

I smiled, because he was funny when he was dreaming. I nudged him again. “I’m not your mother, Jax Kilter. Get your butt up before you’re caught in bed with Kennedy Lost.”

That got him to open his eyes—real wide. Those wide, delicious chocolate eyes.

He looked at me then around at my sleeping bunkmates and shot up from lying down. “I gotta get out of here before anyone notices.”

“Yeah, that’s why I woke you, duh.”

He stood and brushed his hand under his crooked nose as he picked up his wet clothes from the night before.

I stood, too, and smiled big at him. Mama always said smiling makes other people feel like smiling, too. “Smiles are contagious, Kennedy. Spread yours like a wildfire,” she’d always said. So, there I was, in front of Jax, cheesing harder than I’d ever cheesed before.

He arched an eyebrow and brushed his hand through his messy hair. “What are you doing?”

“Smiling.”

“Why?”

“So you’ll smile, too.”

He blinked. “Oh.”

I tossed on my pink hoodie and slid my feet into my sneakers. “If you want, you can come talk to the birds with me.”