“Susie.” Dad grinned down at me, still tenderly brushing back my hair with his hands. “I never thought I’d see the day when you, of all people, would actually admit you need help. Especially from me.”

I used a fist to swipe at the tears that were still rolling down my face. “Of course I need you, Dad,” I whispered. “I’ve always needed you. I always will.”

“I don’t know about that.” My dad, instead of stroking my hair, rumpled it now. “But I do know one thing. This time-shifting thing. It’s dangerous?”

I sniffled. “Well,” I said. “Yeah.”

“And do you really think,” Dad went on, the skin around his eyes crinkling, “that I’d let my little girl risk her life to save mine?”

“But, Dad—”

“No, Suze.” The crinkles deepened and I could tell he was more serious than he’d been in a long time. “Not for me. I’d give anything to live again”—and now I saw that, along with the crinkles, there was moisture there, as well— “but not if it means anything bad might happen to you.”

I gazed up at him, my eyes as bright with tears as his own. “Oh, Dad,” I said, unable to keep the throb from my throat.

He reached up to lay a hand on either side of my wet face. “And I wouldn’t presume to speak for Jesse,” he said, tilting my head so that we were looking straight into each other’s eyes. “But I think I can safely say that he’s not going to like the idea of you risking your life to save his any more than I do. Knowing him, in fact, he’ll probably like it even less.”

I reached up and placed my hands over his own. Then I said, “I get it, Dad. Really, I do. And I won’t go back for you if you really don’t want me to. But… I still can’t let him do it, Dad. Paul, I mean.”

“Can’t let him save the life of the guy you supposedly love,” Dad said, not looking too happy to hear it. “Something’s very wrong with that picture, Suze.”

“I know, Dad,” I said, “but I love him. You know it. You can’t ask me to just sit back and let Paul do this. If he succeeds I won’t even remember having met Jesse.”

“Right,” my dad said reasonably. “So it won’t hurt.”

“It will,” I insisted, “It will hurt, Dad. Because deep down, I’ll know. I’ll know there was someone… someone I was supposed to have met. Only I’ll never meet him. I’ll go through my whole life waiting for him to come along, only he never will. What kind of life is that, Dad, huh? What kind of life is that?”

“And what kind of life,” my dad asked gently, “is it for Jesse to spend all of eternity as a ghost—especially if something goes wrong and you end up dead right along with him?”

“Then,” I said with a feeble attempt at humor, “at least we’ll be able to haunt people together for the rest of eternity.”

“With Jesse having to live forever with the guilt of knowing he’s the reason you died in the first place? I don’t think so, Suze.”

He had me there. I stared up at him, unable to think of a single thing to say in reply.

“Suze, your whole life,” my dad went on, not without sympathy, “you’ve always made the right decisions. Not necessarily the easiest ones. The right ones. Don’t mess that up now, when you’re facing what’s probably the most important decision you’ll ever have to make.”

I opened my mouth to tell him he was wrong… that I was making the right decision… that I was doing what I knew Jesse would want…

Only I knew there was no point.

So instead I said, “All right, Dad. But there’s just one thing I don’t understand.”

He nodded. “Why Maroon 5 is so popular?”

“Um,” I said, grinning in spite of myself. “No. I don’t understand why, if you feel that way… that you had a good life and that you’ve learned so much since you died… If you really feel that way, then why are you still here?”

“You should know,” he said.

I blinked at him. “I should? How?”

“Because you said it yourself.”

“When did I—”

“Um… Suze?”

I whirled around and found myself looking not into my dad’s gentle brown eyes but David’s anxious blue ones.

“Are you okay?” David’s pale face was pinched with concern. “Were you… were you just crying?”

“Of course not,” I said, hastily snatching up a dish towel—seeing, as I did so, that my dad had vanished—and scrubbing my cheeks with it. “I’m fine. What’s up?”

“Um… “ David looked around the kitchen, his eyes wide. “Are you… are you not alone?”

Outside of my dad, David is the only one in my family who knows the truth about me… or at least, most of the truth. If I had told him all of it… well, he’d probably be able to handle it, with his scientific, orderly mind.

But I don’t think he’d have liked it.

“I am now,” I said, knowing what he meant.

“I just came in for dessert,” David said. “Dad said… Dad said he made a fruit tart.”

“Right,” I said. “Well. I’m through here. I’ll just be going upstairs.”

I turned to go, but David’s voice—it had changed lately, gone from squeaky to deep in the course of a few months— stopped me by the door. “Suze. Are you sure you’re all right? You seem… sad.”

“Sad?” I looked back at him over my shoulder. “I’m not sad. Well, not that sad. Just… there’s just something I have to do.” Because I had already decided that, despite my dad’s concerns, I wasn’t giving Jesse up just yet. Not without a fight. “Something I’m not exactly looking forward to.”

“Oh,” David said. Then his face brightened. “Then just do it quick. You know, like pulling off a Band-Aid.”

Do it quick. I’d have loved to. But I had no way of knowing when Paul was going to make his trip back through time. For all I knew, I could wake up tomorrow with no memory of Jesse whatsoever.

“Thanks,” I said to David, managing a semblance of a smile. “I’ll keep that in mind.”