We had exchanged a couple of e-mails, mostly revolving around who was bringing the mini-fridge and who was bringing the microwave. She seemed nice enough.

She had texted me this morning. Her flight had been canceled and she doubted she’d be here before tomorrow afternoon. That was fine by me. It gave me one more day to figure out what to say to her in person.

I left her side of the room completely untouched, taking over what I calculated to be my half of the ten-by-twelve-foot space. I hoped she wouldn’t mind which side I’d picked and didn’t have space issues; that would suck.

The door to my room opened, and I didn’t bother to turn around to see who it was. I already knew. He’d been in and out of my room five times in the last half hour, trying to figure out how to make the wooden bulletin board I brought from home stick to the cinder-block walls.

“The guy at the hardware store said this should work,” Josh told me as he held up some double-sided tape. “Although I still don’t get why you didn’t do what your dad suggested and lean it against the window.”

I shrugged. “I like it this way better.”

Mom gave both Maddy and me bulletin boards when we started high school. She said it was the perfect way to show off what was important to us without marring our walls. We’d killed our walls anyway, taping pictures to them and nailing up photos, but that didn’t stop us from using our bulletin boards to tack up whatever memento was important to us that day.

I’d combined the items from our two boards before I left, took an old concert-ticket stub and the picture of her field hockey team off Maddy’s and added it to mine. There was a picture of Molly and me that was taken the day before she left for UNC, the crumpled-up drawing of the tree that had given me away to Josh, and our prom picture—not the formal one but a candid his mom snapped as we were getting into his car. In the center of it all were Maddy’s car keys, the ones to the blue Honda that nearly claimed both our lives, and the appointment card for the counselor Mom had found me here. I didn’t want to tape these things to random spots on the wall. I wanted them like this—smushed together in one contained, controllable spot. It was a combination of the two of us and I now used it to remind me how strangely similar and oddly different Maddy and I truly were.

“Okay,” Josh said as he dropped the tape onto my desk. “If it is that important to you, then I will find a way to make it stick, even if it means holding it up there myself all year.”

I laughed. The idea of Josh stuck in my room—in my life—for the next four years was not something I minded. Not in the least.

“What’s so funny?” he asked.

“Nothing. You.”

“Great,” he said as he launched himself onto my bed and held out his arms. His eyes darted to the bare frame and empty mattress across the room, and I knew exactly what he was thinking before he spoke. “What are the chances of your roommate showing up anytime soon?”

“Not good,” I said as I snuggled into him. “She texted me this morning. Her flight got canceled, so she won’t be here until sometime tomorrow.”

“Perfect,” Josh said as he pulled me tighter in to his chest. “My roommate’s parents are still here, so my room is off-limits for a while.”

I’d met his roommate when I was walking Mom and Dad out to their car. They wanted to stop by Josh’s room before they left and say goodbye to him. They made Josh promise for the gazillionth time to take care of me and to call them if I seemed distant or depressed. I hadn’t been off since the day I finally admitted to the world who I was, since the day I reclaimed my life and let myself mourn my sister. But that didn’t stop Mom and Dad from worrying, from being overprotective.

“What’s he like?” I asked.

“Who, Todd?” Josh asked as he scooched up on the bed and rolled his eyes. “Let’s see. Didn’t matter that I was here first and had my stuff put away, I had to pack everything up and move it to the other side of the room because, apparently, he absolutely has to have the right side. Everything … his binders, his closets, even his sheets are color coordinated. He made my mother take the TV and DVD player I brought home because he said it was a distraction, and if I needed that kind of noise in my life, then there was no reason I couldn’t get it in the common area.”

I couldn’t help it—I cracked up because seeing Josh frustrated was funny.

“Oh, it gets better,” he said, dead serious, and I did my best to control my amusement, to stop smiling and look completely enthralled by his rant.

I couldn’t imagine what he was going to come out with next, but I waved him on, happy that he—that we—were finally here, talking about normal stuff like roommates and bulletin boards as opposed to dead sisters and lies. “How much better?”

“Todd has what I would call an unhealthy fascination with the Impressionist period. My room is now covered with pastel prints.”

My giggling erupted into a full-blown howl at that. Josh tried for angry, went so far as to poke me in an attempt to get me to stop, but even he couldn’t stop himself from seeing the humor in it.

“What about your comic-book and manga drawings? I take it he doesn’t appreciate your talent.”

“Appreciate it? According to him, comic books are for prepubescent boys with bad parental role models and a superhero complex. Yeah … we are going to get along fantastically.”

“Umm, I bet you are,” I said. I gave them two months tops before one of them snapped and demanded a new roommate. My guess was it’d be Josh. Until then, I figured Josh could spend his time here, lounging on my bed studying and drawing.

I picked up the can of soda that was sitting on the windowsill and raised it in a toast. “Here’s to hoping my roommate likes you, because from the sounds of it you are practically going to be living here.”

Josh took the soda from my hand and deposited it back on the windowsill behind us. I knew what he was doing. I’d seen that look a hundred times before—the sparkle of humor hidden behind intent. His lips were inches from mine, his hands at my hips as he breathed, “That’s the plan, Ella. Being here, with you, that was always the plan.”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book does not belong to me, but rather to the people whose patience and faith made it possible. Remembering that: Thanks to my agent, Kevan Lyon, who believed in me even when I didn’t believe in myself. To my amazing editor, Janine O’Malley, whose extraordinary vision for this book taught me to dig deeper and write harder than I thought possible. Thanks to my family—Brian, Caroline, Kyle, and Casey—who ate more than their share of takeout as I wrote and edited this book into final form. To my sister, Julie Nelson … my first and best friend; my brother, Bill Burgess, for showing me nothing is impossible; and my parents for instilling in me a love of the written word. To the countless CPs whose long-distance moral support kept me going, and my dear friend Cyndie Furey, for having the courage to read everything I have ever written from day one.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Trisha Leaver is the co-author of Creed and lives on Cape Cod with her husband and children. Or sign up for email updates here.

    

Thank you for buying this

St. Martin’s Press ebook.

To receive special offers, bonus content,

and info on new releases and other great reads,

sign up for our newsletters.