If my presentation is inadequate, she doesn’t seem to notice. I think she was more questioning when I was wearing my fine suit. Perhaps she is in too much shock from the filthy apartment, too eager to escape it, because she stands and follows me out the door, clinging closely to my heels. We walk outside and down the front stairs, to the street. I say, “I’m sorry about the apartment. I haven’t had the time to—”

Immediately she says, “Oh, no, that’s okay. I hope you weren’t upset by me coming over. I just wanted to see if I could bum a ride because … my mom’s car had a little accident.”

“Oh? I hope nobody was hurt,” I murmur.

She shakes her head. We walk in silence a little more and then she says, “Actually, that wasn’t the reason I came over.”

“Oh?” I repeat, staring at the ground. Because I already know from her incessant questioning yesterday why she came to my home. She’s still suspicious. And who’s to blame her? I play the part of a modern youth sorely.

“Tell me how you know so much about me,” she says. Out of the corner of my eye, I see her looking straight ahead, face tense.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

“You know so much more about me than any stranger would. That’s what you’re supposed to be, right? A stranger. But you’re not.”

I force a laugh. “Julia, I’m not sure what you’re suggesting, but—”

“There’s something really weird going on. And you’re part of it.” She takes a deep breath. “I’ve met you before, haven’t I?”

“No.” But I’m not very good at lying. “Not exactly.”

“Did you know Griffin?”

I nod a little.

“From …?”

She whirls around and brings her eyes to meet mine. I swallow. If she holds my gaze for much longer, I know I will tell her everything. I break eye contact quickly. “He is … was, I mean, an acquaintance.”

Of course I can see the puzzlement on her face. She brings her hair forward, over her ear, to cover her scars, suddenly self-conscious. “That message you had. Asking me to be careful. I’ve been trying to figure out who could have sent it, because other than my parents, nobody else would care that much about me. It was from Griffin, right?”

“Yes.”

“He gave you a message because he wanted to protect me? But why … unless he knew he was going to die?” She stops. Her eyes widen. “Wait … when did he give you that message?”

I know she is putting the pieces together, and all I can do is stand there and watch the curtain I’ve placed between us unravel. “Julia, I …,” I begin, but I don’t know what else to say.

“He died weeks ago, but strange things have been happening since then. Things that make me feel like he’s still here.” She taps on her temple. “I know it’s crazy.”

I watch her silently, trying not to leak anything, but I know it isn’t working.

She gasps. “So it’s true. He gave you that message after he died, didn’t he?”

CHAPTER 23

Julia

“Julia …,” he says, looking away.

Okay. Did I just say that aloud? That I think my dead boyfriend is contacting me from beyond the grave, and Eron is the conduit? Way to win friends and influence people. “Um, forget I ever said anything,” I say lamely, noticing a storm drain that I would love to climb into.

“I don’t think you’re crazy, Julia,” he says after a moment.

Well, sure he doesn’t … yet. He doesn’t know that I could have sworn I saw him disappear into thin air last night. “Really?”

“Really.” He says it like he means it. Griffin would have been on to insult number twelve by now.

“Who are you?” I ask softly. “Are you someone who can communicate with the dead? Have you been speaking with—”

He extends his hand as if to say, Hold it there, little lady. He’s obviously trying to calm me, because I can feel the heat swirling in my face and the pounding in my temples, as if there’s a storm inside me raging to get out. “No, nothing like that.”

I look down at the olive skin of his hand. There’s something all too familiar about the way he holds his hand above my shoulder so that it’s almost, but not quite, touching my skin. “Why do I feel like I’ve known you longer than just three days?”

“It’s not important who I am,” he says. “The important thing is that you—”

“Stay safe,” I say, rolling my eyes. “I have parents who warn me about that every day. Why you?”

He doesn’t answer my question, just stands there, fidgeting from one foot to the other. It’s odd that at times he seems so mature, beyond-his-years mature, yet sometimes, he’s almost like a little boy.

“Where did you get that scar? On your shoulder?”

He shakes his head. “No matter. It was a long time ago.”

I know that they’re obvious, that he’s probably seen them before, but I lift the hair from my cheek and tilt my chin into the sunlight. I’m not sure why I want to tell him now, but I’m not sure of so many things when it comes to him. Maybe it’s because I’ll go mad if I don’t get answers from him now. “I’ll tell you my story if you tell me yours,” I whisper.

“You don’t have to say a thing,” he says, gently taking my hand away from my cheek. It’s as if he already knows how difficult it would be to tell. As if he already knows everything anyway. He says, “Your beloved … Griffin. Did you trust him?”

“Yeah,” I say immediately, but the second the word leaves my lips, my resolve weakens. “I mean, I guess. We had a weird relationship.”

“Weird?”

“Well, he liked to joke a lot. He’d laugh at a funeral. Nothing was ever serious to him. But he was a good guy.”

“And he loved you.”

“Yes. Well. We never said so, in so many words.”

He smiles. “It only takes three.”

“No, you see … we didn’t talk about anything serious. Ever. And I kind of liked that.”

He looks puzzled. “You did?”

“Well, yeah. I’m … Something happened to me when I was a kid. And afterward, everyone walked on eggshells around me. But Griffin didn’t. We never talked about serious stuff like that. He treated me like anyone else. Which was good.”

I bite my tongue. There I go again, spilling my soul to him, as if we’re old friends and didn’t just meet three days ago. Maybe it’s because I’d never have been caught having this kind of serious discussion with Griffin and I’m starved for a heart-to-heart. Pathetic. I can just imagine Griffin pretending to throw a rope around his neck and hang himself. “And we were not really an emotional, lovey-dovey type of couple. Why am I telling you this? I need to shut up.”

He laughs. “No, you don’t. I like hearing you talk.”

“Really?” I turn to him, and his face is serious as he nods. No indication that he’s going to poke fun at me. “You really don’t think I’m a nut job?”

He laughs. “Not at all.”

“I like talking to you, too.”

I’m just starting to feel better, like maybe I’m not completely losing it, when suddenly my flip-flop catches on an uneven piece of pavement and I fall forward. I land half in the grass, half on the sidewalk. My palms and my knees break my fall, but I scrape the left one of each on the pavement. Blushing, I roll over onto my backside, inspecting my bleeding body parts. While this is when Griffin and Bret would laugh and say, “Have a nice trip?” or something, Eron rushes to my side and pulls a handkerchief out of the pocket of his baggy jeans. Two thoughts hit me at once: First, what guy who isn’t eighty years old carries a handkerchief? And secondly, is it possible ever to meet Eron without having an injury? Is there a reason I become a bumbling idiot around him?

My palm is just a little red and coated with gravel, so Eron brushes the grit away from my knee and clamps the cloth over it. It’s not bleeding as much as the cut on my shin yesterday did, but now I have a wound on each of my legs. I look like I shaved with sandpaper. I’m going to make a great impression in New York.