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have.
    All of a sudden it seems so selfish for me to have come looking for him. A tiny, uncomfortable question, one I’m almost scared to ask myself, tugs at the edge of my thoughts. What if I haven’t been completely honest with myself about why I wanted to find him? I justified trying to find him with the idea that I needed to in order to move on. To findclosure, say good-bye, all those things. But what if all I’ve really been trying to find is a way to hold on to a part of Trent? This piece I’ve given more meaning to than the rest, because maybe a tiny part of me feels like some essential part of him might still be there, in his heart.
    It’s why, an hour later, when I walk out and find Colton still in the waiting room, I steel myself against the warmth of his smile and ignore the tiny flutter it causes in my chest. It’s why, when he stands without saying anything and looks at my lip and raises his hand again like he might reach out and touch it, I back away fast, put as much distance between us as possible. And it’s why, when we pull up in front of his parents’ shop, I don’t turn off the car and I don’t dare look at him. I focus only on the steering wheel in front of me.
    â€œSo we’re back to where we started,” he says. His words hang there between us, a flash of the morning and a beginning that shouldn’t have been. All I can do now is end it.
    â€œI’m sorry I took up your whole day with this,” I say. “Thank you. For everything.” I sound stiff, cold. He doesn’t say anything, but I can feel his eyes trying to catch mine, and it takes everything in me not to let them. “I need to go,” I say, as firmly as I can. “I’ve been gone for too long, and my parents are going to freak out, and I really just . . .” Don’t look at him, don’t look at him, don’t—
    â€œYou wanna get something to eat?” he asks. “Before you go?”
    I look at him. Wish I didn’t, because his smile is all full of hope and possibility.
    â€œI . . . no. Thank you, but I need to go.”
    â€œOh.” His smile tumbles. “Okay.”
    â€œOkay,” I echo.
    Neither one of us moves. Or speaks. And then we do, at the same time.
    â€œSo maybe another time?”
    â€œIt was nice to meet you.”
    He sits back in his seat. “I take that as a no.”
    â€œYes. I mean, no. I can’t—shouldn’t.”
    I don’t even try to explain, because I know that if I do, I’ll make a bigger mess than I already have. I hate the look on his face, like I’ve just broken his heart. But I’m trying to be careful with it, like that nurse said, and that means ending this feeling before it has a chance to begin.

CHAPTER SIX
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    â€œOf all heart stories, tales of grief are most deeply etched into patients’ psyches. But these losses are often buried—wounds that patients are unwilling to [fully] reveal.”
    â€”Dr. Mimi Guarneri, The Heart Speaks: A Cardiologist Reveals the Secret Language of Healing
    I’M DISORIENTED WHEN I pull into my driveway, because I don’t remember the drive home. I reach back in my mind for some concrete proof that I actually just drove back, but the only things I can think of are Colton’s face when he bent down to the passenger window and said good-bye one last time, and the way he looked in the rearview mirror, standing in the middle of the empty street, watching my car go, one hand half raised in the air. I must’ve replayed an endless loop of the day all the way home—him walking into the café, his eyes and the way he looked at me. The way he sounded when he said good-bye, like he couldn’t quite believe it.
    The dull ache of my lip is the only thing that keeps mefrom feeling like the entire day was a dream. And now I’m back. Back where I belong, and where I know my mom will be waiting, anxious and