Chapter 2

“You can’t find them, can you?”

“No,” I said, my throat tightening.

He squeezed my shoulders, his thumbs kneading the center of my spine. “Take a deep breath. We’ve got blankets, don’t we? Let’s just sleep on the floor.”

We found the blankets, stretched them out, and laid them on the floor. We piled them high, one on top of the other, each one fluffier than the last. Phillip laughed, flopping down on top of them. He propped himself up on his side and looked at me.

“Do you remember,” he said, “when we were little, and we’d used to have sleepovers in your basement? We’d lay out the blankets just like this. And throw all of our toys and books on top, and not get up?”

I smiled, sitting down next to him. “I remember.”

“You were terrified of the furnace,” he said. “One winter, it came on in the middle of the night with this massive roar and clanking. Like a jet engine taking off. You immediately woke up and started bawling. You cried so much that your tears soaked through my shirt.”