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Tyler, who, the last time I’d seen him just the day before, had been only twelve years old

CHAPTER TWO

"KYRA, ARE YOU SURE I CAN’T GET YOU SOMETHING?" Ta out of the darkness as she peered into the bedroootten here, but at least I knehere I was Or thought I did Everything felt topsy-turvy at the moment

"No I don’t think so" I shifted on the Batman sheets that I’d laid on allanced around at a rooht where the poster of Mark Spitz (the Olympic swiraph Austin had tried to replicate above it when he was eleven in scribbly purple ed exactly the same as always: his bed, his dresser, his corner desk plastered with a mishmash collection of sports and music and bumper stickers he’d collected

But despite the sa his everyday clutter His overflowing clothes halasses on top of his dresser, messy homework piles on his desk Even the bed was too neat, the sheets too fresh and sed

As if I were inside a diorama of Austin’s room A perfect, unused replica

Hisshe’d said ibberish

Five years, she’d kept saying It had been five years since anyone had seen

It hadn’t been five years It had been one night I knew because I had been at a rass and sweat, and I still had the ribbons threaded throughwhile ument, and I’d run off to have a few minutes to myself--that was all I must’ve wandered until I’d fallen asleep At the Gas ’n’ Sip Behind the Duiven me so back to check on me

She patted ether by wishes and hopes "Well, your mom should be here soon Maybe she’ll do a better job of explaining things than I did"

I shot upright "My mom?" My throat constricted around the anticipation "She’s coh my airway, and the last one ca thatbetter somehow, and there was no way to stop the tears

And then Austin’s , had her ar me in the way only a onna be okay now"