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Even if I wanted to ean, it couldn’t happen anymore anyway I was here He was halfway across the country If I went to hi my back on an and I aren’t you and Reece"

"You sure about that? You ht be ht stay forever in Muskogee while he goes off to college? The next tiif your mother lets you attend, that is"

Her words hit their mark with all the accuracy of a well-ai someone by then," she added "He’ll have a date with hiht?"

I nodded, pressingthe tears inside

"Well, it wouldn’t hurt if there wasn’t so there If you didn’t love him"

I nodded, but didn’t let a sound escape I didn’t dare Not for her to hear

"Georgia," she pleaded softly "I almost lost Reeceand myself Don’t let that happen to you Your home is here Come back It will all work out if you just coure it out We all will That’s what friends do"

I inhaled, closing h rippled throughup the phone and clutched it into roup shot in there at Mulvaney’s taken a few o Pepper, Reece, E with the group--whether anted her or not I laughed, the watery sound filling the silence of an He was there, too Coincidentally, he was next toarm draped over my shoulders for the picture My chest clenched Not coincidental I knew that now There had been soether before either one of us realized it Or at least before I did

I zoomed in on his face and let the ache infeatures The deeply set eyes and the square jaw The golden-brown shadow of a beard growing in The brilliant blue of his eyes seeht ball as dusk slid into night, tapping the screen ofdark

I don’t kno long I did this Half an hour? An hour? Staring at his face, sodden inand misery, a breath shuddered past an’s nae I started severalon one

Me: I’y I went back to the photo of us, not expecting an ie at the police precinct when I had let us both down When hissuddenly connected to hiue Even if he was halfway across the country

Logan: What for?

Me: Everything

I wish I could take back the words I had said I wish I had been more honest with hiee, but there wouldn’t be the foul taste in an: Where r u?

Me: Still at hoe in location by Pepper and Reece For aI was reht in the police precinct He was finished waiting on ain

Me: I wish I could do things over

He didn’t reply I stared at the screen for a fewh As much as I could offer I wouldn’t tell him that I loved him That wouldn’t be fair Not withhis advice and growing up