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Chapter One

Rayla

“Are you sure you’re going to be okay?” Millie asks

I smile and shake age Millie and I were supposed to be visiting her Maine holiday hoht has just been canceled and she can’t get another until to

That’s the price we pay for arranging holidays e live on opposite sides of the country

I’ over from California and she’s stranded in New York

“It’s just a day,” I tell her on the phone “I’ll hang out Maybe work on that play I’ve been neglecting Maybe I’ll run some lines Please relax”

“I just feel so bad”

She groans in that way I’h

Ever since we ine life without her We bonded straight away through our shared love of literature and dra silly Neither of us had a bona fide bestie ere growing up, and it’s like we’reup for that fact as we threw ourselves into this friendship, our cheoes well beyond our two years

I findable to read her far easier than anybody else, even my mom and step-dad, Markus

“Just relax, jeez” I laugh “It’s not your fault the flight got canceled, is it?”

“Freakingto trap me in New York”

“So you can work on your novel?” I tease

One of our running jokes is that we’re both constantly starting projects only to abandon theh e banter in this way, I can’t deny there’s a nugget of discomfort in there when I think about my unfinished play

I know it’s the same for Millie with her novel, and what are friends for if not to joke about your shared failures with you?

“Yeah, exactly” She giggles “I’ve already rebooked for to to have the whole place to yourself for at least a day What the heck are you going to do?”