“Do you care?”

She shrugged. “Not really. Not like I’m going to be working there much longer.”

I fired up the car, thinking about that with a sudden tightness in my stomach. I felt like a countdown clock had just started ticking. A clock that suddenly made me fear that if I didn’t find out what was wrong with her—with us—and fix it before she left Draco, then I risked not seeing her again. Ever.

The drive to my house was short and quiet. She didn’t comment on the fact that I hadn’t been completely truthful about driving her home. I would drive her home, so it wasn’t a lie. I just wouldn’t do it right away.

It was midafternoon and I was stiff from the bus ride. I suggested we go for a swim in the pool. I figured it would take the pressure off and help break the ice a little. I also thought some wine with dinner would be appropriate, too. I’d already texted Chef while I was still on the bus, to have something nice ready for us for dinner.

Emilia had left a handful of items she had forgotten in a drawer when she’d moved out—including a bathing suit. Her sexy black-and-white bikini, which was my favorite. I’d done deliciously naughty things to her while she’d worn that bikini.

When I pulled it out of the drawer, she blinked, nonplussed, and then slowly reached for the suit. I watched her for a long moment. Her eyes flew to mine and she paled.

“I…I think I’ll just dip my toes in. I don’t need a suit,” she said, a strange sort of hollow echo in her words. It sounded like the voice of sadness.

I watched her, waiting for clarification while I unbuttoned my pants to change into my trunks.

She turned away, seemingly uncomfortable. I scrutinized her, the strange stiffness in her shoulders, the way her hands worked at her sides. Why the sudden shyness, I wondered? She’d seen me naked hundreds of times before. We’d fucked—mostly naked—in the past twenty-four hours.

I finished changing while she took an interest in the articles on my desk—as if she’d never seen them before—the framed photos and other stuff. She looked everywhere but directly at me. She was tense and almost vibrating with it.

Once in my trunks, I came up behind her and laid a light hand on her shoulder. She didn’t move. Her attention was fixated on a photograph. The photograph. The one of me and my sister as children. I glanced at it over her shoulder. I remembered the day it had been taken. Seemed like a lifetime ago, really. My sixth birthday.

Mom had forgotten again. Bree had saved up some babysitting money that she’d kept hidden in one of my stuffed animals—to prevent our wonderful mother from swiping it for booze money. She’d pulled the crumpled dollar bills tucked in a pocket of my favorite stuffed bear and gone to the bakery. We’d celebrated at her friend Christina’s house, avoiding home completely until it was dark. That picture had been snapped by Christina’s mother and proudly handed to me a week later on my way to school. I’d tucked that picture in my school notebook and kept it with me every day.

Two years later, Bree would be a runaway. And that picture would be the last physical reminder I had of her until I saw her again, a frail shadow of herself. My chest tightened with the same dark feeling whenever I allowed myself to remember how much I missed her. I blinked.

Emilia’s thumb slid across the frame as she studied the picture.

“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go.”

She nodded, but she wasn’t listening, her eyes still glued to that photo. I could almost see the gears turning in her mind. She was deeply absorbed by some terrifying, profound thought and those emotions were easily detectable on her face. My hand cupped her shoulder and I squeezed it. “Emilia.”

She shook herself as if to wake from a daydream, turning back to me. We stood close and I was half-naked and could feel the heat from her body so near. I wanted to pull her against my bare chest, caress her back, feel her hands and her mouth move over me. Damn, this was hard. We were standing in a room where I’d slept with her all night in my arms, made sweet, slow love to her over just about every piece of furniture in here—and in the bathroom, the counter, the bathtub, the shower.

It sucked being in here with her now. Feeling this distance, like a canyon between us—like one of those epic mega canyons you see in pictures of Mars from the rover—a canyon so huge and remote that the topography on Earth pales in comparison. We weren’t on Earth anymore. We were on Mars, where the mountains we needed to overcome were so much higher and the valleys so much lower, the ravines so much deeper. Where the sky was burning red. We were in alien, distant territory now and I had no idea how we’d find our way back home. Back into each other’s arms. Not until all the secrets were cleared between us.