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was to make them more worried about me than they were already. “Just scrambled eggs are fine then.”
    After I forced down a few bites of food during breakfast, I spent the rest of the morning on the couch with Uncle Tom as he watched the marathon of Shark Week on the Discovery channel. Before college, I used to look forward to this week during the summer when Uncle Tom and I would be glued to the television. But it didn’t feel the same—my heart wasn’t in it. My heart was in mourning.
    At some point, I had fallen asleep on the couch because I was woken up by Aunt Betty’s hand shaking my shoulder as she called my name.
    “Chloe, Jackson’s here to see you.”
    The second his name was mentioned, I bolted upright and was wide awake. “He’s here?”
    “Yeah, he’s at the front door. Do you want me to invite him in?”
    “No,” I said quickly. “I don’t want to see him.” I looked over at Aunt Betty with pleading eyes. “Do you mind telling him to leave?”
    “Are you sure?” She frowned.
    “Yeah. I’m not feeling well right now.”
    “Okay, I’ll let him know.”
    A minute later, she was back. “Chloe, he says he has something to give you. He said he can leave, if you want him to, after he gives it to you.”
    My chest tightened with pain and I wondered what Jackson was trying to do this time. I wasn’t sure I was ready to face him again. Last night was hard enough as it was to resist him, to hurt him like that. I wasn’t sure I could do it again. I wasn’t sure I had the willpower to resist my own temptations.
    “Can he just leave the item he wants to give me with you? I can contact him later about it.”
    “I asked him that. He said he has to give it to you in person. He says you’ll want to see it and that it’ll change everything.”
    I looked up at Aunt Betty, wondering what Jackson meant by “it’ll change everything.” “Did you see what he was holding?”
    “Hmm. I wasn’t really looking, but it looked like a stack of letters or papers.”
    “Oh.” I felt a strong urge to go see what he wanted to show me, but the image of his pained expression from last night stopped me. Can I do that to him again?
    “Honey, are you guys okay? Did you two have a fight or something?”
    “No…It’s complicated,” I muttered.
    “Chloe, I really don’t want to interfere with you two, but I know you both care about each other. I’m sure if you guys sat down and talked about it, you can work everything out.”
    “I don’t think that’s the case this time.”
    She sighed. “Honey, just go talk to him. When you were in the hospital, he never left your side for longer than a few minutes. I’m not sure I saw that boy eat or sleep once when I was there. I think you owe it to him to at least give him a few minutes to give you what he has for you and say what he has to say.”
    Tears welled up in my eyes, wishing things would be different. At that moment, I wished Aunt Betty and Uncle Tom were my parents instead of my aunt and uncle.
    “Come on, Chloe. Just give him a minute of your time. If you need me to shoo him away after a minute, I will.”
    “Does he look like he’s been drinking?”
    Aunt Betty was taken aback by my question. “No, not that I can tell. He actually looks really excited, almost happy.”
    “Happy?” I glanced up at her, wondering if I heard her correctly.
    “Yeah. He looked anxious but excited and happy about something.”
    After a few seconds of silence, my curiosity got the best of me and I finally got up from the couch. “Okay, I’ll give him one minute.”
    “Okay, honey. I’ll be right here if you need me.”
    As I walked to the front door, I tried to convince myself that I would be okay after seeing him, that maybe this was the closure we both needed, that maybe because he was sober, he wouldn’t lose control like he had last night. Maybe we could actually talk through this and somehow come out of this as friends again.
    I took a deep breath to steady