“Why did you give him your real name?!” I hissed once we were back onto the main street where several other people were milling about.

  He ushered me across the street and pulled me down the sidewalk. It took me a moment to register that he was holding my hand, but I was too riled to care that he was doing that in pin sight.

  He shrugged. “It’s not my full name. In all honesty, does it really matter? If nothing changes, I’d have to change my st name another twenty times. If he’s lying about the sunshine cure, I wouldn’t be here anyway.”

  The flippancy in his tone rubbed me the wrong way.

  “Excuse me?” The words ripped out of my throat with a shrill undertone. “Does it matter? Does it matter that you’ll die if he’s lying? Are you kidding me right now, Non?”

  “Chelsea, rex,” he said. “It’s not that big of a deal.”

  The fury that was racing through my veins froze into ice-cold dread at the dull expression on his face.

  “What do you mean, it’s not a big deal? Aren’t you the one taking things too lightly? We’re literally talking about your death here.”

  He let out a frustrated groan and ran a hand over his hair.

  “He was right, okay? I don’t want to live like this. I haven’t for a while.”

  “What are you saying?” I whispered, knowing full well what he meant.

  I didn’t want to hear about it. At the same time, I knew that burying my head in the sand wouldn’t change anything. Fear clouded my mind.

  The silence we were tied into for the rest of our ride back ate at my frayed nerves.

  Forcing the corners of my lips up into a stiff smile, I stared at my giant eyebags in the mirror. I closed my eyes in resignation. There wasn’t anything I could do about it.

  I couldn’t sleep well st night. It had only been a day since we saw Sierra and met Sylvan, but I already had to go home.

  Mom and Dad wanted to see me for at least a week during winter break, so I had a pne to catch this morning.

  Non couldn’t see me off since the sun was up and bright, but I wanted to at least say goodbye to him before I left. He’d made me promise to wake him up before I left. I swung my rge duffel bag over my shoulder and left the guest room Mr. Lawson had kindly offered to me for my short stay here.

  I padded across the carpeted hall to Non’s room.

  Not bothering to knock, I pushed down on the door handle and opened the door. As heavy of a sleeper as Non was, he wouldn’t wake up to rapping on the door, no matter how loud it was.

  His room was dark as usual, courtesy of the heavy bck curtains that were drawn over his window. Non’s room decor here was as minimal as his college dorm room—there was a wardrobe, study desk with a set of drawers underneath, a tall cabinet with sliding gss doors that doubled as a bookshelf for him, a bed, and a nightstand with no mp on it.

  Unlike my own room back home, there were no animal plushies to be found, no ornaments or memorabilia decorating his desk or cabinet or walls. The only thing that looked out of pce in this immacute room was the pair of binocurs resting right smack on the middle of his white study desk.

  I id eyes on his sleeping form, covered from head to toe by a rge gray comforter, on the bed.

  “Good morning,” I sang, dropping my bag to the floor and striding towards him. “Non!”

  Despite the good shake I gave him, he remained an unresponsive lump. My memories of desperately shaking his arm in English css brought a nostalgic smile to my face.

  I pried the comforter off his head, which he had tucked under his cheek. He still didn’t stir.

  “Hey, wake up,” I said. “I’m leaving soon! Your dad’s waiting downstairs.”

  Mr. Lawson was likely grabbing breakfast, actually, but a little hyperbole wouldn’t hurt if it meant he got up faster. He’d offered to drive me to the airport when I had to leave. I initially wanted to turn him down, afraid that he was only asking out of politeness. Then he insisted that he would be happy to give me a ride and it would be more convenient than waiting for an Uber, looking at me with such a sincere smile I couldn’t bring myself to turn him down.

  “Non.” I put some renewed strength into my arm-shaking. “Why is it so difficult to wake you up?”

  A small whine left him when I yanked his comforter off entirely, revealing the T-shirt and sweatpants he’d fallen asleep in. My heart constricted at the sound. It was so cute. I loved that I was the only one who got to hear it.

  “Chelsea?” My name came out of his mouth slowly, as if he was testing it out.

  The grogginess in his voice amplified his cuteness, snapping the tenuous grip I had on my willpower. I reached out and pinched his left cheek.

  “So adorable,” I cooed, kissing him on the same cheek.

  “Hey …”

  His own hand came up to close over mine, which was still on his face. He tugged it to his mouth, brushing the back of my hands against his lips. A tiny shiver trickled down my back at the cold touch of his hands and lips.

  “Morning,” he said, his voice still a little rough from sleep. “Thanks for waking me.”

  “Yeah, you should thank me. You’ll never understand how hard it is to wake you up.”

  He responded with a roll of his eyes, and then he sat up and swung his legs over the side of his bed.

  “Have you eaten yet?”

  “I will soon,” I said, but my stomach churned at the thought. “I’ll grab a piece of toast or something. Just wanted to come see you first.”

  He stood up, shuffled over, and pulled me into a tight embrace. Because he didn’t typically use his body warmers before bed, his whole body was cold, like my hands and feet were in freezing weather. If I had to put a number to it, this was probably the third time I got to hold him when he wasn’t warmed up. Non didn’t talk about it much, but I could tell he didn’t like to hug me while his torso was cold.

  “I love you,” he mumbled, the words I hadn’t heard for a while now flowing out easily.

  It was like my heart curdled and couldn’t move anymore.

  I thought it all the time—I love you; I really love you; I don’t want this to be the end of us because I love you, Non—but they remained as thoughts in my head, with me smming a lid on them so firmly that they couldn’t escape. They circled my mind constantly, but I couldn’t say anything because then we’d have to talk about how everything between us was falling apart.

  His breath tickled my ear, causing me to huff out a short giggle and squirm in his arms. My own arms shot out to close around his back, pressing him to myself.

  “I love you too,” I bit out. “Can we talk about st night real quick?”

  He leaned back enough to look at my face, before dropping a kiss on my forehead.

  “I feel like that’s a conversation that’s going to take longer than the time we have right now.”

  “We don’t have the time to go over everything,” I agreed, “but we should at least cover a little bit before I go.”

  “Sure. What were you thinking of?”

  I wished he’d also booked a pne ticket with me. I didn’t want to leave him here alone to dwell on what we’d learned yesterday. Granted, he was with his dad, but I didn’t know if he’d talk to Mr. Lawson about it, or what Mr. Lawson would say about it if he did.

  “We heard a lot of … stuff yesterday, but we’ve barely had time to digest it, and now I have to fly home in a few hours. Can you promise me you won’t do anything crazy while I’m gone? If not, I’ll be spending the rest of winter break worrying about you. I mean, I’d be worrying about you anyway, but I’ll worry about you more if you don’t.”

  “It depends on what you mean by crazy,” he said, giving me a solemn stare.

  Well, that wasn’t suspicious at all. I narrowed my eyes at him.

  “What are you pnning to do? No searching for Sierra or Sylvan or … or going out into the sunlight, okay?”

  He opened his mouth as if to say something, but then closed it again.

  “Alright,” he said after half a beat. “Nothing crazy.”

  “Nothing that can hurt yourself, you hear me?”

  This time, it took him twice as long to reply.

  “Mm.” That sounded more like a noncommittal hum.

  A hurricane stirred up inside of me, tossing about my insides with careless abandon. How could I leave like this? Non needed me.

  “Promise me,” I repeated. “I can’t leave with peace of mind if I know you’re going to do something funny. Or should I stay here to make sure you don’t do anything?”

  Ironically, it took the threat of my staying for him to throw up the white fg. “You can’t. Your parents want to spend time with you. And I know you want to see them too.”

  “Then promise me.”

  With a long, dragged out sigh, he said, “Fine, fine. Nothing funny. I promise.”

  I thought I’d feel more relieved than this, but this was all I had. Regardless, I shook my head and smiled at him.

  “Thank you. We’ll talk about everything when we get back to school, okay?”

  His hand moved up to my hair, patting it with light, gentle strokes.

  “Okay. We’ll talk about it then. Let’s go down and get you some breakfast.”

  Despite my ck of appetite, I let him lead me by the hand downstairs to the kitchen.

  It’d been so long since we’d walked hand-in-hand, I couldn’t help but lean into the solid, reassuring feel of his side.