“Good,” she said after a moment. “That’s . . . good. I’m glad.” We just looked at each other for another moment, then she glanced away. When she looked back at me, the vulnerability that I’d seen a moment before was gone, and she looked somehow distant, her voice all business. “I shouldn’t keep you,” she said. “I’m sorry, again, about not reaching you sooner.”

“No problem,” I said, and then a moment later immediately regretted not saying something more impressive. “I’ll . . . um . . . see you around?”

She gave me a quick smile. “Absolutely,” she said. “Thank you, Emily.” And with that, my screen went dark, and I was staring back at my own confused expression.

My phone rang again an hour later—but an hour in which I’d only moved a few miles. There was something going on—I figured it had to be some sort of accident, and I’d been trying to scan through the radio stations, looking for some answers, but somehow only getting ads and weather. Because I wasn’t moving very fast, I could see that it was Collins calling me, and I was able to answer without accidentally starting a video call with him. “Hey,” I said, as I answered. “Did Lissa call you?”

“She did,” he said, and let out a long breath. “Sorry to send you all that way.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “Um . . . how’s Frank?”

“I’m trying to make the best of things over here,” Collins said, which, it occurred to me, wasn’t exactly an answer to the question. “Plans are in flux, so just text me when you get back to town, okay?”

“Sure,” I said. “There’s some weird traffic thing going on, though, so I might be a while.”

“Not a problem,” he said. “I’ll—” I lost what Collins was saying, though, because the car in front of me slammed on their brakes. And even though we were crawling, I still had to slam on my own, and then hold my breath, hoping the car behind me saw this and wouldn’t rear-end me. After a few seconds, I relaxed—I was fine, but all the stuff that had been congregating under the passenger seat had been jostled loose, and there was now a pile of junk on the floor.

“Collins?” I called into the speaker. But whether the phone had gotten turned off when I’d stopped, or he’d given up, either way, he was no longer there. I put the phone aside and glanced down at the mess. There was a tube of Sloane’s mascara, a cracked pair of sunglasses, a half-filled water bottle, and the book I swore up and down to the Stanwich High librarian that I’d returned. There was something else, too. I glanced away from the road for a moment and bent down for it. It was a disposable camera.

HOW EMILY SEES THE WORLD was written across the back of it in Sharpie, in Sloane’s handwriting. She had given it to me sometime last year, and it was almost full, just a few pictures remaining. Even though it was getting dark fast, I held up the disposable and took a picture of the highway and the hood of my car and the seemingly endless red ribbon of brake lights—capturing, at that particular moment, how I saw the world.

* * *

I parked my car in the Orchard’s lot, then killed the engine and just sat for a moment, looking out into the night. It had taken me much longer than should have been rationally possible to get back to Stanwich. I’d been getting text updates from Collins along the way. People were meeting up at the Orchard, and I should come by when I made it back into town.

I had hesitated before responding to this, once I’d made it back home and into the sanctuary of my room. Presumably, a lot of the people who were hanging out were Frank’s other friends—like the ones that I’d encountered the first night with him, when he’d taken me to get gas. I hadn’t been back to the Orchard since, and I really wasn’t sure how I would fit in with those people. I was preparing to write Collins another text about how bad the traffic was, begging off, when I got another text.

Hey are you coming? At the Orchard. See you soon?

It was from Frank, and I texted back without a second thought that I’d be there soon. Then I reached for a Sloane-chosen outfit—a vintage dress from Twice that I’d worn a lot last summer. But after I put it on, I found myself pulling at the straps, tugging at the hem, not liking what I saw in the mirror. For some reason, it didn’t feel like me any longer. I took it off and changed into the denim skirt I’d bought with Dawn last week and a white eyelet tank top. Feeling more like myself somehow, I dabbed some makeup on, and made sure to get Frank’s present before grabbing my flip-flops and heading back to the car.

Now that I was there, though, the present suddenly seemed stupid, and I didn’t want Frank to feel like he had to open it in front of people—which was actually the last thing that I wanted. I carefully placed it behind my seat and got out, straightening my skirt as I went.

As I walked, I couldn’t help but remember the last time I’d been to the Orchard. When I’d been all alone, miserable, looking down at my phone and trying to pretend that I was meeting someone, that there were people there waiting for me.  And now, I realized with a shock, both of those things were true. And unless things went really wrong, there was no way I could picture myself spending tonight hiding behind a tree. It hit me just how much could happen in two months, how, since the last time I’d been at the Orchard, everything had changed.

Maybe not everything. I slowed as I realized Gideon was sitting on top of one of the picnic tables, at the very edge of the clearing, his head turned away from me. I immediately looked around for Sam, but didn’t see him, which I was glad about. I knew I could have just taken the long way to the center of the clearing, where I was pretty sure I could see Collins—I couldn’t imagine who else would be wearing a plum-colored polo shirt, at any rate. But I somehow found I didn’t want to skulk around and hide from Gideon, or have things be awkward all evening. And so, before I could talk myself out of it, I was walking up to Gideon and touching him on the shoulder.

He turned around to look at me, almost losing his beer bottle in the process. “Hey,” I said, giving him a smile. “How’s it going?”

He just blinked at me for a moment, like he was trying to make sense of the fact that I was standing in front of him—or that I was going up to him to say hi, and not the other way around. “Hi,” he finally said.

“I just wanted to say hello,” I said, after a slightly strained pause. I’d kind of forgotten just how painful conversations with Gideon could sometimes be, and I was beginning to regret starting this one.

He nodded and rolled the bottle between his palms, and when nothing followed, I finally got the hint that he really didn’t want to talk to me. I took a breath to tell him that it was great to see him, and that my friends were waiting—one of which was true—when he looked up at me. “Have you had a good summer?”

“Oh,” I said, gathering my thoughts, and not just replying with a standard “Great!” Gideon didn’t ask these questions just to be polite, and never wanted to hear that everything was fine when it wasn’t. “It’s not what I expected,” I said. As I did, I realized we’d all had summers we hadn’t been expecting—Frank, Dawn, me, Collins, even Beckett and my parents. “But it’s been good. I’ve been having fun.”

He looked at me for a moment, then nodded. “I’m glad,” he said, in that slow, careful way of his. “Have you been . . .”

“Well, hello there.” There was suddenly someone next to me, sliding his arm around my shoulders. I turned, expecting to see Collins or a Stanwich College freshman pushing his luck, but took a tiny, startled step back when I realized that it was Benji.

“Oh,” I said. I took another step away, extricating myself from his arm. “Um, hi there.”

Gideon had stood up and was frowning down at Benji—no small feat, since Benji was pretty tall himself. “Emily, you know this guy?”

“Oh yeah, she does,” Benji said, with a wink at me—maybe it was a Collins family trait—clearly not reading the room very well and taking another step toward me. “How’ve you been?”

“Oh, fine,” I said, a little too brightly.

“Em,” Gideon said, and I could hear the hurt in his voice, though he was clearly trying to cover it up. “Are you two—”

“What am I thinking?” I babbled, mostly so Gideon wouldn’t ask his question and I wouldn’t have to answer it. “This is Gideon,” I said, making the introductions. “And that’s Benji.”

“Ben,” Benji said, his smile fading.

“Right, of course,” I said quickly. “Well, this was fun, but I should probably—”

“So what have you been up to?” Benji asked, smiling at me again. “I haven’t seen you around.”

“Well, no,” I said, wondering what he was getting at, since the only place I’d ever seen him before had been in Frank’s pantry.

“So you guys . . . ,” Gideon said, looking from me to Benji, his expression hard.

“No,” I said quickly, just as Benji replied, “Well, this one time . . .”

“Emily,” Gideon said, now just looking confused.

“There you are.” I turned and saw Frank, a bottle of water in his hand, walking up to me.

“Hi,” I said, smiling at him, happy to see him even though I’d just seen him that morning. Now that he was in front of me, I couldn’t believe I’d ever thought about not coming here.

“What’s going on?” Frank asked, looking slightly confused as he glanced from Gideon, to Benji, to me.

“Nothing,” I said quickly, realizing this might be my opportunity to make an exit and leave unscathed. “We should go, right? To celebrate your birthday? Now?” I widened my eyes at him, hoping that he would get the hint.

He seemed to, because he gave me a smile that was clearly concealing a laugh and said, “Yes. My birthday.  Absolutely.”