Jess Navarro had sent fourteen different messages in two weeks. Fourteen. She'd counted.
Four of them got replies, but they were short, flat, and weirdly formal ones that sounded nothing like Autumn. The Autumn that Jess knew used lowercase for everything and signed off texts with a random food emoji—a grape, a dumpling, or whatever she was in the mood for.
The Autumn in these messages used full sentences and punctuated like she was writing a professional email.
Something was wrong. Jess had known it for days because she’d been having a feeling.
Meanwhile, back in that house on December 28th, Autumn was thinking about Jess.
She was upstairs, sitting on the edge of the bed, turning her phone over in her hands. The screen was dark. She'd been staring at it for ten minutes like she coul
