Marcus's phone buzzed. He glanced at it, then at Jess, a subtle signal passing between them.
"Okay, Katie," Marcus said, a new tone entering his voice, one of quiet urgency. "Look, Ronan's… he's not doing well. He's blaming himself. He's convinced he messed everything up. Convinced he's just another ghost from your past."
"He's not," I whispered, the words surprising even me with their conviction. "He's nothing like Chad."
"He needs to hear that from you," Marcus said. "Not from us. From you."
Jess looked at her phone and nodded. "He went back to the mall. He's going over every inch of the North Pole display, looking for… something. Anything that could have led Chad there, or why he came back at all."
My heart constricted. He went back there? At the place where I had fled, where our c
