I shift my weight to my other leg. “I’ve been trying to help you figure this out since we started talking! You’re the one who didn’t want to know anything, Willow! Now you want my help? After I find out you’ve been lying to me for weeks?”

“I wasn’t lying. I didn’t know,” she says. “I thought it was all just chaos inside Layla’s head, because I don’t have memories at all when I’m not in her head. I still don’t know for sure. Your theory makes sense, but it doesn’t feel right. There’s something off about it.” She steps closer again. I don’t step back this time because part of me only sees Willow when I look at her, and that part of me still feels bad for her.

But not bad enough to stay.

I point at her. “You’re the reason this happened, whether you remember it or not. You’re the reason Layla almost died. I will not be the reason you ultimately kill her. Get out of her and stay out of her.”

She’s still calm, but now there are silent tears spilling down her cheeks. “I don’t know why I’m here. But I’m here, and wherever this is, I don’t feel like an evil person. I feel good and I feel honest. I am not whoever Sable was in her life. I feel like me. Like Willow. I’m the girl you’ve been watching movies with and eating leftovers with and spending time with. I’m the girl you kissed on that bed last night. Me. Not Sable. Not Layla. Willow.”

I clench my teeth. “Willow doesn’t exist. It’s a name you made up.”

She closes the gap between us and takes my face in her hands, her eyes full of desperation. “I do exist. I’m right here. I’m standing right in front of you.”

I can’t look at her while she’s crying like this. I spin around and rest my hands on my hips. I drop my head, unsure of what to do next. An entire minute goes by, and she just stands behind me, crying quietly.

I don’t know what to do. I stare at the driveway, knowing that’s the direction I should be going. But why is my internal compass pulling me in the opposite direction? Why am I even struggling with this decision? Why do I still feel drawn to stay here when she’s the reason we’re in this mess to begin with?

“Leeds?” she finally says. “Just . . . go.”

I spin around, and Willow is looking at me, completely defeated. She waves toward the car. “Go. This isn’t right. We shouldn’t be doing this to Layla anyway. Go, get married, buy her a different house, have babies, be famous and shit. Be happy.” She wipes the areas beneath her eyes with her fingers. “I want you to be happy. I promise I won’t stop you when you leave with her this time, if that’s what you want.”

I study her for a moment, unsure what to believe.

And why the hell do I still feel bad for her?

I walk over and pick up one of the suitcases. Then the other. I walk them to the car and shut them in the trunk. She’s standing at the driver’s-side door.

I pause a few feet from her, watching her cautiously.

“Do me a favor?” she says. “Will you email that man and ask him to come here anyway? I need to figure this out now. I don’t want to be here anymore.”

Those words, and the agonizing way she said them, settle in my chest.

I don’t want to be here anymore.

I clear my throat. “I’ll email him tonight.”

She smiles gently, and her lips are trembling when she whispers, “Thank you.” Another tear falls out of her eye, and she looks up and to the right, her face pained. “I hope you have a good life.”

And then she’s gone.

Layla is hysterical again.

She spins in a circle, confused as to how she got outside.

I grab her hand and walk her to the passenger-side door. “Just get in the car,” I say, trying to sound calm, but that’s hard to do when she’s screaming and scared and confused and sobbing. I buckle her in and walk around to the driver’s-side door.

I place my hand on the door handle and pause for a moment. Layla is screaming for me to hurry. My head is pounding from the pressure of everything that’s happened in the last hour. I just want to scream because I feel like I’m being torn in half right now.

I think about the night I met Layla. I think about what she said . . . about realms and how she believes we move from one realm, to the next, to the next. I think about how she said in the womb we don’t remember existence before the womb. In life, we don’t remember being in the womb. And how in the next realm, we may not remember this life.

What if Willow really doesn’t remember being Sable?

What if who she is in this realm is different from who she was in her past realm?

She’s right. No matter how far away from this place I get, I’ll never stop thinking about this. I’ll never stop needing answers.

I look back at the house . . . at the place that means the most to me in this world. The heart of the country.

If Willow . . . Sable . . . didn’t need my help, why would she have come here?

There’s a reason she’s here. She knew I would show up here somehow. Maybe it was a cosmic force at play. Maybe it’s something as simple as needing Layla’s and my forgiveness.

Whatever it is, whether the reason is complicated or simple, this whole thing is bigger than Layla. This is bigger than me. This is so much bigger than the world I thought we existed in, and I’m trying to force it into a tiny little box and tuck it away like none of it is happening.

I feel the pull to help Willow in my gut, my bones, my heart. If I walk away, those feelings will stay here, in this house, with this ghost, and I’ll leave feeling just as empty as I felt when I arrived.

I can’t explain why, but walking away from this place out of fear feels so much worse than staying to help this girl find closure. If Layla and I are related to the reason she’s stuck here, we’re more than likely also her only way out.

“Leeds,” Layla pleads. “Get in the car!”

I’ll always feel a constant pull to this place, no matter where I am in life or how far I drive away from here.

And for the life of me . . . I can’t figure out why. Why do I care what happens to Sable? Is she manipulating my thoughts somehow?

“Willow,” I say into the air. “I have a question. Get back inside Layla again.”

Layla is still yelling my name, begging me to hurry.

Then she stops.

She’s suddenly calm as she unbuckles herself and opens her door. When she climbs out of the car and turns around, it’s Willow looking back at me from over the top of the car.

“Have you ever gotten inside of me?” I ask her.

She immediately answers with a shake of her head. “No. Of course not.”

The look on her face is a clear indicator that she isn’t lying. “You said you only have memories when you’re attached to a body,” I say. “Is that right?”

She nods.

“If that man comes to help you, then you’re going to need a body. You’re going to need those memories.”

It takes my words a few seconds to register, but when they do, Willow covers her mouth with her hand, trying to stifle her cry. Then she drops her hand to her chest, over her heart. “You’re going to help me?”

I let go of a regretful sigh. “Yes. And I have no idea why. So please don’t make me regret this. Please.”