I bolt through the door and pull it closed behind me, starting to pace along the sink as I wonder how long I’m going to have to stay hidden in the bathroom. Everything about this is so humiliating. I should’ve just said “hi” to them, acted normal, but instead I ran away and hid, and now there’s no pretending I’m not upset.

“Natalie,” Beau calls through the door. “Natalie, I’m coming in.”

My eyes sweep over the bathroom for any other exit as I hurry to hold the door shut, but I’m too slow. Beau’s already in, and we’re alone together, and I’m so embarrassed I want to die.

“This is the ladies’ room, Beau.”

He walks me up to the edge of the sink, grabs me around the waist, and kisses me. For a second I’m so surprised, so overwhelmed by both how frustrated and how attracted to him I am, that I kiss him back. When he lifts me up and sets me on the sink, I abruptly come to my senses and shove him back.

“What’s wrong with you?” I shout. I jump down and stalk past him to the door. “Stay away from me.”

I storm back toward Bath & Body Works, noting that Rachel is no longer in the food court when I pass. I weave through the clouds of sugary-sweet scents, march up to Coco, and drag her toward the faux-wooden checkout counter. “Whatever you’re holding in your hand right now is what Abby’s getting.”

I wake with a start in the middle of the night, and my first thought is that Grandmother’s here. I sit up and stare into the rocking chair, but it’s empty. I turn on the paper lamp next to my bed, and Gus lets out a frustrated moo. Maybe he was barking in his sleep again—that’s been known to wake me up.

Just then something clinks against the window in the walk-in closet, the wind, probably. But a second later, I hear the same sound, only a little louder. I get out of bed, creep toward the window, and pull the drapes aside.

I look down past the porch roof to the front lawn, where Beau’s standing. He drops a fistful of pebbles and holds a hand up to wave. I hesitate for a second, then shut the closet door behind me before sliding open the window.

“Hi,” Beau says. He’s swaying a little bit where he stands, his clothes rumpled and hair messy.

“What are you doing here?” I hiss.

He looks down at his feet then back up at me. “Can I come up?”

“Are you drunk?” I ask. That’s when I notice how rough his face looks, faintly bruised like he’s come straight from a brawl.

He glances away, running a hand over his mouth. His silence answers my question.

“Go home, Beau.”

“I need to tell you something,” he says.

“Then come back when you’re sober.”

He looks up the street. “I know what’s happening to you, Natalie.”

I give a frustrated laugh. “What, that I’m being jerked around by someone who’s dating one of my former best friends?”

He shakes his head. “I’m not dating her.”

I don’t care what he says. I’m not body-language illiterate—that was a date. “Beau, go home.”

“I’m sorry about the other day,” he says. “I messed up. I should’ve been here.”

“No.” I half-laugh in disbelief. “Actually, you shouldn’t have, Beau. You also shouldn’t have asked for my number or kissed me in a public restroom while you were on a date with another girl, but, I don’t know, maybe you were just drunk then too!”

He stares up at me, fingertips resting on his hips. He runs one hand over his mouth again as he turns back toward his truck. As I watch him walk away, my heart starts to pound in my chest. “Beau, wait,” I whisper-shout as I climb through the window onto the porch roof.

He looks back up at me. “You’re right, Natalie,” he says. “That’s what kind of person I am. You got me nailed.”

He opens his truck door, and I walk to the edge of the roof. “You shouldn’t drive right now,” I say, scanning the neighbors’ windows in anticipation of flicked-on lights that will lead to phone calls that will get me busted.

For a long moment, he stares up at me, and then he gets in his truck. Furious, I climb down onto the porch railing, drop into the yard, and cross toward him, jerking the passenger door open. “Get out.”

“It’s my car,” he says. “You get out.”

“Why did you come here, Beau?” I say. “Why are you doing this to me?”

“Get out, Natalie,” he says again.

I don’t budge, so he clambers out of the truck and storms around it, pulling me out of the cab and closing the door. He starts to make his way back to the driver’s side, and I chase him, cutting between him and the door. “You can’t drive like this.”

He grabs me suddenly by the waist. I grab him back, kissing him as he lifts me against the truck. He burrows his mouth against my neck, tightens his arms around me. We move sideways and he pulls the door open, lifting me into the cab and stepping closer until our stomachs are locked together, my legs wrapped around him, his hands roaming across my neck as he kisses me over and over again.

What the hell am I doing? My anger floods back into me, and I push him away.

He staggers back into the street. “Fine. You want to know why, Natalie?” he says. “Because my whole life I’ve thought I was crazy, but now I know I’m not the only one. And that would be real nice, except the other person—the only other person in the world who sees what I see—is the love of my best friend’s life, and I’m not quite sure how the hell to handle that.”

My heart seems to stop in my chest. I stare up through the darkness into Beau’s eyes. They’re serious and stern, the inside corners of his eyebrows creased. “What are you talking about?”

“The two different versions of Union,” he says. “I know you can see them both.”

“How do you know about that?” I breathe.

“Because,” he says. “I can see them too.”

16

When I finally invite Beau up, I almost regret it. He’s far past tipsy and has a difficult time climbing on top of the porch. The whole time he’s struggling up over the railing to the roof, I’m picturing him falling, an ambulance waking my parents up to find a drunk boy they’ve never met passed out below my bedroom window.