Page 54 of To Catch a Firefly

“Didn’t go,” he adds. “Thought you…knew that.”

Suddenly, I can barely breathe. He didn’t—what? He never went to the festival with Gabby? But I thought…

“You said… You said you were into her,” I point out.

There’s a pause. “Didn’t.”

“Then who—” I cut off, chest rising and falling with my heavy breath, a million little pieces tumbling into place. I can practically hear the click of them inside my mind, each one slotting together to make a whole. “Ellis,” I say roughly, clutching the railing in front of me. “What did you mean when you saidone person? That there was one person. Who?”

Silence greets my ears, apart from the pounding of my own heart, and then there’s aboomon the other end of the line.

“El?” I ask, alarmed.

“Storm,” he answers. A beeping follows, like a weather alert on TV.

“Is that a tornado warning?” I ask, heart pounding somewhere in the vicinity of my feet.

“Watch,” he amends, which is better than a warning. It means one hasn’t been sighted, but the conditions are right.

“El,” I croak again, wanting to tell him to be careful. Wanting to demand he answer my question. Wanting to—I don’tknow.

But before I can say anything, another boom shatters the silence, and I hear Mrs. Cole in the background.

“Have to go,” Ellis says, and then he’s gone.

I stand there for a long minute, my pulse racing like a rabbit’s. And then, like a shot, I’m off. Danil looks up in surprise when I all but burst into the room.

“What’s going on?” he asks, sitting up quickly as I rush to my bag, tossing clothes inside. “What are you—”

“I’m an idiot,” I tell him, grabbing my extra pair of shoes from beside the bed. They go into my bag, the contents a haphazard mess. I grab my toiletries from the bathroom, check to make sure I have my passport, and then zip up my bag.

“Lucky,” Danil says, at my side now, alarm in his voice. “What’s going on? Where are you going?”

I spare my friend a glance, heart pounding like a drum. “Home.”

Part III: Waxing

Chapter 19

Ellis

The storm lasts all day and night, rattling the windows, thunder shaking the ground. No tornadoes touch down, but the watch stays in effect until the early morning hours. It’s around ten that I get a call from Gabby, panicked about her missing dog. Apparently, Toodles took off in the middle of the night, and Gabby hasn’t been able to find her.

I join the search as the sky sends down drizzling rain. The day is gray and overcast—miserable, really—but I’m grateful for the distraction. It keeps me from obsessing over my phone call with Lucky. He hasn’t called back, but I know it’s only a matter of time.

What do I say when he does? What do I tell him? Thathe’sthe only one I’ve ever wanted? The only one I’ve ever thought of in my life, in my arms, in my bed? How could I?

He was already caught off guard; that much was clear. I upset him, once again, because I left out information about Gabby. Itfeels like a giant step backwards, but I thought heknew. He was in town when I skipped the date, after all.

So stupid. Such a careless mistake.

I don’t know what I’m going to say when I talk to him again. When he pushes—because he will—I might not have a choice but to give him the truth.

I have a small baggie of treats in my pocket as I scour the fields for a lost Lhasa Apso. Gabby has shown me enough pictures that I know what she looks like: small and cream-colored, with some darker fur around her face and ears. But no matter how much I whistle, no dogs appear through the slate-gray gloom.

It’s well past lunchtime, nearly two o’clock, when I get a call. The rain has been spitting steadily all day, and while my hat keeps it from my eyes, it doesn’t stop spots from forming on my screen as I stare down at Lucky’s name. I answer on the fourth ring, pulse kicking.

“Ellis,” Lucky says immediately, his tone almost harsh. “Where are you?”

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