3:59

FIFTY-FIVE

7:10 A.M.

JOSIE’S DAD TURNED AROUND FROM THE DRIVER’S seat with a look of concern on his face. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

Josie glanced out the car window. The brick façade of Bowie Prep loomed above her, familiar and yet different. It was her school in her universe, and yet nothing about it was the same as it had been a week ago. Josie’s hand strayed to the necklace that rested against her chest. Or more precisely, she wasn’t the same. After all that she’d been through, the idea of facing Madison and Nick and a school full of people who still gossiped about her in the halls as she walked past suddenly seemed unimportant.

“Josie?” Her mom leaned around the front passenger seat. “You don’t have to go. We don’t want to rush you into this.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Josie saw her dad reach out, take her mom’s hand, and squeeze it affectionately. Despite her own sorrow, she was so relieved her parents had found each other again.

Josie stared out the window. She couldn’t just sit at home. Every time she stopped doing something, every time she closed her eyes, she thought of Nick, and the sorrow of losing him washed over her afresh. No, she had to go back to school. It was the only way she could keep going.

“I’m ready.” She opened the door and slid out of the car. “Penelope will be there. I’ll be fine. I promise.”

Bowie Prep felt strange as Josie slowly made her way upstairs to her second-floor locker. She remembered her first day at school in Jo’s world, the excitement and anticipation she felt, combing the hallways for a glimpse of Nick. She’d expected to find a boyfriend with whom she could make amends for the mistakes in her own relationship, but instead she’d found something else.

Love.

She was no longer afraid to face Madison and Nick in the hallway at school. She was no longer afraid of the whispers and rumors. None of it mattered. Nick was gone, she would never see him again, and her love would live with her forever, a dull ache that would never go away.

She rounded a corner, lost in her own painful memories, and ran straight into her ex-boyfriend.

“Josie!” Nick said, a look of relief on his face. “I’ve been looking for you.”

She thought she’d prepared herself for this, to see her ex-boyfriend who was the identical twin of the love she had lost, but her heart clenched at the sight of him and it took every ounce of her strength and self-control to keep the tears at bay.

“Hey,” she said. It was all she could manage.

“Hey?” he said with a playful grin. “That’s all you’ve got for me?” Nick leaned down, his lips reaching for hers.

“What the hell?” Josie dodged his attempt, her stomach instantly sick at the idea of kissing him.

Nick reared back as if he’d been slapped. “What? Come on, after the other day I thought we worked this all out. Madison and I are done, I swear. Just like I texted you.”

“You broke up?”

“Yeah, gorgeous,” Nick said, slipping back into their old routine. “I told you—you’re the only girl for me.”

Josie curled her lip. A week ago she’d have killed to hear this Nick say those words to her again, but now? Now she just felt sorry for him.

“Sorry, Nick,” Josie said, shaking her head. “I don’t know what you thought, but I’m not interested.”

“Huh?”

She reached to her neck and wrapped her fingers delicately around the necklace. A strange sense of calm washed over her as she turned her back on Nick forever, and walked down the hallway. “Go back to Madison. You two were made for each other.”

3:59 A.M.

“Are you sure?” Nick says.

Jo nods. “It’s the least I can do.”

Nick’s face is anxious. “And she’ll see it?”

Jo shrugs. “She should. She’s seen everything else.” She glances at her watch. Only fifty-five seconds until four o’clock. “Hurry up.”

Nick looks into the mirror in Jo’s bedroom. Jo follows his gaze, even though she knows what he’ll see: her room. Just her room. A regular reflection of a regular room, not another room like hers, with a girl who looks like her but isn’t.

Josie used to wish she lived Jo’s life. Now it’s the other way around.

Nick sighs and turns back to her. “I’m ready.”

“Go ahead.”

“Josie,” he says, staring straight at Jo but without seeing her at all. “I’m here. I’m okay. Dr. Byrne pulled me out of the portal.”

Jo clears her throat.

“Dr. Byrne and Jo pulled me out of the portal.”

“You’re welcome,” Jo says.

“I never got to say it the other night.” He runs his hands through his thick hair. “But I . . .”

Nick’s voice trails off and a look of sadness sweeps over his face. Jo knows how he feels, the dull, endless ache of a love that can’t be. She knows it only too well.

She looks at her watch to hide the emotion she’s feeling. “Thirty seconds.”

Nick nods and takes a deep breath. “Josie, I don’t even know if you can see me. I may never know. But I had to tell you at least once: I love you. I love you so much it feels like a piece of my heart has been cut away at losing you.”

Nick takes a step closer and Jo catches her breath. “Ten seconds,” she whispers.

“I swear this, Josie. I swear on my life I will never stop, never give up until I find a way back to you. I promise.”

Jo fights to keep her eyes on Nick’s face.

“I love you, Josie,” he says again. “Never forget.”

Josie’s eyes flew open.

Her cheeks were wet with tears that came while she was sleeping, immersed in the most beautiful dream. She was sad, and yet she was smiling, so big and so real she thought her heart might burst. Nick was alive, and he loved her.

She sat up and stared at the remnants of the mirror. The glass had been shattered, the last of its shards removed and melted down at the lab by her mom. But her dad had built a stand for the empty gilt frame and positioned it in the corner of her room, where she could look at it every day. A remembrance. A memento.

A promise that she’d never forget.

Josie slowly lay back down in bed, her fingers tracing the loops of the hearts that hung around her neck. Nick’s face still danced before her eyes; his words lingered in her ears.

“I love you too,” she said out loud. “Never forget.”