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He will visit.

My heart, however, has been through enough to know better.

I’ll be gone for two years. Maybe more.

As Mackenzie said, we both have tight budgets. At most, we will see each other two or maybe three times a year.

My brain throws a hail Mary—a last-ditch attempt.

We’re meant to be together.

But are we?

There’s a thought that’s been forming all day. Until now, I’ve ignored it, mentally packing it into a tight little box, but now it’s found a crack and has pushed its way out.

The jacket isn’t magical.

It is just a regular old leather jacket.

And even though I let myself believe for a moment that it was part of something bigger than what my brain could comprehend, this afternoon, the very logical reason for my hallucinations was laid out for me in a typed, two-page report.

Drugs.

I started eating Harmony’s baking again right around the same time the jacket visions started.

Yes, they seemed to fit together in a logical chain of events, but was that because those events actually happened? Or because I was so desperately lonely that I was seeing something I wanted to see?

This is where I’d normally turn to science. But the MRI I took showed nothing.

I need someone else from the visions to tell me they really did happen.

But who?

Zee? I can’t imagine that conversation going well. Hey, so…I’m stealing your drummer and taking him with me to Europe, but have you ever been to the West Lake watermelon festival?

I guess I could call Lucca and ask if he knows Zee, but that’s the last thing I want to do, and even if he does, I need to know if the memory happened exactly as I saw it.

What about Koko?

She got the jacket from Harmony. Maybe she remembers it.

I roll out of bed, grab my jacket, and run down the stairs two at a time, chastising myself for not thinking of this sooner. As I push open the front door, I have momentum behind me. I see the rack of clothing being wheeled out of Koko’s store, but I can’t stop myself in time, and a faux fur coat hip-checks me onto the sidewalk.

“Holy shit, Lise, are you okay?”

I blink twice and then get to my feet, rubbing the spot where the metal made contact. “I’m fine. But I need to ask you a bit of a weird question.”

She pops her foot onto the rack, locking it in place. “Weird questions are my favorite, but can we do it inside? I’m freezing my ass out here.”

She holds the door open with her arm. I step inside, but as my eyes find the counter, I realize the store isn’t empty.

Perstephanie is back behind the cash register reading a novel.

Koko closes the door and makes a high-pitched brrrrr sound. “So, what did you need to ask me?”

Perstephanie has put her book down. Now, there are two sets of eyes on me.

I turn to Koko. “Where did you work before you opened this place?”