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“Can I send my friend another letter?” I ask, as we carry our bowls to the sink.

He frowns. “What else would you have to say to her?”

“She apologized for leading me astray,” I reply. “I just want her to know I forgive her.”

“I'll ask,” he says with his lips pinched, “but I'm not sure she deserves your forgiveness either.”

I throw out the flower Tommy gave me, and place the highlighter in the cup of water, beneath my bed. I'm not entirely sure how Kappy can help, but she's smarter than I am—and she probably has those DNA results. Maybe she can figure it out.

My mood is so dramatically improved that Tommy, Joshua, and Louise no longer know what to make of me. Tommy's more wary of me now that I’m pretending things are fine than he was when I was insisting that they weren’t. He asks me questions about Penhallow, like “Would you go back if we said you could?” and “Do you think you could still be friends with someone outside the church?”

I tell him I’m not sure, because it seems like the most believable answer, and his shoulders sag in defeat. He sends Louise to come talk to me—I can tell it’s his idea because she asks the same questions he did—and I provide her the same answers I did him. I need them to trust me, but in spite of everything I got away with last spring, it seems I’m incredibly bad at earning people’s trust when I don’t deserve it.

Joshua and Louise leave that Friday, driving the two Bright Covenant buses down to Cochabamba to collect everyone, which leaves only me and Tommy behind for the weekend.

“It’s extra creepy with no one here, isn’t it?” I ask as I take a seat across from him and open my ready-made meal.

There’s something pained in his face when he glances up at me. Does he dread the return of Joshua and Louise's cohort? Should I dread it too?

“It's fine,” he says.

“Then what’s wrong?” I ask.

The blood leaves his face, and he pushes his plate away. “Nothing. I’m just not hungry.”

“Have you heard yet whether I can send my friend a letter?”

His eyes narrow. “You don't need to send anyone a letter.”

If he doesn't let me send the letter, I'll run. I've already thought it through, but the biggest impediment is that I'll need my passport.

It’s in the locker, and I've only caught the final number of the combination: forty-eight.

How long will I have to wait to catch the first two numbers? It might be forever unless I can persuade them that I’m in this with both feet—a plan that's failing miserably so far.

After dinner, I say goodnight to him—getting almost no response in return—and walk to the women’s dorm. I’m sure once this room is filled with the others, I’ll long for this much privacy...but it doesn’t feel especially private right now. Bright Covenant could be watching—at this point, I'd be more surprised if they weren't.

I get ready for bed, turn off the lights, and use the flashlight to reach my mattress, then lie awake for a long time thinking of Ford.

By the time I get out of here, he'll be in Massachusetts. He'll be surrounded by girls throwing themselves at him. Would he really wait for me then?

I smile in the dark.

Of course he will. He waited for me before he even knew I existed.

When I fall asleep, I dream of him. We're in my room and I'm above him. He's doing that thing he does when he's close...biting his lip, his eyes squeezed shut.

Then we're on the dock, and then we're in his dorm. His weight settles atop mine, except...it's wrong.

The smell is wrong, and his hands aren't gentle. Even the heft of him is wrong. He's lighter than he was, yet he's crushing me, making no effort to support his own weight. Ford doesn't do that.

My eyes blink open in the darkness, and for a moment I don’t know where I am.

The dorm. I’m in the dorm. I’m in Bolivia. And someone is on top of me, trying to pull down my pajama bottoms.

I struggle to push out from under the weight, but hands lock around my arms.

“Help!” I scream. “Tommy, help!”