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head—the
    one that was still there because of the
    conversation I’d had with Cooper only
    moments before—I wondered how they
    felt about this. If they were disappointed
    their daughter idolized someone like me.
    Lizzie turned her face to mine. “What
    should we say?” she asked.
    “How about Sleepless ?” Cooper
    suggested in a tight tone.
    “Yes, Sleepless ,” I murmured.
    It took Miller a few times to get the
    picture right—his giant fingers kept
    exiting out of the camera app or showing
    up in the photo itself—but finally he
    snapped a few good photos. I sat on the
    edge of my seat as Lizzie talked excitedly
    about my movies for a few more minutes.
    Then, finally she left, humming happily,
    with her mom and dad and the baby in
    tow.
    I sighed in relief as our flight was
    called to board. When Cooper stepped
    past me, avoiding my eyes, he said, “Nice
    going, Wills.” His voice was hard and
    unreadable.
    I didn’t have the balls or the heart to
    tell Cooper that being so close to Lizzie’s
    family had did me in.
    That it reminded me of what I’d given
    up three years before.
    Chapter Three
    Although we immediately learned our
    seats were booked side by side—Cooper
    in the window seat, me beside him, and
    Miller across the aisle, on my right—any
    headway I thought I’d gained with him
    inside the airport seemed to evaporate the
    moment we boarded the flight to
    Honolulu. Now, as I followed him down
    the coffee-scented, narrow aisle toward
    our seats, all that remained was the
    bittersweet smell of “what if.” I was more
    than used to getting my face smooshed into
    “could’ve been” and “what if”, but for
    some reason, this time felt so much worse
    than usual. I wasn’t naïve enough to
    pretend I didn’t know why.
    Plus, I wasn’t high to the point of not
    noticing.
    The first and only other time I left
    rehab, nearly two years ago when I spent
    ninety days at a luxury program that was
    like the Four Seasons for addicts, I’d
    lasted approximately six hours before I
    caved and bought enough Roxies to last
    three months. At least, it should have
    lasted me that long. My best friend Jessica
    and I had gone through them in a week—
    seven days I still couldn’t remember.
    “Excuse me,” Cooper said in a coarse
    voice, interrupting my thoughts. He
    wanted to talk, thank God. I looked up at
    him expectantly to find him staring over
    the top of my head, at the overhead
    compartment. “I’ve got to put my bag up.”
    Okay, so he didn’t have anything to
    say to me.
    “Sure,” I said. As he reached up to
    store his duffle bag, I slid down into my
    seat and crossed my arms over my chest.
    When he sat next to me a moment later, he
    immediately pulled a magazine
    — SURFING , go freaking figure—from his
    back pocket and began studying it.
    Something sharp expanded in my throat,
    the same constriction I always felt right
    before I bawled my eyes out, and I
    slouched down.
    You know what, Cooper? I don’t give
    a shit what you think.
    Of course that was a big fat lie. I
    cared—God, I probably cared too much
    what people thought of me; no matter how
    much I tried to tell myself I didn’t. So I sat
    there, stuck beside Cooper in first class,
    utterly miserable because of what had
    happened in the airport and the silence
    that now hung like stale laundry between
    the two of us.
    After two hours of being quiet and
    avoiding my gaze, Cooper finally sighed
    and whispered, “You don’t look so good.”
    Startled, I looked over at him. His
    eyes were directed at the window, gazing
    out into hazy white nothingness. He’d
    spent the last hour dividing his attention
    between the window and his magazine,
    unlike Miller who’d fallen asleep and
    hadn’t moved an inch, not even when a
    stewardess bumped a drink cart into the
    side of his seat.
    “Are you going to be okay?” Cooper
    asked.
    “And he speaks,” I said. “Get tired of
    pretending I don’t exist?”
    “Don’t throw up on