MILA 2.0

For Mom and Dad, and for Scott—who believed even when I didn’t

Contents

Dedication

Part One

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Part Two

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Part Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

Twenty-Nine

Thirty

Thirty-One

Thirty-Two

Part Four

Thirty-Three

Thirty-Four

Thirty-Five

Thirty-Six

Thirty-Seven

Thirty-Eight

Thirty-Nine

Forty

Acknowledgments

Copyright

About the Publisher

Flames.

I clenched handfuls of Bliss’s silky-thick mane and squeezed my eyes shut, searching my memories for the black haze of smoke. For the smell of burning wood and plastic, of smoldering Phillies shirts and baby photos. For sirens and screams. For anything at all that hinted at fire.

For Dad.

Beneath me, the horse snorted. I sighed, relaxed my grip, and smoothed her mane back into place. Nothing. Once again all I’d conjured up was a big fat bunch of nothing. Over four weeks since the accident that had ended my father’s life, and the memories still resisted my every attempt to unlock them.

I opened my eyes, just as something flashed in my mind.

White walls, white lights. A white lab coat. The searing aroma of bleach.

My skin prickled. From the hospital I’d been taken to, maybe? After the fire? It was the closest I’d come to remembering anything so far.

I grasped at the images, tried to drag them into view, but they vanished as fast as they’d appeared.

Now that my eyes were open, what wouldn’t disappear was the picket fence blocking our path, its white posts stabbing upward and bisecting an unrelenting sprawl of green, green, green.

The other thing that wouldn’t disappear, as much as I dreamed otherwise? Good old Clearwater, Minnesota—my new home as of thirty days ago. Land of grass, trees, dirt, of scattered old ranch-style houses tucked between plots of farmland. Home of work trucks and the thick, earthy stench of manure. A town so tiny, it didn’t even have its own movie theater. Or a McDonald’s. A place where, according to Kaylee, the sole listing under Yelp’s Arts and Entertainment section was Mount’em Taxidermy.

Nothing said good times like a stuffed mammal.

Bliss snorted and yanked her head away from the fence, back in the direction of the stables. I couldn’t blame her. The fields and lakes and quiet that Mom accepted so readily held nothing for me, either. They couldn’t. Not when every good memory had been created back in Philly.

At least the ones I could still remember.

I rubbed my cheek against green-and-tan flannel—Dad’s shirt collar—seeking comfort in the soft fabric. Dad had worn this shirt as he guided me through throngs of Phillies fans inside Citizens Park, his hand gentle on my elbow while the aroma of popcorn and hot dogs and overheated bodies surrounded us.

The hollow widened in my chest. How was it that some memories played so vividly behind my eyes, like DVDs complete with sounds and smells, while others, not at all?

Mom said anxiety following a traumatic death was normal, that it did odd things to our brains. A nice way of saying I wasn’t crazy, just because I could recall the exact layout of our old house and the way Dad pumped one arm in the air when he cheered for his favorite team, yet couldn’t remember something as simple as my favorite brand of jeans. Or if I liked to go on bike rides. Or if I’d ever been in love.

Mom assured me it would all come back. Eventually.

My dad never would.

I dug my nails into the leather reins and drew in a deep, shuddering breath. Everything, burned to ashes along with our old house.

Everything except for one pathetic shirt.

Bliss pawed the ground, kicking up a clump of grass. She whinnied in anticipation of escape.

I knew exactly how she felt.

I steered Bliss away from the fence before nudging her into a trot, her body swaying rhythmically beneath me. A chilly breeze brushed over my face. I threw back my head and allowed the grassy-sweet gusts to grab at my hair, my shirt, the painful ache that lived where my heart should be. If only the breeze could pick me up and carry me back in time.

The ache behind my lungs grew, like it was trying to metastasize to the rest of my body.

“Let’s go!” I dug my heels into Bliss’s sides.

The mare didn’t need to be asked twice. All fifteen hundred pounds of horse surged forward at once. Power roared up from her legs and slammed into me, and I leaned lower, pressing my body as close to the mare’s as possible, relishing the snap of her mane whipping into my face.

The faster we went, the more the ache in my chest seemed to subside, as if my pounding heart and each one of Bliss’s hoof strikes hammered the pain into a smaller and smaller ball.

I urged Bliss even faster.

As we raced back for the stables, boulders rose before us, part of the decorative wall that meandered through a small portion of the twenty-five-acre property. I was already defying Mom by venturing above a speed of painfully dull. Jumping was out of the question. Especially since I’d never done it before.